▶ 0:00:00We have seen even more tragic incidents of discrimination and violence against Jewish people including right here in our nation's capital. According to the FBI crime tracking data, anti-Jewish incidents are the most common uh religion-related hate crime. For a group that represents less than 3% of Americans, Jewish people are victims roughly 60% of all religious-based hate crime.
▶ 0:00:24Last year, the ADL reported over anti-Semitic incidents across the United States. A 5% increase from 2023 and the highest uh number on record since the ADL began tracking anti-Semitic incidents in 1979. The unions we will hear about today have chosen to spend time and money advancing their divisive, harmful, and anti-American political agenda.
▶ 0:00:53Furthermore, these unions are throwing sand in the gears of employers trying to create workplaces that are not hostile or discriminatory discriminatory for the Jewish employees. Take for example, ABN. ABN represents public interest lawyers in New York When employees put up posters around the office celebrating the actions of Hamas and violence against Jewish people, the employer banned all posters about the conflict in Israel and Gaza.
▶ 0:01:23The the union did not uh did not go along with this quietly. Instead, ABN filed un- unfair labor practice charges against the employer for its policy designed to protect Jewish workers. Or take another example, the Cornell Graduate Student Union. This union spends its time trying to stop Cornell from disciplining students who violate school policies. They disrupt campus life and harass Jewish students.
▶ 0:01:53When Jewish graduate students respectfully asked not to have to fund this union's activities, the union tries to make them pay anyway and threatens to get them fired if they do not pay dues, flouting title seven of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Union members have rights under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act and the Supreme Court's Beck decision to speak out against these unions and not pay dues for political activities they disagree with.
▶ 0:02:23Title seven protects workers who want to live their lives with integrity and protects them from having to sacrifice their faith and their principles to get and keep a job. But unions have every incentive to keep workers in the dark about their rights. Today we will hand the microphone over to those who are not truly represented by their unions. We will discuss how the law protects their political and religious convictions and how lawmakers could provide additional protection.
▶ 0:02:51We might not all agree on the appropriate role of unions in society, but I believe we can all agree that they should use their resources to promote the workplace interests of their employees and treat each worker who relies on them with equal dignity and With that, I yield to the ranking member for an opening statement.
▶ 0:03:12Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome back to all the witnesses. Thanks for being Let's start by saying no one should be threatened, harassed, or attacked because of who they are, who they worship, or what they stand I agree we should do more to combat anti-Semitism in America.
▶ 0:03:33I also agree with ranking member Scott of the full committee, who has correctly pointed out that while we have had many hearings on anti-Semitism, we have not had one addressing racism, xenophobia, sexism, Islamophobia, or similar harms confronting workers and student groups.
▶ 0:03:51As we discuss these issues today, I want to remind my colleagues that the labor movement is a large, diverse coalition of workers, of Americans, including Jewish Americans, that has been a significant force in the battle against We are fortunate to have Joseph Joseph McCartin here as one of our witnesses.
▶ 0:04:14He is a labor historian and a history professor at Georgetown University who also serves as the executive director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the working poor. Dr. McCartin's written testimony details how the labor movement has been among the most important forces countering anti-Semitism and how labor unions are fundamentally diverse.
▶ 0:04:40And on a personal note, I'll always also note that he graduated from the best Catholic Jesuit college in the United States, Holy Cross in Worcester, which I just happened to go to as well. As Dr.
▶ 0:04:52McCartin mentions in his testimony, one of the most notable labor leaders and one of the most amazing Americans in our history was a Jewish immigrant from London, Samuel Gompers, a cigar maker by trade and the son of Dutch Jewish working class immigrants by way of London. He was the first president of the American Federation of And he is reported to have said, "To be free, the workers, American workers, must have a choice.
▶ 0:05:23To have a choice, they must retain in their own hands the right to determine under what conditions they will work." Close quotes. Throughout history, unions have been pivotal in advancing the conditions of the right of workers. From establishing the 5-day work week to championing minimum wage, banning child labor, protecting workers from being maimed and killed at work, the labor movement has been instrumental in building and sustaining America's middle class.
▶ 0:05:52The labor movement created the American middle class, which is now under relentless attack. Since returning to office, President Trump and his his administration have attacked workers' right to organize, exposed them to exploitive workplaces, and for example, President Trump has stripped nearly half a million half a million federal workers of their hard-won protections in one of the worst, if not the worst, act of union busting in modern American history.
▶ 0:06:21He has also undermined the National Labor Relations Board, which is responsible for cracking down on illegal union busting for millions of private sector workers. At a time of obscene wealth inequality in the United States, union workers enjoy approximately 20% higher wages and are more likely to have access to benefits such as health insurance, paid leave, and pension plans.
▶ 0:06:47Union represented workers also have the right to resign from union membership, the right to object to dues beyond representation represental representational activities, known as the Beck right, which the chairman referred to in his opening even the right to request religious accommodation for non-payment of union Unions are legally required to inform workers of their Beck rights.
▶ 0:07:12Conversely, employers have no obligation to directly inform their workers of their right to organize a union and stand up for better working conditions without retaliation. Our economic system has been rigged against working class for decades, and as lawmakers, we should work to strengthen workers' rights to balance the playing field.
▶ 0:07:33Rights so that workers can afford to provide a better life for themselves and their families, to buy a home, and to retire in dignity, and give their children a better life than they had. I look forward to today's discussions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield Uh I thank the ranking member, and now we will go to the introduction of sorry. Excuse me. Uh sorry.
▶ 0:08:04Uh few legal uh matters to take care of. Pursue to uh committee rule 8C, all members who wish to insert written statements in the record may do so by submitting them to the committee clerk electronically in Microsoft Word format by 5:00 p.m. 14 days after this hearing. Without objection, the hearing record will remain open for 14 days to allow such statements and other extraneous material noted during the hearing to be submitted for the official hearing record.
▶ 0:08:30I note that some of our colleagues who are not pop permanent members of this subcommittee may be waving on for the purpose of today's hearing. I was in a hurry to get to our witnesses, so I almost missed that, but uh now I will turn to the introduction of our four distinguished witnesses. Our first witness is Mrs. Kalpana Man, senior staff attorney for the New York Legal Assistance Group for New York City. Our second witness is Mr. David Rubenstein, a Ph.D.
▶ 0:08:58candidate at Cornell University's Department of History in Ithaca, New York. Our third witness is Dr. Joseph A. McCartin, Professor of History and Executive Director at Georgetown University's Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor in Washington, D.C. Our la- last witness is Mr.
▶ 0:09:19Glenn Tubman Talman, a staff attorney for the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation in Springfield, Virginia, and I trust I got most of those names Uh we thank the witnesses for being here today, and we look forward to your testimony. Pur- Pursuant to committee rules, I would ask that you each limit your oral oral presentation to a 3-minute summary of your written statement. As committee members have many questions for you, the clock will count down for 3 minutes.
▶ 0:09:48Pursuant to committee rule 8D and committee practice, however, we will not cut off your cut off your testimony until you reach the 5-minute mark. I would also like to remind the witnesses to be aware of their responsibility to provide accurate information to the subcommittee. I will first recognize Ms. Mann for your testimony.
▶ 0:10:13Thank you. Good morning. I'm Kyle Copeland, a coordinating senior staff attorney in the immigrant protection unit at the New York Legal Assistance Group, a civil legal services nonprofit. I am also a former member of a Better NILAG, or ABN, a chapter of UAW Local 2325, the exclusive bargaining representative that has a duty to fairly represent me.
▶ 0:10:38NILAG has been a part of my life for It was founded by my step grandmother in 1990 as a partner agency of United Jewish Appeal Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York, which still funds its work. I love the work I do helping my clients, and I once loved the office where I did Like you, I'm a public servant because I care deeply about improving lives. In June 2019, I voted to unionize.
▶ 0:11:06I believed collective bargaining would mean better pay, health care, caseloads, and workplace conditions. In February 2023, I walked the picket line when ABN went on strike. However, in 2024, I withdrew from ABN as a religious objector after its crusade against Israel following the October 7th Hamas attacks.
▶ 0:11:29The union turned NILAG from a place where I could probably be Jewish and identities inseparable for me and most Jews, into a hostile antisemitic For months, Jewish staff based posters glorifying violence against Jews and Intifada now, long live the resistance, and abolish the settler state covered NILAG's walls.
