Folks,
Good morning from Pittsburgh, where we are tracking a big story for the labor movement: Amazon Labor Union founder Chris Smalls was beaten after the IDF arrested him while trying to break the siege of Gaza with the Freedom Flotilla Coalition.
(See our story "Amazon Union Leader Chris Smalls Detained & Beaten by IDF, But US Media Ignores It". )
"As a union, we are demanding the immediate release of Chris Smalls and all captured activists," said the 29,000-member California Faculty Association in a statement late Monday. "We further call for an immediate end to the engineered famine and deliberate starving of the people in Gaza, labor complicity with genocide, and all US military aid to Israel".
Other unions are expected to denounce the beating & detention of Smalls by the IDF.
However, his international union leader, Teamsters union President Sean O'Brien, has stayed silent on the detention of Smalls, who founded the Amazon Labor Union, which is now an affiliate of the Teamsters.
Instead, the Teamsters President Sean O'Brien took to social media to advertise his upcoming interview with fascist commentator Vivek Ramaswamy and his 3 million right-wing followers.
This is a developing story on how labor leaders are responding to the beating and detention of Chris Smalls. Payday will update as we learn more.
