LA Teachers FIght Off BDS Infection

If any single incident can be used to capture the essence of BDS, the recent flare up at the United Teachers, Los Angeles (UTLA) union is the best case study I’ve yet encountered.

As backdrop, this 48,000 person teacher’s union is responsible for educating more students than do many countries, and the range of communities they serve (from wealthy suburbs to the toughest inner-city neighborhoods) only begins to illustrate the challenges they face. Add to that the problems of pay and benefits in a state facing the worst of the recent financial meltdown and I’d guess the first thought that pops into your mind is not: “Hey, let’s import the Middle East conflict into the organization!”

But that is precisely what was tried. Not by the union itself, or even by a significant number of members. No, in this case a debate over BDS within the union was launched by 25 people (a percentage of membership so small my hand-calculator registers it at 0.0).

UTLA (like many unions, churches and other civic institutions) has various committees dedicated to issues beyond those core to the union, including a Human Rights Committee which, over the last 20-30 years has taken positions on a number of issues (some of which focus on helping unionized workers in other nations, some focusing on other issues such as the environment). To be on the committee, you simply need to show up at 1-2 meetings, meaning the organization is open and welcome to all, but also has no safeguards if a dozen people decide it’s the perfect vehicle for exploiting the larger union.

On October 14, the committee had planned to use UTLA facilities to host a meeting on economic sanctions against Israel. The event was sponsored by an organization called Movement for a Democratic Society (MDS), a group which (whatever you think of their stances on the Middle East or other issues) was not using UTLA facilities to talk about issues related to either teaching, Los Angeles or a political position (boycott) that the union’s other 47,975 members had been made aware was going to be put onto UTLA’s agenda. Rather, MDS hoped their connection to the UTLA’s Human Rights Committee (the two groups seemingly containing overlapping memberships) could somehow link their agenda to the larger union.

In short, a relatively unknown organization (Movement for a Democratic Society) that was free to put divestment on its own agenda and platform, instead tried to tie the name and reputation of a large respected organization (UTLA) to their cause before members of the organization could discover what was being attempted in their name.

Eventually, UTLA’s President Duffy, noting the pain, divisiveness and misery that always accompanies BDS when it is injected into an organization, cancelled the event. And for acting in his role to protect the members of the union (something of no interest to the Human Rights Council/MDS partisans) he was accused of – you guessed it – censorship and caving into Jewish pressure after several Jewish organizations and members of the union –gasp! – chose to use their free speech rights to complain about this attempted hijacking of the union.

Fortunately, grownups were able to intervene and help UTLA avoid the fate that befell the Mainline Protestant churches (and is likely to roil the British TUC over the next several years). I’ve got further thoughts regarding what this incident means, but for now we can savor the fact that here in the US there are some organizations that have developed the anti-bodies needed to resist the tainted goods being peddled by BDS snake-oil salesmen.