▶ 0:11:54In one of my many complaints to NILAG management, I wrote that the images called for, quote, the destruction of the Jewish state of Israel. After the massacre, rape, and kidnapping of nearly 1,500 Jews by Hamas, an organization that has murdered countless Jews, the rhetoric in these images is not vague. They are rallying cries for murdering Jews. As a Jew, I feel threatened when I see these and depressed that they surround my workplace, close quote.
▶ 0:12:21To its credit, NILAG responded by banning harassing materials that create a toxic work environment for many Jewish Instead of in supporting us, ABN filed an unfair labor practice charge against NILAG for its opposition to antisemitic material. ABN has failed in its duty to fairly represent all employees.
▶ 0:12:43As such, with the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, I and several other Jewish colleagues have filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board and the Equal Employment Opportunity We cannot serve the public while enduring abuse at work. Jewish union members have the right to expect that their union will fight to remediate toxic antisemitic workplaces, not be the ones creating them. Thank you.
▶ 0:13:09Uh thank you, Ms. Van. Uh now recognize Mr. Rubenstein for your testimony.
▶ 0:13:15Good morning. My name is David Rubenstein, and I'm a PhD candidate at Cornell University. In fall 2023, a bare majority of grad students voted to install the Cornell grad student union, CGSU, as our exclusive bargaining agent. CGSU is affiliated with the United Electrical Workers UE, a union that seeks the destruction of Israel. When I objected to campus celebrations of Hamas terror after October 7th, a union organizer emailed my whole department calling me an apartheid apologist.
▶ 0:13:42When Jewish PhD students were targeted in their offices, CGSU claimed Cornell needed its consent to discipline the culprits. When two grad students were suspended for leading a disruptive encampment calling for Intifada revolution, CGSU demanded their reinstatement. When contract negotiations began, CGSU demanded that all PhD students be forced to pay union dues. I and others lobbied the university to reject this violation of free speech and association. Cornell promised to protect our rights.
▶ 0:14:09President Mike Kotlikoff stated that forced association would be, quote, deeply unfair to our students and incompatible with our commitment to academic freedom. This commitment turned out to be meaningless. When the union threatened to strike, Cornell reneged on its promises and agreed to mandatory dues. The sole exception included what federal law largely provided already, that religious objectors and a narrowly defined group with ethical and moral objections could pay a charity instead. Despite this, Cornell assured us that assertions of religious and ethical objections would not be challenged.
▶ 0:14:39Yet when I and others submitted objection letters, CGSU subjected us to invasive and burdensome questioning. Cornell then caved again and agreed that students must allow the union to, quote, evaluate whether to exempt them from forced dues. Cornell's Jewish PhD students must now beg the union for permission not to fund its pro-Hamas and pro-BDS activism.
▶ 0:14:59When CGSU and UE refused to process my objection and demanded irrelevant personal information, Cornell and the union left me no choice but to file discrimination charges at the Equal Opportunity Commission with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. CGSU then belatedly recognized my objection, but other students' objections are still being stonewalled while the students receive zero support from Cornell. CGSU has since denied the existence of even narrow exemptions from forced dues.
▶ 0:15:26This summer, the union began targeting student objectors claiming we would be fired if we refused to pay them. Cornell initially protested, but then settled with the union despite zero change in its behavior. I know multiple students currently being threatened with termination for not paying CGSU, and Cornell refuses to act to end this Nearly 2 years after October 7th, the situation is only getting worse. At Cornell, the union uses its power to shield offenders from the consequences for their conduct.
▶ 0:15:55Recently, CGSU has rallied to support a self-declared Hamas backer with a long record of harassing behavior, including pushing past police to shut down a campus career fair. Though Cornell belatedly expelled him, the university reversed course after union intervention. When his visa was finally revoked after urging the destruction of America, CGSU backed his lawsuit. CGSU never misses a chance to protect bullies while threatening to fire those who refuse to fund them. And it seeks cover by calling this quote protected activity under the National Labor Relations Act.
▶ 0:16:25I'm a registered Democrat. Protecting students from anti-Semitism and forced association should not be a partisan issue. It is wrong to make support of any ideological organization a condition of earning a PhD. As the steward of taxpayer dollars, Congress should hold Cornell accountable to its obligations under the Civil Rights Act. When Cornell allows CGSU and UE to create a hostile environment, it must face consequences. Finally, Congress should clarify that PhD students are students, not workers subject to forced dues.
▶ 0:16:54This was settled law until 2016, when the National Labor Relations Board erroneously classified us as employees. Congress should promptly fill vacancies on the NLRB so this can be rectified. By ensuring degree seekers are rightly defined as students, Congress can end the intimidation and harassment I and others have experienced from CGSU and And the payment of union dues should be strictly voluntary. Thank you for your invitation to testify.
▶ 0:17:17Uh thank you, Mr. Rubinstein. Next, I recognize Dr. McCartin for your
▶ 0:17:23Thank you, Chair Allen, Ranking Member D'Souza, members. I wish to share my perspective as a labor historian on the question you consider today. Let me be clear that I'm not here to represent a union, but rather as a scholar of American of the American labor movement, which is, I would argue, the oldest democratic, multicultural, racially, religiously, and regionally diverse institution that the United States has produced in its 250 years.
▶ 0:17:52I would like to speak briefly of the character of the American labor movement, Jewish members' important role in its history, and about how the movement historically wrestled with and addressed such issues as My brief opening remarks, I'm just going to make two quick points. The first is that the labor movement is a uniquely diverse and pluralistic entity. And American Jews have historically played and continue to play an important role in its development and leadership.
▶ 0:18:23Labor has been one of the most important forces counteracting anti-Semitism in America, even as it often found its opponents framing their attacks on it in anti-Semitic terms. The pluralistic and inclusive labor movement that emerged in modern America and within which Jews have played an important role and continue to was a hard-won thing.
▶ 0:18:48It was built in a hostile environment where most workers could not count on the law to protect their efforts to organize and bargain collectively until 1935. It was also built by a uniquely diverse working class, the most diverse of any industrialized nation. In this context, marginalized workers often initially had to build their own separate unions. Blacks were initially excluded from unions on the railways, for example.
▶ 0:19:16They formed their own brotherhoods, the most important being A. Philip Randolph's Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, whose centenary we've recently marked. Similarly, many Jewish workers at first opted to form unions of Yiddish-speaking workers, founding the United Hebrew Trades in 1888. The UHT unions ultimately, though, affiliated with the American Federation of Labor.
▶ 0:19:40Though the UFT persisted at its as its own organization, ultimately, it should be said, giving birth to the Jewish Labor Committee in 1934, whose explicit purpose was to fight Nazi anti-Semitism. It exists, by the way, to this day as a presence in labor.
▶ 0:19:57Remarkably, out of this fraught crucible of a working class of vast diversity, and despite employers' conscious efforts to pit one group against another, to undermine union organizing and to break strikes, the union movement arose that became ever more inclusive over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries. Jewish workers have played a vital role in that history, and they continue to.
▶ 0:20:24At its founding in 1886, the American Federation of Labor was, as ranking member De Saulnier notes, headed by a Jewish immigrant, Samuel Gompers, who was elected to his post even though Jews were then far outnumbered by Protestants and Catholics within the AFL. Nor was Gompers unique.
▶ 0:20:43Jewish leaders such as Sidney Hillman, Bessie Abramowitz, Rose Schneiderman, David Dubinsky, Clara Lemlich, Jerry Wurf, Albert Shanker, Sandra Feldman, Randy Weingarten, to this day, have helped to build inclusive, multi-racial, pluralistic unions that have fought for American workers of every race, religion, and color over decades and into the present.
▶ 0:21:07It would not be an exaggeration to say that each of those leaders contended at times with anti-Semitism, but the anti-Semites they fought were typically opponents of the union movement who used their very prominence within it as evidence that it was somehow foreign, un-American, or even part of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy.
▶ 0:21:28In part because of the minority status of America's Jewish activists, they have always understood the importance of building bridges across lines of difference, creating unity among workers. Jewish influence remains strong in labor today. Anti-Semitism hasn't gone away, of No one can certify that there are no anti-Semites in the labor movement, but where it does rear its head, it must be combated.
