Letter to United Auto Worker Union Concerning Caterpillar Boycott
Industrial Workers of the World
Pensacola General Membership Branch
P.O. Box 12311
Pensacola, FL 32591-2311
March 31, 2005
Dear UAW members employed by Caterpillar:
You may already be aware of many voices joining the campaign urging Caterpillar to stop selling equipment to Israel. The next shareholders’ meeting is in Chicago on April 13th; this has been designated as a Day of Action against Caterpillar. We have enclosed a copy of the letter we recently sent to Caterpillar CEO James W. Owens and members of the board of directors. We want to assure you that our outrage is directed towards management, not the rank and file workers employed by Caterpillar. If the members of your local are not already familiar with Caterpillar’s role in the destruction of homes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, we urge you to read the enclosed materials. For more information, see the website www.catdestroyshomes.org.
Please consider the purposes for which the products of your labor are used. In hurricane-ravaged Pensacola, we see Caterpillar dozers everywhere these days, put to use for our community’s recovery. But the Israeli army is using Caterpillar equipment to destroy homes, to uproot agricultural crops, and to build a wall to segregate people from one another.
A corporation is large and impersonal, and so is a country. But the real value of a corporation is its workers; and the strength of a country is its people. As workers, we have more in common with the people living in Palestine whose homes and lives are under siege, than we do with managers or politicians. Please think about what you can do to influence Caterpillar to take responsibility for ensuring the equipment you make is not misused to destroy peoples’ homes and livelihoods.
In solidarity,
Industrial Workers of the World
Pensacola General Membership Branch
