We, the undersigned rank-and-file union members, call on AFSCME and AFL-CIO leadership to RESCIND their support for warmongering and pro-genocide Democratic Congressman Adam Smith.
We call on AFSCME and the labor movement to instead support antiwar, pro-worker candidates like Kshama Sawant, who have a track record of fighting for the working class.
As rank-and-file union members, we are fed up with warmongering, billionaire-backed politicians — both Democrats and Republicans — who betray and attack workers while funding genocide and war.
For two years, nearly every Democratic and Republican Party member of Congress has backed the genocide in Gaza. According to independent estimates, the Israeli state has now slaughtered more than half a million Palestinians. This is a holocaust of the 21st century. The recent ceasefire agreement, which remains fragile, cannot erase over two years of this genocide, and does nothing to address the ongoing occupation of Palestinian lands or the oppression of Palestinians.
Virtually every major union, including AFSCME, and the AFL-CIO as a whole, has called for a ceasefire in Gaza. Many major unions have also called for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel. This includes the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), National Nurses United (NNU), the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), the National Education Association (NEA), the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) and the United Auto Workers (UAW), together representing over four million union members around the country.
Despite overwhelming opposition to the genocide among the rank and file of the labor movement, AFSCME international leadership has shamefully donated to the campaign of pro-genocide Democrat Adam Smith in Washington state.
In fact, AFSCME leadership has given a maxed-out donation of $5,000 to Adam Smith’s 2026 campaign. They have done this without even a vote of the union membership, either nationally or in Washington state.
Adam Smith is not just a foot soldier among the warmongers — he is a general. Smith was head of the House Armed Services Committee under Joe Biden, and as such is one of the U.S. politicians most responsible for the genocide. He personally approved tens of billions of dollars of military aid to Israel, and smeared antiwar protesters (including many union members) as “leftwing fascists” and demanded their arrest.
In his nearly 30 years in Congress, Adam Smith supported every war, including the Iraq War. His #1 campaign donor is AIPAC. He is bankrolled by weapons manufacturers, the for-profit health insurance industry, and pro-Trump billionaires like Palantir CEO Alex Karp. During Bill Clinton’s presidency, Smith voted to cut $150 billion from Medicare and Medicaid. He supported the bank bailouts in 2008 and voted to break the railroad strike in 2022.
Why is the leadership of AFSCME giving union members’ money to pro-genocide, anti-worker politicians?
AFSCME leadership gave this maxed-out contribution to Adam Smith despite Smith’s opponent being Kshama Sawant, an antiwar, pro-worker independent with a track record of winning victories for working people.
Kshama Sawant was the socialist on the Seattle City Council for ten years. During that time and since, she has gone to war for working people. After being elected in 2013, she launched the 15 Now movement and won the nation’s first $15/hour minimum wage. She fought for inflation adjustments, which means that Seattle’s minimum wage will go up again in January 2026, to $21.30, the highest in the nation.
Kshama won historic renters’ rights like the $10/month cap on late rent fees, a first-in-the-nation ban on winter evictions, and six months’ notice of rent increases. She won the Amazon Tax for affordable housing, free abortion by taxing the rich, and the strongest resolution in the country calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. She took only the average workers’ wage, donating the rest of her six-figure salary to strike funds, union organizing drives, and social movements.
Now Kshama is running an independent campaign for Congress against Adam Smith. She is calling for an end to the genocide in Gaza, an end to U.S. military aid to Israel, and an end to the occupation. She is calling to stop the deportations, shut down the detention centers, and shut down ICE. She is demanding free healthcare for all by taxing the rich, national rent control, and a mass expansion of social housing. She has committed, like in previous elections, to take only the average wage of a worker if elected.
There is no excuse for AFSCME leadership to support a pro-genocide, anti-worker Democrat over an antiwar, pro-worker independent with a track record of winning, like Kshama Sawant.
We demand that AFSCME leadership immediately rescind their support for Adam Smith, and all other pro-genocide politicians around the country, and support anti-genocide, pro-worker candidates like Kshama Sawant instead.
Signed (in a personal capacity),