▶ 0:21:54Yet, the historical record clearly shows that labor has been a bastion of opposition to anti-Semitism and remains so. Second, and very quickly, the labor movement is a democratic movement. It allows for free speech and difference of opinion. Much of what we'll hear today speaks only to that aspect of it. It these two elements, its democracy, its uh diversity, can allow it to be characterized, but its record, I think, is clear.
▶ 0:22:27Thank you.
▶ 0:22:29Thank you, Dr. McCartin. Now, I recognize Mr. Toman for your testimony.
▶ 0:22:37Thank you for the opportunity to appear today. I have been practicing labor and constitutional law for over 43 years at the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. My clients are individual employees who wish to stand apart from a workplace labor union that they did not choose and do not want.
▶ 0:22:59I was honored to testify before this committee exactly 14 months ago detailing the workplace harassment that labor unions fomented against Jewish and Israeli students at elite universities, teaching hospitals, K-12 schools, and legal aid workplaces.
▶ 0:23:19I am back to report that things are worse than ever due to ever more virulent union anti-Semitism, which is actually fostered and protected by our nation's misguided labor laws.
▶ 0:23:34More than ever since October 7th, my phone is continuing to ring off the hook with calls from unionized Jewish and Israeli graduate students at the nation's elite universities and interns and residents at esteemed teaching hospitals asking me how they can disassociate from unions like the UE, the UAW, and SEIU.
▶ 0:23:58These unions or their radical affiliates foment chance of anti-Semitic slogans, ostracize the Jewish and Israeli employees they purport to represent, and generally menace them in their workplaces.
▶ 0:24:12In recent months, I have read commentary to the effect that what Jewish and Israeli employees are facing in the workplace is not a real problem and that the Trump administration is weaponizing overblown charges of anti-Semitism to tear down universities and education. Such assertions are false and stomach-turning. So, I want to speak about the real weaponization that is at play in today's workplace.
▶ 0:24:38The weaponization of an archaic federal labor law that Congress passed over 80 years ago, which empowers labor unions with unique privileges granted to no other private organization in America. Today's labor unions are not your father's labor unions.
▶ 0:24:56Many of today's progressive unions harbor strong anti-Semitic and even anti-American worldviews, and they feel free to use and abuse the potent power of Congress gave them to harass and intimidate Jewish and Israeli employees. Federal law empowers them to do so in four specific ways.
▶ 0:25:15First, federal labor law empowers unions to act as employees exclusive bargaining representative, even when the employees don't want to be represented by such hostile and hateful organizations. Second, the Clinton, Obama, and Biden NLRBs transformed graduate students from students to employees, thereby paving the way for radical unions to represent them and force them to pay dues whether they want to or not.
▶ 0:25:45Third, under the Biden NLRB's extravagant view of union power and the Home Depot ruling, unions outrageous pro-Hamas activities and even workplace intimidation are considered to be, quote, "protected concerted activity," unquote, meaning union actions that are overtly hostile to Jews are coddled and protected by federal law.
▶ 0:26:09And fourth, labor law authorizes unions to demand compulsory union dues, which allows anti-Semitic unions to force the victims of the harassment to pay for those activities or be fired. At the National Right to Work Legal Foundation, we are redoubling our efforts to help such employees, but despite our best efforts, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Beck decision, and the duty of fair representation doctrine are inadequate. So, what are the solutions?
▶ 0:26:38First, Congress should pass the National Right to Work Act to end the problem of coercive forced unionism. Second, Congress should enact legislation redefining graduate students as students, not employees, as they were for the first 60 years.
▶ 0:26:53And third, Congress should strengthen title seven to better protect employees of faith from unions, anti-Semitism, and radical These would be small steps to restore individual employees right to not be part of a forced collective that takes hateful pro-Hamas views on foreign events 5,000 miles away from the workplace. What could be more American than that?
▶ 0:27:19And I want to conclude by saying that Samuel Gompers, who we've heard, the Jewish AFL-CIO chairman, also said that the workers of America prefer organizations of a voluntary nature rather than organizations of compulsion. Thank you.
▶ 0:27:41Uh thank you, uh Mr. Domon, for your Under rule Under rule nine, we will now question witnesses under the five-minute rule. I will recognize myself for five Uh obviously, we sit here today thousands of years after Abraham's covenant with God, and the battle still rages. Uh Ms.
▶ 0:28:08Mann, you and many of your Jewish co-workers were supportive of the union before October 7th, 2023. Have Jewish colleagues withdrawn from union activities or stopped attending meetings due to fear of harassment or Ms. Mann? Uh how has the union's cultivation of this hostile office culture weakened Jewish members' ability to benefit from union representation and collective
▶ 0:28:38Yes, I, along with several other Jewish members, have obtained religious objector status because we do not believe the union can fairly represent Um some Jewish members only attend on Zoom because they can't face the hatred in person. In 2025, uh, a better NILAG went on strike for a week. Their number one sticking point was not salary, health care, or caseload. It was free speech in and out of the office, the ability to support Hamas over its Jewish workers.
▶ 0:29:07Um, the the union has targeted Jews, um, and sent emails, members have sent emails to other staff members excluding all Jews in the Um, there has been no declaration that this was intentional, but it can't be a coincidence that only Jewish members have been left off of these emails. Thank you.
▶ 0:29:34Mr. Ribstein, you have filed discrimination charges against the union with the EEOC, which you included as an attachment to your written testimony. How did the union and Cornell unions and Cornell's actions give you no choice but to file charges with the EEOC?
▶ 0:29:50Cornell could have denied the union's demand for mandatory dues, but instead made me proactively seek out a religious exemption. Upon contract ratification, Cornell claimed I had nothing to worry about because I could religiously object by ticking a box on a form. That never materialized. Instead, I had to beg union bosses for permission by sending a highly personal letter detailing the private details of my religious beliefs and practices.
▶ 0:30:14It as it felt deeply humiliating and degrading to need to beg for permission from those engaged in in Jew hatred. Yet, even that was not enough for these union bosses, and they demanded further irrelevant personal information not only about myself, but also about my synagogue and my rabbi. And at that point, because Cornell was forcing me to pay dues and the union was demanding information they had no right to, I had no other choice but to press charges.
▶ 0:30:42Thank you. Uh Mr. Tauman, you represent several employees seeking religious accommodations from the unions that represent them. Could you discuss whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act provides sufficient protections for people of faith in unionized workplaces? And is there anything we can do to strengthen legal protections for religious workers in unionized workplaces?
▶ 0:31:04Title VII provides some protections, but as Mr. Rubenstein just said, the problem with Title VII is these employees are essentially required to beg their tormentors. I'll say that again. You have to ask the entity that is harassing you and tormenting you on your workplace for a religious accommodation.
▶ 0:31:27And that's the worst part of this because Title VII requires you to prove to certain level your sincerely held beliefs. But who do you have to prove it to? To the union that is tormenting you. So, this should be something that Congress can fix by making it easier for people to assert their religious rights.
▶ 0:31:49Could Could you define tormenting? I
▶ 0:31:51Tormenting meaning ostracism, shunning, uh Hamas pro-Hamas activities, telling your graduate students pay dues or be fired while we're out fomenting pro-Hamas activities.
▶ 0:32:08Pro-Hamas is a medieval killing terrorist group on the US's watch list, but suddenly it's protected labor free speech to support an anti-American murderous medieval terrorist group. That's what the labor laws bring to this situation.
▶ 0:32:31Thank you. Uh that concludes my questions. Uh unless the panel has anything else you'd like to offer. Okay, well I I yield my time to the uh Mr. Mrs. Lee of Pennsylvania.
▶ 0:32:48Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think it's important that we are clear about what's really going on here. Republicans are committed to eroding labor protections in this country and they will do anything and use anything to that end. The attacks on workers are relentless. And let's be clear, when they attack unions, they are attacking Jewish workers and black workers and white workers and disabled workers, all workers.
▶ 0:33:15Just last month, the Department of Veterans Affairs terminated collective bargaining agreements for workers at the Pittsburgh VA Medical Center in my district, abandoning groundskeepers, transportation workers, nurses, and doctors. Unions, just like our government, are democratic institutions. Workers choose to unionize based on majority support, just like Cornell graduate workers voted to unionize 1,873 votes to 80.
▶ 0:33:40Unions are also a channel for their members to debate and voice beliefs and political issues, just like when UAW debated and voted to adopt their ceasefire resolution 1,067 votes to 570. In democracies, we're supposed to accept the outcome of a vote, even if we disagree with it.
▶ 0:33:57As democratic institutions, unions bear responsibility for protecting their members from acts of hate, absolutely, while fostering environments for critical and constructive discourse, because unions because union members will never agree on every point and they aren't meant to. Being engaged in a union where you have a stake and a say means having uncomfortable conversations.
▶ 0:34:19But discomfort and danger are not the same thing and at a time when those in power are looking for any excuse to undermine worker protections, it is more important than ever that we understand and make that distinction. Those of us who believe strongly in unions recognize that while organized labor may have had a complicated legacy, especially considering its history dealing with and even excluding marginalized groups, that today they work to remedy that because they know and we all know that for marginalized groups, it is the number
▶ 0:34:50one pathway to economic security and a place in the middle class. We fight and we work every day with unions, just like we do with our own nation's governments to make sure that they live up to their true ideals. Unions are institutions that reflect the demographics and the diversity of our workplaces and we have more work to do. Just as we have more work to do to make our country that more perfect union. But there is no question that if we actually want workers to be protected, we need unions. And if we want unions to be equitable, we cannot ask them to be apolitical. Dr.
▶ 0:35:20McCartin, can you speak briefly about the history of workers taking political stances through their unions at critical times in history?
▶ 0:35:29Thank you. Thank you, Congresswoman. I'm happy to. Unions from their formation in the United States have realized that they have to take political stands to effectively defend and advance the interests of their members. That was true in the 1820s when the first unions hoped to launch their own political parties, workingmen's parties.
▶ 0:35:49That was true in the early 20th century when Samuel Gompers drafted labor's bill of grievances because the courts were attacking workers' rights to strike effectively to organize and they knew they had to get political to fight back against that.
▶ 0:36:05That was true in the 1960s when the labor movement supported the Civil Rights and the Voting Rights Act because they understood that what could be won at the bargaining table could be undermined by politics if workers didn't have a democratic voice there. That has been the labor movement's history. That is its stand even today.
▶ 0:36:25Yes. And if I could ask you another question very quickly, historically, how has social inequality coincided with the strength or lack thereof of labor
▶ 0:36:35Social inequality has been in inverse proportion to union strength. When union strength is strong, social inequality is weak. When union wing is a strength weakens, social inequality grows. That was true in the 1920s when the labor movement hit one of its low points, inequality surged. After World War II, when the labor movement was strong, inequality dropped.
▶ 0:37:03Economists talk about the period of the compression because the lowest the the poorest 20% of Americans saw their income rise most then. When unions weakened in the 20th and early 21st century, however, we've seen inequality surge.
▶ 0:37:20Perhaps members here know of the recent study by the RAND Corporation, which documented that if we had merely retained the uh distribution of income we had in 1973 to the present day, the lowest 90% of Americans would have
▶ 0:37:39$79 trillion more than they ended up earning. That's because of union weakness.
▶ 0:37:45And may I if I could conclude, I just want to say that this is obviously not about protecting workers, but about silencing dissent, criminalizing free speech, and chipping away at the foundation of our democracy in order to accelerate a shift toward authoritarianism. Unions are the first line of protection against that, and we have to speak out against these attempts to suppress these unions. Thank you, and I yield back.
▶ 0:38:07Gentlewoman yields now. Call on our great chairman for his question.
▶ 0:38:12Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Now, let me make it very clear we're not attacking We're attacking abusive union leadership that are not doing what they're supposed to do for their union membership. I thank unions for the working conditions I had at US Steel South Because of what my dad as a union organizer and others did, we're talking about the backing away of protecting union workers.
▶ 0:38:42We're not attacking unions here. And I think that's why the Republican Party is now being seen as the party of the working man and woman. The rank and file. Randi Weingarten has not said anything anything about anti-Semitism. So, to raise her name raises my ire. This man, your testimony is very clear. And so, let me go back.
▶ 0:39:11Have there been instances where the union has chosen to advance the interests of those engaging and I'm talking about the union Protecting the interests of those engaging in harassing contact conduct over the interests of union's Jewish Um very sadly, the union has doubled down on protecting its members' ability to promote anti-Semitism and
▶ 0:39:41images that make Jews feel threatened in the workplace. Um as soon as our poster policy was enacted um requiring that the office simply be neutral, that nobody post anything related to the Gaza Israeli
▶ 0:39:57What's wrong with that?
▶ 0:39:59In the office Exactly. That's all we're asking for. We just don't At 5:00 p.m. when you leave the office, you should be free to say whatever you want about whatever issue it is. You have complete free speech.
▶ 0:40:10American liberty.
▶ 0:40:11But when you're in the office, you don't have a right to free speech. And that's all that NYLAG management asked um to be done. as soon as that happened, um ABN posted watermelons all over our office, a symbol of Palestinian solidarity, and over the watermelons it says "Nylag violates free speech." Um "Nylag silences workers." Um and they continue these tactics, holding lunchtime pickets where they walk around
▶ 0:40:41the office in keffiyehs, um holding Palestinian flags. They pose for pictures in our reception area. These images are are visibly seen by clients, um not just Jewish members, but we serve the most vulnerable populations in New York City, and they too are traumatized by walking into our office.
▶ 0:41:02We have to shield them from the images that surround our cubicles and try as quickly as possible to get them to a conference room without seeing so many of the intimidating, harassing materials that surround the office.
▶ 0:41:15Cowardly union leadership that's encouraging this type of thing to go on, as well as entities that don't stand up against it. So, appreciate that, Mr. United, as you've indicated, United Electrical Workers Union leadership and the Cornell graduate student union um chose to help fellow graduate students avoid university discipline and expulsion and deportation by the US The student engaged in disruptive
▶ 0:41:45anti-Israel advocacy on campus, as well as cheering for the, and I quote, "end of the US empire," celebrating Hamas actions on October 7th, and tweeting that Zionists are a, quote, "moral-less, soul-less, cowardly, inhumane inhumane What do you think of the union leadership using its resources to defend this graduate student?
▶ 0:42:10Well, that is certainly the union's prerogative to defend such an individual. And I want to be clear, I'm not anti-union and I believe in free speech. So, if they want to support someone like that, absolutely fair game. But, Jewish students should not be forced to financially support that. And we should certainly not be forced to beg for permission to not do so as Cornell is currently forcing us to do.
▶ 0:42:31Thank you for nailing that home, the issue that we're talking about there. And it then that goes back to free speech and freedom in America. Thank you. Mr. Tubman, uh the duty of fair representation doctrine uh was intended to protect workers in a bargaining unit who may be in the minority in the union and to force unions to represent those people fairly as well.
▶ 0:42:56Even if the union leadership did not like those workers or agree with their Have you seen unions violate the duty of fair representation with respect to Jewish employees?
▶ 0:43:09The duty of fair representation, if properly interpreted, would prevent exactly what Ms. Mann and Mr. Rubinstein are seeing on their campuses or their workplaces. The problem is that over the years the duty of fair representation has been watered down, and it is very difficult for employees to use that to protect themselves from this sort of atrocities in the
▶ 0:43:35Thank you. My time has expired. I yield
▶ 0:43:40I was a little lenient on our chairman there on time, but anyway.
▶ 0:43:45We're getting less
▶ 0:43:47less lenient than one of our other uh
▶ 0:43:51Take it from Mr. Wilson.
▶ 0:43:54Okay, who we got? All right, Mr. Wilson's next.
▶ 0:43:57All right, I'll now recognize Mr. Wilson from the great state of South Carolina for his line of questioning.
▶ 0:44:03Thank you very much, Chairman. I'm I'm grateful to uh share a district with you, uh North Augusta, Augusta, South Carolina, Georgia working together. And indeed, Mr. Tubman, I appreciate your service as the staff attorney for the National Right to Work Legal Defense For decades, the National Right to Work Committee has been a successful champion across the country for workers to have the freedom to join or not join a union.
▶ 0:44:31And so the Right to Work Committee is just um such an example of freedom. And so thank you for what you do. With that in mind, your written testimony says that some unions are our labor law to harm Jewish employees in the workplace. How are they doing that and can you give
▶ 0:44:50Sure. So as I said in my opening, their federal law allows forced Nobody tells you, Congressman, that when you want to sell your house, you must use a certain representative who may hate you and may trash your people and your religion. But in the union context, federal labor law allows for forced representation.
