Catherwood LibraryILR School

Shurat HaDin, an Israeli legal rights institute, brought forth a complaint against the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE) for their official endorsement of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, which aims to boycott Israeli goods and services in response to Israel’s alleged human rights abuses against Palestine. While Shurat HaDin claimed that the UE was endorsing a secondary strike, which is illegal under U.S. labor law, the NLRB found that the union’s support of BDS did not constitute a secondary strike and that the UE and, consequently, all American unions have the right to support or not support BDS. Many supporters of BDS claim that Israeli legal centers are attempting to scare unions away from boycotting Israeli businesses through making insubstantial legal claims such as the one brought forth by Shurat HaDin to drain unions of resources in litigation and discourage other unions from doing the same. Many unions, especially graduate student unions, throughout the country have officially endorsed the BDS movement and this decision by the NLRB may encourage other unions to do the same.