CWA for Palestine, a group of Communications Workers of America members, sent out the following email message on Sept. 9, 2025
Union siblings,
Thank you for your patience. We’re back from the CWA convention, and we’ve been plotting. We have big plans and will plug you all in soon. For now, here’s an update from Pittsburgh:
In response to the escalating genocide in Gaza and calls for solidarity from Palestininan unions, a coalition of rank-and-file members of the Communications Workers of America submitted two resolutions for debate at CWA’s biennial convention, held in August 2025.
The first called for the CWA to back an end to the U.S. arms transfers and military aid that have enabled Israel’s assault on Palestine and the wider region. The second resolution added steps to ensure that the CWA would financially and institutionally divest from Israel and its racist labor federation, the Histadrut. These resolutions were informed by the demands of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions–Gaza (PGFTU–Gaza) and dialogue with the Palestinian Postal Services Workers Union– Communication Workers Union-Palestine (PPSWU).
Two days before the convention kicked off in Pittsburgh, this cohort, CWA for Palestine, was notified by the CWA Resolutions and Rules committee that the two Palestine solidarity-focused proposals would not be brought to the floor for debate. Instead, the union leadership brought forward a woefully inadequate “International Solidarity” resolution, which included lukewarm language acknowledging “Israel’s war on Gaza,” while praising USAID — widely known to be a soft-power arm of the U.S. war machine.
Still, left with no other option, CWA for Palestine made an effort to amend that resolution on the floor, primarily to remove language falsely equating Israel’s genocide with Palestinian resistance on October 7, [2023], to add the word “genocide” to describe Israel’s assault and to include a demand for an arms embargo against Israel. However, that amendment was voted down, and the resolution ultimately passed unchanged.
In a moment when public opinion is clearly shifting toward Palestine, the “International Solidarity” resolution echoes the ways in which many liberal institutions are scrambling to maintain their legitimacy with “concessions” that attempt to placate activists — without disrupting the status quo.
CWA for Palestine refuses to be placated. Despite the disappointing result at convention, we left Pittsburgh invigorated — and all the more determined to ensure our union stands with Palestine, materially and without compromise. We shared the words of the martyr Anas Al-Sharif [a beloved journalist killed by the Israel Occupation Forces] on the floor, had dozens of productive conversations with our union siblings, and gained a deeper understanding of CWA’s power structure.
We saw something new inside that convention hall, and we intend to harness it.
But there’s much more work to be done. Getting the CWA to stand in true solidarity with the workers of Palestine will require building rank-and-file power, developing political consciousness and deepening ties across regions and sectors. On the convention floor, some of our union siblings in manufacturing fought against the arms embargo, claiming it would result in job loss. Yet even still, they acknowledged that Israel’s U.S.-backed assault on Gaza is a genocide.
We believe there is a path forward for us to work collectively to ensure we are no longer applying our labor to designing, building and shipping physical and technological weapons to murder people abroad. Through sustained organizing, we can build a union rooted in the understanding that workers’ economic precarity here is inseparable from a capitalist system that leads to colonialism and genocide. Better horizons exist.
This organizing will by its very nature require us to transform the union into a fighting one, ready to truly confront bosses in the workplace and rising fascism at home and abroad.
We plan to win — and it’s critical that you join this movement for the future of our union. Please share this form with like-minded coworkers and CWA allies who would like to stay up-to-date or get involved. Finally, follow us on Instagram for the latest.
In solidarity,
CWA for Palestine