▶ 0:45:16So these people are required to be represented by a a hateful organization. That's the first of of federal laws' protections of unions. And then the second one, of course, is forced dues. They're told that they have to pay for the privilege of being harassed by these unions. This is all a matter of federal labor law.
▶ 0:45:38And I I want to thank you, too, bringing up the issue of Hamas. We're not talking about people who are disagreeing with issues. the covenant of August 1988, was very clear, Article 7. It states that every Jew is to be chased behind a rock or tree until you find the last Jew behind a rock and kill him. That's their covenant. That's their plan.
▶ 0:46:03Uh from the river to the sea uh means the elimination and death of the Jewish people. And so uh it we're not talking about just a uh disagreement over policy. Uh Ms. Mann, some unions have chosen to mount defenses of anti-Semitic activity in their units and in some cases advocate on behalf of union members who have engaged in anti-Semitic uh conduct uh outside the workplace.
▶ 0:46:30Particularly something that sounds so innocent, such as pushing the anti-Israel boycott, divestment, and sanctions BDS uh policies. Uh what what do you feel can be done? Uh does this uh undermine the National Labor Relations
▶ 0:46:51I believe that I believe that unions should stick to negotiating wages, health care, employment conditions. The union should not have a political view that's un unrelated to its members' well-being in the workplace. Just because unions were once politically active historically does not mean they need to be now. Times change.
▶ 0:47:16We shouldn't have to vote about political resolutions on anything about foreign policy that has nothing to do with representing um in New York City. Um the resolution that uh was mentioned by Ms.
▶ 0:47:30Lee was a resolution that was uh sent by ABN less than a month or sorry, just over a month after 10:13 asking union members to vote on whether they calling the the um on on Palestine a genocide. We shouldn't be forced to to answer such questions.
▶ 0:47:59It doesn't matter to our workplace. It doesn't matter to what we do for our clients. Political foreign relations should not be a part of the union's purview.
▶ 0:48:09And how sad indeed genocide of the population of Gaza has increased substantially. There's not a genocide and how sick for people to misconstrue what's going on. And Mr. Rubenstein, you state in your written testimony that you do not believe graduate students should be considered employees under the National Labor Relations Act. Why do you think that graduate students like yourself, young as you are, should not be covered by NLRA?
▶ 0:48:38As PhD students, we're provided with teaching assistantships to support ourselves while we work towards our degree. And so our work as teaching assistants serves as a derivative of our primary status as students. Yet since unionization, our primary role as students has become a derivative of our part-time job as teaching assistants, meaning that we now have a non-academic third-party that holds power over the primary purpose for which we came to study in the first place.
▶ 0:49:04Well, thank you for bringing that to the attention of the American people. I yield back.
▶ 0:49:12Okay. The gentleman from South Carolina yields. Now we go to Chairwoman Emeritus Fox from North Carolina for questions.
▶ 0:49:22Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate that and I appreciate our witnesses being here today. I know this is a very tough issue for you all to be dealing with, Ms. Mann and Mr. Rubenstein because they're so much involved with this. So I really appreciate your being here. Ms.
▶ 0:49:46Mann, your written testimony how Jewish employees are afraid to speak up about the toxic workplace the unions created. Why do you believe they're afraid to speak up?
▶ 0:50:00I believe they're afraid to speak up because they have already experienced the feeling of being ostracized. We considered ourselves as a separate group in the office, but we've essentially been pushed into our own little Jewish ghetto where we can only discuss matters of the office with each other.
▶ 0:50:22We don't feel that the union has our back and in fact, before this last strike, many of my Jewish colleagues who had not yet obtained religious objector status felt that the union was pressuring them to go on strike because their primary goal was not increasing our wages or getting us better health care. It was fighting the NILAG management policy that posters not be posted in the office about anything related to this conflict.
▶ 0:50:51They argued again that they have the right to free speech in the office and the union has misled them because there is no right to free speech in a private workplace. Um, the union has told them that the poster policy is an egregious, quote, an egregious infringement on our members speech and a violation of labor law.
▶ 0:51:13what what you're talking about sounds so much like what happened in Germany a long time ago and we've all said never again. This kind of thing can never happen again. Um, Mr. Rubinstein, your written testimony includes exhibits of many emails documenting how the union and Cornell have tried to enforce the forced dues clause in the collective bargaining agreement.
▶ 0:51:44Could you discuss whether the union has communicated to graduate students clearly and honestly what their rights and obligations are with respect to the union.
▶ 0:51:55It has not. Um, we have the right to object to union dues on religious, ethical, or moral grounds, and yet the union has consistently represented that all graduate students are forced to pay dues or agency fees to the union, negating that third option.
▶ 0:52:11So, what do you think could be done to make sure that people in unionized workplaces like yours know their rights?
▶ 0:52:18Well, the first answer to that is that one should not be forced to go through a burdensome and time-consuming exemption procedure in order not to fund a union that that one does not wish to support. Union dues should be voluntary. But, while Cornell is locked into a contract with forced dues, the university should make clear that all exemptions will be recognized. That individuals do not need to beg for the union's permission, with the union being given free reign to obstruct, ignore, or deny these exemptions.
▶ 0:52:48The university can recognize
▶ 0:52:50Mr. Taubman, Mr. Rubenstein's written testimony and what he has said verbally, um, re- discuss receiving an intrusive questionnaire from the union, which he's alluding to again when he tried to obtain a religious accommodation. What responses have your clients at other workplaces received when they invoked their rights under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act?
▶ 0:53:17The first response that the UE union gave my clients at MIT, who were Jewish, was to write them a letter saying, "Jews can't object to our union because our founder was Jewish." So, they told these people that they know more about their Judaism and their religious beliefs than they do.
▶ 0:53:39Since that time, the union has been sending these invasive questionnaires, and this has happened at Stanford, this has happened at Cornell, this has happened at other schools. They try to conduct a little mini inquisition to harass and delay and prevent these people from exercising their religious liberties under Title VII.
▶ 0:54:02Thank you, and I think the term you used earlier about torture is certainly very appropriate. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to insert in the record an article from the Wall Street Journal, August 29, Stanford's Graduate Student Union tries to stifle dissent.
▶ 0:54:21Without objection.
▶ 0:54:22Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
▶ 0:54:24The gentle lady yields back. Next is uh ranking member Scott for 5 minutes.
▶ 0:54:34Excuse me.
▶ 0:54:34You're in the gun.
▶ 0:54:35Go ahead. Could you call on Mr. Courtney?
▶ 0:54:41Uh Mr. Courtney is recognized.
▶ 0:54:43That's great. Thank Thank you, uh Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our ranking member uh Scott, and um I apologize. A lot going on uh today, but I did read um again the witnesses' statements, and um again um you know, want to thank all of you for being here and and the the effort that you put in to to your testimony. Um Ms. Mehan, in particular, I found your testimony to be actually quite powerful in terms of just telling your story.
▶ 0:55:08As a former public defender, I sort of identify a little bit at least with the the mission of a legal aid, um and and you obviously are very passionate about your clients in terms of trying to, you advocate for fairness and justice, you know, in in the system, and you know, that's not for the faint of heart. Uh I can personally attest to that. And obviously, you also, you know, uh described your sort of, you know, sort of foundational feelings about unions a little bit.
▶ 0:55:37And I guess the one question I just really wanted to ask you was that you know, after reading your testimony and um you know, there are some really important issues that everybody's raised in their testimony, but there's obviously also another sort of agenda here, which is to pass a national right-to-work law.
▶ 0:55:53Uh and I just was curious just to hear what your thoughts were about whether or not that somehow you know, would be a solution to you know, the problem that's been identified here uh because that would be a fairly um blunt instrument, you know, in terms of uh the rights of workers who again work who belong to unions that are actually doing good things uh for themselves.
▶ 0:56:19Yeah, there's the union members that I work with while they have been told that they are aware of their rights, most of them did not know that they had the right to file for a religious objector status.
▶ 0:56:35that. I'm really talking about let we're here as members of Congress to deal with legislation and there's a bill to to pass a national right-to-work law. And that's really my my question. Do you I mean do you feel that that is something Congress should take up and that and that would be a solution um in terms of you know, really radically re- re-lighting re- re-writing uh the labor laws of this country?
