On Saturday, July 26, 2025, the “Handala” Freedom Flotilla, with an international delegation of 19 humanitarians and two journalists, was illegally and unjustly kidnapped by the Israeli government. Among the humanitarians was courageous labor leader Chris Smalls, founder of the Amazon Labor Union.  

As a father, a worker, and a compassionate organizer, Chris Smalls bravely volunteered to board a flotilla that departed from Gallipoli, Italy, on July 20, 2025. The boat was filled with baby formula, food, and medical supplies. The peaceful vessel was captured by the Israeli government six days into its voyage in international waters, just 40 nautical miles away from the starving people in Gaza who are in desperate need of aid. 

CFA is a racial and social justice union made up of 29,000 educators in the California State University system. Our members are deeply committed to and issued several resolutions calling for an end to the genocide in Palestine. The famine engineered by the Israeli government against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip is one of the most horrifying crimes against humanity that the world has ever seen. For more than 21 months, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been injured or killed by the Israeli Occupation Forces. Palestinians surviving in Gaza have been forcibly contained in the region by militarized borders, denied food, and the food aid that has made it through is often contaminated or poisoned. Children and people are dying by the minute. 

Chris Smalls is our brother in labor. He has courageously taken on seemingly insurmountable enemies, defeating Jeff Bezos — the richest man in the world in 2020, when, as a warehouse worker, with no formal education or training, formed the Amazon Labor Union. He has been one of the most powerful voices in labor. Smalls was with CFA as recently as April of this year, as a keynote speaker at our Spring Assembly, challenging us to deepen our commitment to global working-class power.   

As a union, we are demanding: 

1. The immediate release of Chris Smalls and all captured activists.  

2. The immediate end to the engineered famine and deliberate starving of the people in Gaza.  

3. An end to labor complicity with genocide. 

4. An immediate end to all US military aid to Israel.

We are asking all workers and people who believe in working class power to: 

1. Call the State Department and demand the release of all those captured on the Freedom Flotilla.  

2. Email your Congressmembers asking them to demand the release of our people.  

3. Oppose the US government’s financial, political, and military intervention in and backing of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and occupation of Palestine. 

4. