WCCCD faculty demand Michigan pension fund divest

By Fighting Words Staff

On September 20 the membership of Local 2000 of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) in Detroit voted to demand their state pension fund divest its holdings of Israel bonds. This may be the beginning of a broader campaign to get the State Investment Board to sell off over $11 million of bonds from the genocidal zionist settler state.

AFT Local 2000 represents about 600 part-time and full-time instructors at Wayne County Community College which has five main campuses including three in the City of Detroit. Using research provided by Jewish Voice for Peace several instructors attended their regularly scheduled union meeting prepared with a resolution demanding divestment.

The resolution was co-sponsored by David Sole, professor of chemistry, and Elena Herrada, professor of criminal justice. It explained that the Michigan Public School Employees’ Retirement System through the State Investment Board includes $11 million in Israel bonds. It continues:

“And whereas Israel has been carrying out what is widely recognized as genocide against the Palestinian people of Gaza, including causing the deaths of over 45,000 civilians, the bombing of mosques, churches, schools and hospitals and the blocking of humanitarian aid in food and water…

Therefore, be it resolved that AFT Local 2000 goes on record calling for MPSERS and its State Investment Board to divest from holdings in Israel bonds.”

The resolution points out that the Board can make politically driven decisions as to divestment as it did so in 2022 by divesting of holdings from Russia following the start of the Ukraine war. Speaking on behalf of the motion Professor Sole also reminded his colleagues that in the 1980s divestment from apartheid South Africa helped bring down the hated racist regime.

Anti-genocide activists hope to build a movement for divestment around Michigan and are building for a public meeting of the State Investment Board in East Lansing on October 1.

The American Federation of Teachers National Executive Council unanimously adopted a resolution in January 2024 “calling for the end of the Israel-Hamas war by negotiated bilateral cease-fire, promoting steps toward a two-state solution for Israeli and Palestinian self-determination. The AFT represents “1.72 million educators, higher education professionals, healthcare workers and public employees.”