▶ 0:57:01I think as Mr. Rubenstein said, the labor laws need to be addressed under the current framework. Um and then and and NLRB should take up the claims that we filed with them um about an unfair representation and the duty to represent.
▶ 0:57:19Thank you. So, right-to-work I mean is really just as I said, it's a far blunter sort of instrument in terms of addressing this issue. And I and I certainly agree with you about you know, having the NLRB act swiftly. It did not help matters that the president almost the day after he was inaugurated basically fired a member and they don't have enough a functioning quorum.
▶ 0:57:43So that you know, the goal of actually having timeliness in terms of taking up issues has been by this administration. As some of my colleagues know, I kind of always track the Gallup poll in terms of American public opinion regarding labor unions. They've been asking this question since the 1930s. Actually a few days ago, they they did their 2025 update.
▶ 0:58:12And again, it was a 68% approval rating. It's eight straight years now that it succeeded 60% and I've been around long enough in this committee to remember when it was much lower than that. And I I was wondering if you just sort of comment in terms of particularly at a time when we're watching health get cut through HR1, exchange premiums are about to be devastated and rates are going to skyrocket literally within days.
▶ 0:58:42We're going to get those numbers. In terms of just what's driving that popularity because of the economic insecurity that working people feel in this country.
▶ 0:58:53The weakening of unions in general is one of the things that's contributing to growing inequality, to the impact, the adverse impact of the kind of cuts that you're talking about and what they will have. Fighting for a national right to work act as Mr. Taubman is calling for is not going to solve the problem of anti-Semitism or improve the bargaining power of workers.
▶ 0:59:20It's really a non sequitur when it comes to the question that we're considering here today as well. That is the unions promote anti-Semitism. Union members have rights. There's been lots of talk that union members aren't or unions are not properly defending their members, representing them today. I would assert that they represent their members as well as anybody on this panel represents your constituents.
▶ 0:59:48That doesn't mean that your constituents agree with everything you do. They don't. Um that doesn't make your positions any less legitimate. That's what unions are about. Representing people and they might not do it uh to the satisfaction of every member. We've heard uh from both Ms. Mann and Mr. Rubinstein that that they don't want to support an organization okay, that that they object to and they're not.
▶ 1:00:18They they have the right not to and they're not.
▶ 1:00:25Time is expired. Uh the chair now recognizes himself for 5 minutes. Uh thank you to all the witnesses um here today. Um I'll begin with the principle that I think everyone should agree with. No employee should be required as a condition of their employment to financially support a political agenda or candidate that he or she opposes. Uh this is a an application of the First Amendment and a cornerstone of American The Supreme Court agrees.
▶ 1:00:55In Janus v. AFSCME, the Supreme Court recognized that federal employees' First Amendment rights are violated when employees who are not members of the union are forced to pay agency fees. The court said that such agreements violate {quote} the free speech right of non-members by compelling them to subsidize private speech on matters of substantial public concern.
▶ 1:01:19And given that government uh everything they do have to do with uh public matters of public concern, free speech would be violated. It is great that government employees First Amendment rights are protected, but what about private sector workers? The Supreme Court case Communication Workers of America v. Beck partially protects employees from being forced to contribute to political causes they disagree with.
▶ 1:01:45But it is clear from the witness testimony today that Beck is not strong At Cornell University, Mr. Rubinstein and his Jewish friends were continually harassed by their graduate student union for refusing to fund their affiliate union's pro-Hamas agenda. At the New York Legal Assistance Group, Ms. Mann and her Jewish colleagues fear expressing support for Israel in their office because of the anti-Semitic climate created by the union.
▶ 1:02:15Uh even though she was exercising her opt-out rights, Mr. Tobman, uh you helped litigate CWA v. Beck. Uh why is Beck insufficient today for Jewish employees and um those who for other reasons do not want to support their union's politics?
▶ 1:02:35Beck is inadequate, first of all, because many employees have no idea that it exists and unions have no incentive to tell them because if they find out, then the union gets less money. Second of all, look at what happened with UE at People filed Beck objections in 2004 and 2005, and the UE gave them financial disclosure from 2018 and 2019, five
▶ 1:03:05and six-year-old financial disclosure. So how are people supposed to know what the union is doing with their money when the union won't open up their books to tell them. And I just want to address this point about right to work that Congressman Courtney paints this as some kind of radical thing, right to work. It's called free choice in America.
▶ 1:03:28No one tells you what church to join, no one tells you to join the Elks Club or not join the Elks Club, no one tells you to join the AAA for your car. But federal law tells you join this union, this Hamas supporting terror organization or we'll get you fired. And I could show you hundreds of threats to get employees fired. That's American, okay? Free choice in America to join a private organization.
▶ 1:03:58Unions are not government. Unions are a private organization, and I think it's a disgrace that any American has to fund a private organization that they don't want to.
▶ 1:04:10And it's sometimes said that these unions have been chosen in a certification election, but many times that happened decades or even generations ago. Um care to comment?
▶ 1:04:22I think the last statistics I saw was that 90 some percent of employees have never voted for the union that represents them. And even if they have, I can tell you from experience trying to decertify a union is difficult if not
▶ 1:04:42And um I think Mr. Rubenstein alluded to this and you may know the law on this this I'm not I'm not heard of this phenomenon before of having to go to your union and apply for a religious exemption. What what's that all about?
▶ 1:04:57So what that's all about is under Title VII, you have to show that you have a sincerely held religious belief. But who do you go to to apply and prove that you have a sincerely held religious belief. The party that's forcing you to pay the dues. And that in in this case, it's either Cornell and or the union.
▶ 1:05:21The party that's taking your money. Well, thank you. I yield back. Our ranking member Scott is recognized for 5 minutes.
▶ 1:05:30Thank you and I thank all our witnesses for coming. Mr. McConnell, we've heard a lot about the right to work law and some of the things that people don't like about it. If you're in a right to work state and not join the union, didn't pay any dues, do you get the benefits of all of the benefits that have been achieved by the unions like higher pay, safer workplace, better benefits?
▶ 1:05:58Do you get individual Do you get individualized representation to the same degree as dues-paying members?
▶ 1:06:04That's correct.
▶ 1:06:06I don't hear any complaints about that.
▶ 1:06:08No. In fact, right now if Mr. Rubinstein had a grievance with Cornell University, the union that he is attacking would be compelled to defend him in that
▶ 1:06:22Thank you. Um If you find that we've said if you have found religious or racial discrimination in the union, you can go to the EEOC. Is
▶ 1:06:31That is correct.
▶ 1:06:33And um the funding in the Republican budgets have cut the EEOC.
▶ 1:06:39Yes, they have. now, anti-Semitism is a problem in society. Is it more or less of a problem in unions?
▶ 1:06:51I would say that it's less of a problem in unions because unions have long understood that anti-Semitism is a threat to the whole idea of a union.
▶ 1:06:59And is there Is there other problems with racism, Islamophobia, homophobia, gender-based discrimination in society?
▶ 1:07:07That is true and unions have understood that they needed to fight those. is that problem more or less than in
▶ 1:07:18I would say less. The union movement has been a force against all of those
▶ 1:07:23We're aware of gender and racial pay Are the pay differences uh more or less in unions or in the general public?
▶ 1:07:33They are less in unions.
▶ 1:07:35And that's because everybody gets equal pay for equal work in a union contract?
▶ 1:07:40Unions fight for their members on a basis of equality. we've heard about the uh religious Is there a similar exemption if you if a black person were to dis- decide that the union was run by racists, do they have a way to get out? they can go to the EEOC, but to my knowledge, not a similar way.
▶ 1:08:09Thank you. I yield back.
▶ 1:08:12The gentleman yields back. n- The chair next uh uh recognizes Mr. Fine for 5 minutes.
▶ 1:08:22Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And look, I want to start um by apologizing to those of you, particularly two of you on my left, you've had to deal with this. I understand what it's like to deal with anti-Semitism. I dealt with it my whole life. Ironically, you know, the institution I went to 35 years ago, where the problem is widespread today, it doesn't really exist today. But I'm also angry. I mean, what's clear is that Muslim terror has come to the United States and it exists in our universities.
