Not very long ago, there was a time when work union leaders and members were among the most patriotic Americans who supported solid anti-totalitarian laws both domestically and internationally.
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Even so, witnesses testifying before a Tuesday hearing of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce’s Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions ( HELP ) provided abundant evidence of the explosive growth of anti-semitism and anti-Americanism in major labor unions. This mainly includes those on university campuses, among authorities workers, and representing a multitude of health staffers.
The horrible October 7, 2023, strike by Hamas, the anti-semitic extremist group based in the Gaza Strip bordering Israel, resulted in the deaths of more than 1, 200 Israelis, including men, women, and children. The subjects were murdered by being shot, burned dead, murdered, or stabbed multiple times. Many of the atrocities committed by Hamas rebels were captured on camera, including cruelly raping and killing children and beheading babies. More than 250 people, including seven Americans, were likewise taken prisoner by Hamas. Most of them are unknown in terms of their health and movements.
The first testimony before the committee, Llana Kompar, is a team counsel for the Nassau County ( N. Y. ) Legal Aid Society and the team union’s former president in her office. That union is associated with the Local 2325 of the United Auto Workers ( UAW), which is a branch of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys ( ALAA ). Kompar described what transpired at her place of employment following the attack on October 7:
” Just, instead of focusing on social bargaining and fostering a united membership, the ALAA and its leadership created an racist, hostile work environment for its Hebrew people for whom Zionism is an integral part of their Jewish identity, as it is for the vast majority of American Immigrants, and their non-Jewish friends”, Kompar told the committee.
The ALAA contact route, Gaggle ( an internet listserv for Union members and Joint Council meetings ),” after the assault by the criminal organization Hamas on October 7- the worst attack against the Hebrew people since the Holocaust- became a hotbed of antisemitism and obvious discrimination directed against us,” she said.
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In addition to threatening emails from non-Jewish union members, linguistic abuses, messages denouncing any atrocities committed against Israelis during the October 7 assault, and proposals questioning the validity of crime reports, those included in that “hotbed.”  ,
” Most astonishingly, the quality proclaimed the ALAA Group’s support of Hamas ‘ ‘ resistance under job,’ which is a call for continuing violence by Hamas against the Israeli and Jewish people. Soon thereafter, the CAMBA Section of the ALAA, located in Brooklyn, New York, put out a similar racist solution.
” These commitments sparked outrage and calls for the defunding of the companies that ALAA members work for.” Kompar continued,” I and another recognize these commitments as supporting violence and prejudice against us, our families, friends, and other Jewish Zionist and allied Union people.”
The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation ( NRTWLDF) senior staff attorney Glenn Taubman told the committee that he has trouble keeping up with all the requests for assistance that he and his fellow base members have received since the Hamas attack on October 7 in Israel.
In response to a problem from Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S. C. ), Taubman said”, it is heart-breaking for me as a Jew and a Zionist to include my phone ringing off the wire every single day since the October 7 harm from students, workers, teachers, legal help lawyers, doctors saying’ how do I get out of this, I am surrounded by cruel people attacking me as a Jew, attacking me as a Zionist.’ “
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Taubman continued, noting “] I have ] friends in Israel, I have family in Israel, I have friends who served in the Israel Defense Force ( IDF), the most moral army in the world, second only perhaps to the United States. They are attacked at work, and that is what I can see. And regrettably, I am unable to express to all of these people that they are required to be members of a bargaining unit, pay union dues, or be fired because they cannot do so under the National Labor Relations Act.
Democrats on the subcommittee said they backed anti-semitism wherever it is encountered, as did Republican members. Even so, Donald Norcross of New Jersey once said,” We live in a country that is a democracy, and unfortunately many of those views are something I personally disagree with.”
But, he continued”, We did not choose and we do not want many of our elected officials, some of whom might even be in this room. And we are forced to fund them, whether it’s a union or our government. However, it is not different from calling Republicans racist or calling Democrats Socialist because of the fact that a select few bad actors, for whom we have no excuses, are being anti-semitic and smearing the entire workforce. But it does n’t make it true.”
Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va. ), the committee’s top Democrat and former chairman, also inquired about the options available to union workers who believe they face racial and religious discrimination.
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Scott asked her if cutting the commission’s budget would be beneficial when Lafaso pointed out that such workers could seek redress through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ( EEOC). She said”, It would be very difficult to enforce the rights of the people.”
Scott made reference to House Republican proposals to reduce non-defense spending by 10 % across the board.  ,
Related: Billions in U. S. Tax Dollars Going to Colleges Tolerating Anti-Semitism
MIT graduate student William Sussman informed the subcommittee of his experience requesting a religious exemption from paying union dues to the United Electrical Workers ( EU), which was a part of the MIT Graduate Students Union ( GSU).
Representatives of the GSU and the EU were actively involved in anti-Israel and pro-Hamas demonstrations, according to Sussman.
Many of us asked for a religious reversal that would allow us to pay our UE dues to a charity. The union denied my request, telling me in a letter that’ no principles, teachings or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees to a labor union,’ that one of UE’s founders was Jewish…” Sussman told the hearing.
In other words, UE believes it comprehends my faith more fully than I do. I joined four other Jewish graduate students in filing discrimination charges against the union with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission with the assistance of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. In response, the GSU chanted’ shame’ against us, calling our lawyers ‘ well-financed.’ Our horns were left out of the conversation. ”  ,
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