Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, HOUSE NEWS—Chairman of Education and Workforce Committee’s HELP subcommittee accuses unions of antisemitic behavior in hearing, (Sep 12, 2025)

By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.

During the hearing, however, at least one witness—a labor historian—explained that the examples offered were cherry-picked, arguing that “the record clearly contains little evidence that organized labor condones or harbors anti-Semitism.”

This week, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions, part of the Education and Workforce Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, Rick Allen (R-GA), held a hearing entitled “Unmasking Union Antisemitism,” in which he and other Republican House members claimed that there are unions engaging in antisemitic behaviors.

Chairman Allen stated: “Today we will hear about how unions like the United Electrical Workers and a United Auto Workers affiliate, A Better NYLAG, would rather defend union members who engage in disruptive, discriminatory, and antisemitic behavior than fulfill their duty to fairly represent all the workers they represent. We will hear today about how their unions are selling them down the river, even though Jewish workers have supported unions and been leaders in the labor movement for generations.”

Supporting witnesses included Ms. Kyle Koeppel Mann, a Senior Staff Attorney at the New York Legal Assistance Group; Mr. David Rubinstein, Ph.D. candidate in the History department at Cornell; and Mr. Glenn Taubman, a staff attorney with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.

NYLAG situation. Ms. Mann reported that she and several of her Jewish colleagues who work for the New York Legal Assistance Group have filed complaints with the NLRB and the EEOC against A Better NYLAG (ABN), NYLAG’s chapter of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys based on what they allege is the union’s “active opposition to NYLAG’s effort to remedy an anti-Semitic working environment” following news of an attack in southern Israel in October 2023. “We never 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,” she stated.

She noted that she had voted to unionize and that she is not anti-union. However, she rejected her union membership after the union’s actions started, she contends.

Other witnesses. Mr. Rubenstein described his experience with the Cornell Graduate Student Union. He argued that “Congress should clarify that PhD students are students—not workers subject to forced union dues.”

Mr. Taubman, who has been practicing labor and constitutional law for over 43 years with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, testified to his belief that “Federal labor law must be reformed and reimagined to better protect all employees’ individual liberty and safeguard individual employees’ free choice concerning unionization, especially in the face of today’s blatant union antisemitism.”

Unions are democratic. The final witness—a labor historian—offered a different viewpoint. Dr. Joseph McCartin, a Professor of History at Georgetown University who has studied organized labor for over 30 years currently serves as Executive Director of the university’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor & the Working Poor, testified about the “character of the American labor movement, Jewish members’ important place in its history, and about how the movement, historically wrestled with and addressed such issues as racism, sexism, and of course anti-Semitism.”

McCartin explained, “Labor 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.” He also noted that unions are democratic in nature. “Organized labor is arguably the nation’s oldest and most effective democracy movement, seeking not only a democratic voice for workers in their workplaces, but to deepen democracy beyond the workplace.” McCartin summarized his points this way: “Labor does not create solidarity by enforcing a uniformity of opinion in its ranks. Rather the movement should be evaluated on the basis of its policies. In that regard, the record clearly contains little evidence that organized labor condones or harbors anti-Semitism.”

What about other discrimination? Ranking Member Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA) also spoke in the hearing, and while he agreed that more should be done to combat anti-Semitism, he also voiced his agreement with an observation about the committee’s failure to cover other issues, lamenting that “while we have had many hearings on anti-Semitism, we have not had one addressing racism, xenophobia, sexism, Islamophobia, or similar harms affecting workers and student groups.”

He also echoed Dr. McCartin’s testimony regarding the prominent role of Jewish labor leaders in American history and the key role unions have played for workers. “Throughout history, unions have been pivotal in advancing the conditions and rights of workers, from establishing the five-day work week to championing minimum wage laws, banning child labor, and protecting workers from being maimed and killed at work. The labor movement has been instrumental in building and sustaining America’s middle class. The Labor movement created the American middle class. Which is now under relentless attack.”

DeSaulnier echoed an observation that union-represented workers have the right to resign from membership, to object to dues beyond representational activities, and to request a religious accommodation for nonpayment of dues.

Representatives of the accused unions appeared to be absent. However, the United Electrical Workers union, called out specifically by Rep. Scott, has responded to similar accusations of anti-Semitism in the past, for example stating on August 11, 2024, “In the face of rising working-class militancy, anti-union forces have launched various legal attacks on the labor movement, using the false claim that union involvement in protests demanding a ceasefire in Gaza is somehow ‘anti-Semitic.’” They added: “More broadly, we condemn the cynical misuse of claims of anti-Semitism to attack union security and exclusive representation.”

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