▶ 1:08:48And I noted in your testimony, just to give a couple of interesting points about it before I get to my question, um Ms. Mann, you talked about the first example of pro-Muslim terror stuff on your in your institution on October the 13th. And Mr. Rubenstein, in your testimony, you talked about it on October 25th at Cornell. I read your statements before I got here. Um Israel did not send ground forces into Gaza until October the 27th.
▶ 1:09:15So, to be clear, the Muslim terrorists were focused through your institutions on on spewing their propaganda and hate before Israel had even responded. And that just shows you how the kind of evil that we are dealing with. The good news is, thanks to the chairman and others up here, we are willing to fight that fight. So, I have a few questions for you for the two of you. Ms. Mann, um you testified about how the union contributed to the culture in your workplace.
▶ 1:09:41Um could you tell us the the best is not the right word, the worst examples in the communication of anti-Semitic tropes or conspiracy theories in in the multitude of things that you've gone through?
▶ 1:09:55I would say that the posters that said from the river to the sea were definitely the worst of what I saw or
▶ 1:10:03How do you interpret from the river to the sea? What does that mean to you?
▶ 1:10:06Um to me, that means it's a call for the destruction of Israel, for the elimination of Israel, for the elimination of Jews. Um and I interpreted that as them calling for my removal from
▶ 1:10:21And by the way, you would not be wrong in having that view. That's exactly what it means. Because if you look at places where those folks have taken over, the best example, for example, is Bethlehem. When it was under Israeli control, it was 85% Christian, and now it is 10% today. So, that's a part of from the river to the sea that they have taken control of, and they have endeavored to effectively launch a genocide of those who are not like them. So, it's a it you've accurately described what's going on. Mr.
▶ 1:10:48Rubenstein, in your written testimony, you included an attachment, a petition that Cornell graduate students signed to express opposition to Cornell entering into a union shop agreement with the graduate student union. Half the students who signed the petition signed it anonymously. Um, they did not put they put their academic department, but they did not put their name. Um, why do you think so many students signed that petition anonymously?
▶ 1:11:16Yes, so I actually signed that petition anonymously myself in early 2024. The reason being after students began signing that petition, the union dispatched its agents to meet with friends, with colleagues of signatories in order to turn those closest to them against them. The union is engaging in this targeted personal harassment of anyone who publicly stands against them. Um, and many people simply did not feel comfortable exposing themselves to
▶ 1:11:44So, then an institution that wants to parade around talking about academic freedom and let's all, you know, peace, love, and talk, you're saying that graduate students, not like not like 18-year-old freshmen, but graduate students did not feel like they could put their own name on a petition without facing harassment from those behind Muslim terror.
▶ 1:12:05Um, Cornell cannot claim to support academic freedom when it let it lets its students be harassed for expressing their views um, and when it additionally forces students to support an ideological organization.
▶ 1:12:17So, we know we know why the unions do this. We've talked a lot about it today. Why do you think in your in your case, Mr. Rubenstein, why do you think Cornell puts up with it? I mean, why do they allow it?
▶ 1:12:27Um, Cornell knows that this is wrong. Uh, President Michael Kotlikoff actually put out a very strong statement against mandatory dues, which he described as a violation of academic freedom. Um, but ultimately Cornell is responsive to public pressure. After the union threatened to strike, President Kotlikoff reneged on his promises to protect us. Um, and I think that public pressure is the only thing that will change force Cornell to change course
▶ 1:12:50Well, public pressure or the law. I think this committee under Chair Walberg has made clear that we're coming for the universities that will not protect their Jewish students, and maybe Cornell will find themselves in your seat uh here in the not-too-distant future. I I don't know. But I again, I'm angry for you. Um I have two Jewish children, too. And uh and I know what it's like to go through what you all have gone through myself, having dealt with it my whole life.
▶ 1:13:14I'm sorry we have failed you to solve the problem, but but rest assured there are me and my colleagues who are determined to get to the bottom of it and put an end to this scourge. So, thank you for being here, and Mr. Chairman, I yield
▶ 1:13:24The gentleman yields back. The chair recognizes Ranking Member Desaulnier for 5 minutes.
▶ 1:13:33Actually, I would I'd defer to Mr. Owens uh and wait my turn.
▶ 1:13:37The chair recognizes Representative Owens for 5 minutes.
▶ 1:13:41Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate uh convening this uh hearing on union anti-Semitism, and I want to thank the witnesses for for coming here to testify. Uh I just want to start off by saying that Utah is a right-to-work state. It's also one of the most attractive states in the union uh because unions there know they have to compete for their people to pay them. If they are anti-Semitic as as or if they are anti-black or whatever, then they just don't they don't pay and they don't survive.
▶ 1:14:09So, that's a very good to bring very good thing to bring in the competition piece of this. Uh it is really disgusting that some unions are spending their time advancing anti-Semitic and anti-Israel priorities instead of addressing the immediate needs of their members. Imagine these same unions would have advocate for issues that actually impact the well-being of their members, all their members, instead of paying paying for the support of hateful leftist politicians or politics. Hope that these union leaders were watching and get the message.
▶ 1:14:38Do your Stop the anti-Semitic activity among your ranks. You're paid a very good salary to protect your members against You're failing to do so now, and your cowardly silence is deafening. So, let me just start off Mr. Mr. Tubman, I just want to ask you real quickly, I know you've been addressing this a little bit already.
▶ 1:14:58Uh the way it's set up right now, if there was a union that was um run by KKK supporters, uh the way it's set up right now, would I be forced, if I worked for that company, to pay these KKK uh folks to uh continue moving on? Is that the way it's set up at this point? Do I have a way of getting out of that?
▶ 1:15:19Well, that is the way that you would have to pay if you weren't in a right-to-work state. If you're in the 25-or-so states that have forced unionism, and you have a KKK union, you'll pay them or you'll be fired. Yes, you could try to exercise Beck rights. Yes, you might be able to try to exercise Title VII rights, but the bottom line is the default position is pay that union or you will be fired.
▶ 1:15:48And it's amazing that those who are pro-Hamas, who are nothing but KKK, uh feel they have the right to demand people paying them when they hate them. It's a It's amazing to see that we're having this in 2025, we're having this conversation. Uh Mr. Rubenstein, uh you've you've mentioned um requesting religious um accommodation. Can you kind of go through that process? You mentioned You mentioned that it was very frustrating, you couldn't get But what Tell me Tell us what that looked like for you to try to get something uh in this in this process done.
▶ 1:16:18Upon contract ratification, Cornell University promised that I could religiously object by doing no more than ticking a box on a form, and yet that form never materialized. And instead, I needed to beg union officials for permission to object by writing a highly personal letter detailing private information that's none of their business. And even after I did that, they demanded further intrusive information that they have absolutely no right to, at which point I decided that if I did not want to pay the union, I had no choice but to file legal charges against them.
▶ 1:16:48That is not the taking a box on a form that Cornell promised.
▶ 1:16:52Well, I'm going to going to give my time we give it back, but I just want to say this we're in 2025. I'm so thankful we have a president. We have a a body now that understands this and we're going to have the right people sitting in front of us explaining why allowing unions to hate their their folks and continue to survive how that how that happens in 2025. So, thank you guys for for being here before us and we're going to again continue to follow up on this on this kind of conversation big time and I get I yield back.
▶ 1:17:21I thank the gentleman for yielding and now I'll call on the ranking member Desaulnier for his questions.
▶ 1:17:27Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the witnesses and Ms. Mann and Mr. as a very pro-labor person and as a someone who is a member of the Teamsters and the AFS-CIO. I I'm appalled at what happened to you and I would love to discuss it individually if you'd care to. Mr. McCarten, I could spend more than 5 minutes. We'll talk later, but the history as Santayana said, those who forget history they're condemned to repeat it.
▶ 1:17:57This is a pattern. So, if we want to talk about unions as a countervailing institution, I'm particularly interested. I have a chart I use regularly at town halls reflecting what you said about union membership and opportunity in this country in the middle class. They track evenly.
▶ 1:18:11Um Samuel Gompers, I have talked about this just cuz as a someone who loves Teddy uh there Gompers showing Teddy Roosevelt the tenements not far from his houses as a son of privilege and that instance where Roosevelt switched from being a Harvard son of a um this caste system in America to understanding what it was like to live in those kind of environments and how that changed the American Union movement.
