The U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee’s Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee held a hearing on July 9 titled “Confronting Union Antisemitism: Protecting Workers from Big Labor Abuses.” The objective of the hearing was “to discuss the ways in which unions contribute to the viral spread of anti-Semitism and how the law can better protect Jewish employees,” according to a committee blog post.
In his opening statement, Subcommittee Chairman Bob Good observed that unions have diverted from their ostensible goal of protecting workers, and he proceeded to introduce four witnesses, three of whom exposed some of the objectionable conduct of unions.
The first witness, Ms. Ilana Kopmar, is a Staff Attorney at the Nassau County Legal Aid Society who described her ongoing battle with the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys (ALAA), an affiliate of the United Auto Workers (UAW), of which she is a member.
In a particularly compelling testimony, Ms. Kopmar described how her union’s leadership created “an anti-Semitic hostile work environment” for her and fellow Jewish members by weighing in on the ongoing war in Gaza (something the UAW itself also curiously did, as this blog noted). More specifically, the union’s leaders announced a vote on a resolution attacking Israel in the wake of the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack, which caused Ms. Kopmar and others to obtain a restraining order stopping the vote from taking place.
While the point of the hearing was not necessarily to take sides on that particular issue, the union’s reaction to Ms. Kopmar’s actions was. After receiving the injunction, the union’s leaders filed internal charges against Ms. Kopmar and three colleagues who joined her, seeking to expel all four of them from the union. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the UAW international executive board reportedly denied their appeal without even addressing any of the legal issues raised.
Another witness, a PhD candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a lifelong Democrat, similarly testified about his graduate student union’s hostility toward him and other Jewish students. Like Ms. Kopmar, the student eventually filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) alleging discrimination by the union.
All told, the majority of the witness succeeded in exposing unions that are “undemocratic, unresponsive, and uninterested in protecting the interest of their members.” Why workers should be forced to pay dues for such intransigence is anyone’s guess.
About the authors
Sean P. Redmond
Sean P. Redmond is Vice President, Labor Policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
