"Unmasking Union Antisemitism"
House Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions
2025-09-09
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Source: Congress.gov
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We have seen even more tragic incidents of discrimination and violence against Jewish people, including right here in our nation's capital. According to the FBI crime tracking data, anti-Jewish incidents are the most common religion-related hate crime. For a group that represents less than 3% of Americans, Jewish people are victims of roughly 60% of all religious-based hate crime. Last year, the ADL reported over 9,300 anti-Semitic incidents across the United States, a 5% increase from 2023 and the highest number on record since the ADL began tracking anti-Semitic incidents in 1979. The unions we will hear about today have chosen to spend time and money advancing their divisive, harmful, and anti-American political agenda. Furthermore, these unions are throwing sand in the gears of employers, trying to create workplaces that are not hostile or discriminatory for the Jewish employees. Take, for example, ABN. ABN represents public interest lawyers in New York City. When employees put up posters around the office celebrating the actions of Hamas and violence against Jewish people, The employer banned all posters about the conflict in Israel and Gaza. The union did not go along with this quietly. Instead, ABN filed unfair labor practice charges against the employer for its policy designed to protect Jewish workers. Or take another example, the Cornell Graduate Student Union. This union spends its time trying to stop Cornell from discipling students who violate school policies. They disrupt campus life and harass Jewish students. When Jewish graduate students respectfully ask not to have to fund this union's activities, the union tries to make them pay anyway and threatens to get them fired if they do not pay dues, flouting Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Union members have rights under the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act and the Supreme Court's Beck decision to speak out against these unions and not pay dues for political activities they disagree with. Title VII protects workers who want to live their lives with integrity and protects them from having to sacrifice their faith and their principles to get and keep a job. But unions have every incentive to keep workers in the dark about their rights. Today, we will hand the microphone over to those who are not truly represented by their unions. We will discuss how the law protects their political and religious convictions and how lawmakers could provide additional protection. We might not all agree on the appropriate role of unions in society, but I believe we can all agree that they should use their resources to promote the workplace interests of their employees and treat each worker who relies on them with equal dignity and fairness. With that, I yield to the ranking member for an opening statement.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome back to all the witnesses. Thanks for being here. Let's start by saying no one should be threatened, harassed, or attacked because of who they are, who they worship, or what they stand for. I agree, we should do more to combat anti semitism in America, I also agree with ranking Member Scott. Of the full committee, who has correctly pointed out that, while we have had many hearings on anti semitism, we have not had one addressing racism xenophobia sexism Islamophobia or similar harms confronting workers and student groups. As we discuss these issues today, I want to remind my colleagues that the labor movement is a large, diverse coalition of workers, of Americans, including Jewish Americans, that has been a significant force in the battle against anti-Semitism. We are fortunate to have Joseph Joseph McCartan here as one of our witnesses. He is a labor historian and a history professor at Georgetown University who also serves as the executive director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Dr. McCartan's written testimony details how the labor movement has been among the most important forces countering anti-Semitism and how labor unions are fundamentally diverse. And on a personal note, I'll also note that he graduated from the best Catholic Jesuit college in the United States, Holy Cross in Worcester, which I just happened to go to as well. As Dr. McCartan mentions in his testimony, one of the most notable labor leaders and one of the most amazing Americans in our history was a Jewish immigrant from London, Samuel Gompers, a cigar maker by trade and the son of Dutch Jewish working class immigrants by way of London. He was the first president of the American Federation of Labor.
And he is reported to have said to be free The workers, American workers, must have a choice. To have a choice, they must retain in their own hands the right to determine under what conditions they will work." Throughout history, unions have been pivotal in advancing the conditions of the right of workers. From establishing the five-day work week to championing minimum wage, banning child labor, protecting workers from being maimed and killed at work, the labor movement has been instrumental in building and sustaining America's middle class. The labor movement created the American middle class, which is now under relentless attack Since returning to office, President Trump and his administration have attacked workers' right to organize, exposed them to exploitive workplaces. For example, President Trump has stripped nearly half a million federal workers of their hard-won protections in one of the worst, if not the worst, act of union busting in modern American history. He has also undermined the National Labor Relations Board, which is responsible for cracking down on illegal union busting from millions of private sector workers. At a time of obscene wealth inequality in the United States, union workers enjoy approximately 20% higher wages and are more likely to have access to benefits such as health insurance, paid leave, and pension plans.
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