CUPE 1281 denounces in the strongest terms Israel’s violent attacks and forcible detainments targeting the Global Sumud Flotilla. Dozens of boats carrying nearly 500 people from more than 40 countries, including students, faculty, trade unionists, and human rights defenders, have been intercepted and seized by Israeli forces. This is not only an assault on the Palestinian people but an attack on global solidarity itself.
The Global Sumud Flotilla is a courageous act of collective resistance, seeking to break the illegal siege on Gaza and deliver desperately needed humanitarian aid. To criminalize this humanitarian mission and detain citizens of dozens of countries is to criminalize international solidarity itself. It is an attempt to intimidate and silence all who stand against militarism, occupation, and genocide.
As a union representing many workers in the university sector, CUPE 1281 recognizes that our own institutions are deeply entangled in this violence. Universities across Canada profit from investments in weapons manufacturers, host militarized research projects, and attempt to silence students and staff who speak out for Palestine. This complicity ties our campuses directly to the machinery of war and genocide.
We believe universities must not be sites of complicity but of resistance. We call on our members, academic staff, support staff, and students to organize collectively for divestment from arms manufacturers, to end all research partnerships with militaries and corporations complicit in occupation, and to defend the right to teach, research, and organize without fear of repression. Our classrooms, labs, and union halls must not serve the interests of war profiteers. They must be turned into spaces that nurture critical thought, solidarity, and liberation.
CUPE 1281 salutes the comrades aboard the flotilla who continue forward despite Israeli repression and we affirm that their struggle is our struggle. From our workplaces, classrooms, and campuses, we echo their cry: the siege must be broken, the flotilla must sail free, and Palestine must be free.
Solidarity with Palestine is worker solidarity. An injury to one is an injury to all.