Witnesses at a Sept. 9 hearing on Capitol Hill will address ways that “unions are escalating antisemitic discrimination by protecting antisemitic workers instead of protecting Jewish ones,” a spokesman for the House Committee on Education and Workforce told JNS.
The House Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions plans to hold the hearing, titled “Unmasking Union Antisemitism,” on Sept. 9 in the Rayburn Office Building.
Scheduled to testify are attorneys Kyle Koeppel Mann (New York Legal Assistance Group) and Glenn Taubman (National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation); Cornell University doctoral candidate David Rubinstein; and Joseph McCartin, professor and executive director of Georgetown University’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
“Unions are defending students, who disrupt campus proceedings or make Jewish students feel unsafe, instead of calling out or condemning antisemitic behavior,” the spokesman told JNS. “Unions have also filed lawsuits against employers, who try to ban antisemitic rhetoric in the workplace.”
Republicans on the House panel believe that “labor laws meant to protect organizing efforts are now being warped to extend protections to non-union related activities and advance antisemitic harassment,” the spokesman said.
Sara Robertson, press secretary for the House committee, told JNS that the hearing aims to “demonstrate that antisemitism is not just a college campus problem.”
“It has infected workplaces, and unions are actively defending these behaviors while forcing Jewish members to pay dues,” she said.
