NYC Educators For Palestine launches divestment campaign

New York, NY – On October 24, in Midtown Manhattan the NYC Educators For Palestine convened an event to launch their divestment campaign for the new school year.

The Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS) for the Ccty of New York currently holds $112million of stock in Israeli companies. The “TRS Divest” campaign, made in combination with teachers in the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) and the Professional Staff Congress of the City University of New York (PSC-CUNY), seeks to bring more teachers into the fold to organize against their retirement funds being invested in Israeli stocks, including notorious weapons manufacturers such as Elbit Systems.

The group of over 40 people ready to get to action. These included members of the UFT, as well as its minority caucus The Movement of Rank and File Educators, in addition to professors, and CUNY graduate students organizing for the CUNY Fired Four – four adjunct professors at Brooklyn College who were fired for their support for Palestine earlier this year.

The organizers’ presentation exposed the active investments in Israeli companies and highlighted successful TRS divestment campaigns in the past in New York City, such as those against South African apartheid, and against companies helping to wage the war against Vietnam.

NYC Educators For Palestine also gave background on their previous courses of action. These included appeals to the TRS board of trustees, getting three members as UFT appointees to divest, holding protests against the board meetings after being shut out, and now the campaign to raise awareness about TRS investments in Israeli firms and collect enough signatures from teachers in New York City in order to pressure the board into divestment.

The attending teachers split into breakout groups to learn more about how to speak to their coworkers about Palestine, possible reprisals that may be taken against them by their administration or fellow teachers, and developing ideas on how to broaden the campaign for signatures.

Some strategies for the campaign included pressuring the UFT to take a stand, by convincing chapter leaders and delegates to support divestment, creating new connections with other organizations, and hosting various events and protests to raise awareness about teachers’ retirement funds fueling genocide.

The crowd was made up mainly of new organizers dedicating themselves to the cause of Palestinian liberation, showing that the fight for Palestine’s freedom is only just beginning. The teachers left inspired and determined to chip away at the investments in Israeli companies, knowing that campaigns like this take many years to organize before being successful.

As of writing, the TRS Divest campaign has over 1900 signatures.

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