BERKELEY, Calif. – Labor unions are working with radical student organizations to “hold Israel accountable for its violations human rights – and end complicity by corporations and universities which profit from such violations,” ElectronicIntifada.net reports.

“One of the biggest problems of Palestine solidarity activism in the US is that we just simply don’t have the money and resources, and therefore the level of institutional power that the people working against us have,” said University of California at Berkeley graduate student and pro-Palestine organizer Kumars Salehi told the news site.

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“With the support of union, though, I think we have a potential source of institutional support … Unions are part of that struggle.”

United Students Against Sweatshops and National Students for Justice in Palestine are teaming up with Big Labor as part of a campaign to boycott, divest and sanction groups aligned with Israel and companies that support the country. Over the last two months, the groups have employed the help of unionized dockworkers to block Israeli Zim line cargo ships from unloading in the San Francisco Bay area in a related Block the Boat campaign, Electronic Intifada reports.

As a result, Zim line has called off deliveries to the west coast, according to the news site.

SJP activists have also convinced the UAW 2865 union take up it’s cause. The UAW issued a statement earlier this year calling for “a full membership vote in support of BDS, and we will update our membership regarding educational forums about divesting our union pension investments and the University of California in general from companies that profit off of the Israeli occupation.”

“Because of the urgency of the situation, the Joint Council of the UAW 2865, a body made up of 83 elected officers who oversee the affairs of the 13,000 member-strong student-worker union at the University of California, is publishing this open letter that outlines our intent to support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement [11] against public institutions and corporations that profit from occupation and apartheid. This means that we will seek a full membership vote within the upcoming academic year in support of BDS …” according to the statement.

Kumars Salehi explained to Electronic Intifada what the statement means.

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“ … the bill is a bill in support of BDS — the ballot item is divestment from companies that profit from Israeli occupation and human rights abuses. It should be noted that this particular union actually doesn’t have investments in those companies, but our umbrella organization, United Auto Workers International does. The University of California does, in companies like Hewlett-Packard, Lockheed Martin — and I’m sure I don’t need to tell your listeners what those companies are up to,” he said.

“The bill calls on UAW International and the UC Regents to divest, as well as the US government to end all military aid to Israel. In addition to that ballot item, there’s a checkbox where you can make a non-binding pledge to support the academic boycott.”

The actual membership vote on the bill is scheduled for Thursday, but Salehi makes it clear the unionized dockworkers and university student workers have been taking action against Israeli interests for months.

“So activists had been planning all summer, trying to find a way to take direct action for Palestine, for BDS, to the next level, to up the ante and think creatively. And of course that was only possible because these dockworkers understood where we were coming from, understood that we knew that we were asking them to not work a ship and to not get paid. Nobody who is an activist, certainly on the left, should take that lightly,” Salehi said.

“And over time, we saw that while the union, due to contract negotiations, wasn’t able to take a position as a union officially — as leadership — the rank and file members were in solidarity with us. And all our sources told us that as long as we kept a strong community picket going, the Local 10 dockworkers said that they would honor it, and they kept their word.”