▶ 1:18:40So, talk a little bit about we could easily be having a hearing right now with all due respect about the business community and anti-Semitism in corporate boardrooms. But, let's talk about the context of why unions are important for equality.
▶ 1:18:54Could you give us a little framework on why it's so important and how people like Samuel Gompers, not just him, and you alluded to this in your opening you didn't allude to it, you mentioned in your opening comments that they were part of the fabric of creating a strong middle class and without them Jewish Americans and labor movement we wouldn't have had the American middle class that now is under attack again.
▶ 1:19:19We're at the second coming of the Gilded Age which created that moment of history in southern Manhattan when Gompers took Teddy Roosevelt to the cigar
▶ 1:19:31Thank you, Congressman. Yes, what unions did is they brought diverse workers together to give them bargaining power and that is what built the middle class that you're talking about. To do that they had to bring diverse people together to do it. They often faced being caricatured in the way we've heard as they attempted to do that. Um for example, the idea of unions as an outside agitator.
▶ 1:19:57Um Samuel Gompers was often called Um the idea that unions are somehow disconnected, that they are union You know, it's it's been a lot of energy talking about the United Electrical Workers here today. Mr. Rubinstein, Mr. Taubman together had 255 pages of testimony about the UE.
▶ 1:20:22Not once in those 255 pages did the name Carl Rosen appear. Who is Carl Rosen? He's the son of a Jewish worker. He leads that union now and he's being attacked here as a supporter of Hamas. I would urge anybody in this committee to go to the website of the United Electrical Workers and see if they endorse and embrace Hamas. Since Samuel Gompers' time, and you will find that they don't.
▶ 1:20:52Since Samuel Gompers' time, this is the kind of attack labor has faced. Mr. Taubman has told you for 43 years he's fought He says, "These unions are not your father's labor unions." He didn't like our father's labor unions either. He was fighting them 43 years ago. Then he might not have been talking about anti-Semitism, now he is.
▶ 1:21:17At the very moment that he's bringing these cases forward, he's also bringing another case forward at Cornell of a student who's not alleging anti-Semitism at all, but just does not believe that they should be in a graduate student union. Mr. Taubman at one point said that Samuel Gompers said unions ought to be voluntary.
▶ 1:21:39Samuel Gompers might have if you pull that out of context somewhere said something like that, but he fought his whole life for the idea of a union shop being a very American thing. That was what he was dedicated to.
▶ 1:21:55And so to portray him in this way, to caricature him, and to caricature so many of the people we've we've heard caricatured here, it breaks faith with that image you're talking about Congressman of Gompers enlightening Roosevelt. Um, we need a little bit more of that kind of enlightenment, I would say.
▶ 1:22:17I just conclude by the observation of somebody who's a proud Californian, the fourth largest economy in the world, that is very strongly union. Um, over 65% of the US GDP comes from states that aren't right-to-work states. You back.
▶ 1:22:36The gentleman yields. Now, I will, uh, call on Ms. Stefanik from New York for your questions.
▶ 1:22:43Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to direct my questions to Ms. Kyle uh, regarding the concerning rise of anti-Semitism in certain union organizations in New York state. Um, give me one moment here. Last week, a group of Jewish educators rallied outside their union headquarters in New York City.
▶ 1:23:09The members of the UFT, an affiliate of the of NYSUT, AFT, and the NEA, were rightfully upset that the union called an emergency meeting to vote to endorse candidate Zohran Mamdani. They felt Mr. Mamdani's support of the term, {quote} "globalize the intifada", is anti-Semitic and anti- Zionist, correctly. While the educators were at the rally, AFT President Randi Weingartner was at a rally right down the street with Mr. Mamdani. Considering the union members' opposition and the recent rise of national anti-Semitism, are unions required to make political
▶ 1:23:42No, unions are not required to make political endorsements, and it's inappropriate for them to do so.
▶ 1:23:47And Mr. Glenn Taubman, I wanted to ask your response to that.
▶ 1:23:51No, they're not required to, and in the current world that we live in, it's divisive and hateful to support Hamas and communist anti-Semites like Mr.
▶ 1:24:05Is there any mechanism today for Jewish teachers to opt out of paying dues to unions that support, uh, anti-Semitic causes? And if not, how is that remotely constitutional, Mr. Taubman?
▶ 1:24:17So, for public sector employees like the New York City teachers, they're covered by the Janus ruling, which says you have a right as a matter of free speech and association to not pay the union. But for private sector employees, if they're not in a right-to-work state, they can be forced to pay or be fired. And it would be nice to apply Janus to the private sector, where private people's constitutional rights could also be
▶ 1:24:45Do you believe that unions like the NEA and AFT are functioning as ideological enforcement arms rather than neutral labor advocates, especially in their treatment of pro-Israel educators?
▶ 1:24:59So, I've been at this for 43 years. When I started, I used to say unions were who did politics on the side. Now, they're a political powerhouse parties that do a little collective bargaining on the side. And that's what the NEA and the AFT and unions like that are all about.
▶ 1:25:22It's all about power and money to them, and the collective bargaining is a secondary thing to their political power and their money.
▶ 1:25:31Thank you. I yield back.
▶ 1:25:35General lady yields back, and I believe that is the conclusion of our questions. And uh I call on Mr. Sonya A to uh to give his closing comments.
▶ 1:25:51Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And again, I want to just uh say that we're I am happy to work with you if we really want to approach um anti-Semitism in any institution or field in a serious, serious way. And that is not to diminish the comments from Ms. Mann and Mr. Rubenstein right right today. Uh it's crucial to emphasize that combating anti-Semitism transcends or should transcend political divisions.
▶ 1:26:19It's moral imperative that it's a moral imperative that demands unwavering commitment from all Americans. However, as Dr. McCartin noted in his testimony, "The quote, the historical record clearly shows that the labor movement has been a bastion of opposition to anti-Semitism through its modern history and remains so today." Close quote.
▶ 1:26:40America's union movement not only uplifts workers who have been left behind, but it also gives all workers the power to higher wages, better benefits, and so safer workplaces. That benefits everybody in America, including employers.
▶ 1:26:57At the time of great economic inequality, where life is unaffordable for millions and millions of working families, we should be working to strengthen workers' union rights and ensure all their rights are made reality and make sure that cases that have been brought up today about anti-Semitism or hate in any institutions are dealt with directly and forcefully.
▶ 1:27:21Unfortunately, since returning to office, President Trump has attacked workers' rights to organize and undermined the agencies intended to protect them. And in closing, I just want to end with a quote from Samuel Gompers. You can tell I'm a fan. He said, "What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less More books and less arsenals. More learning and less vice.
▶ 1:27:51More leisure and less greed. More justice and less revenge." Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
▶ 1:28:00I thank the ranking member. with that, I will issue a closing statement as well. we are living in different times today. I appreciate the history of all the great history of our country. But unfortunately, our country is very divided today.
▶ 1:28:26from the standpoint of history, as I said earlier, this goes back thousands of years. The battle rages on. you know, God will deal with this. I want to thank our witnesses for sharing their experiences and perspectives on unions for meaning Today's hearing makes it clear that our labor laws must respect the choices of Jewish workers and workers who do not support their unions' actions and
▶ 1:28:58Unions are no longer a bastion of fighting discrimination. That is clear by this testimony today. No worker in America should have to pay dues to a union that celebrates violence against Jews or any other group and seeks the destruction of Israel to keep to get or keep their job. You have to be kidding me.
▶ 1:29:24As witnesses testified today, the NLRB should implement policies that allow employers to protect their Jewish at work and that free graduate students from the tyranny of anti-Semitic unions. Unions should not be allowed to place additional burdens on employees seeking exemption from funding the union's political or hateful activities.
▶ 1:29:47My state of Georgia is a right-to-work That means that you do not have to pay union jobs to hold your dues to to to hold your pay union dues to hold your Unions should be required to represent all their members fairly, even those who have different political or religious views. I look forward to working with the members of the subcommittee and the administration to advance the freedom of dignity of workers in America and shield Jewish workers from hate and harassment at work.
▶ 1:30:17And I will say this, this the pro-worker again, that has changed drastically. And uh we will continue to fight for workers and against anti-Semitic or any other hateful activity.
▶ 1:30:40Thank you and I yield to Thank you to our and again for your time and testimony in the subcommittee today. Uh without objection, there being no further business, this subcommittee stands adjourned. Thank you.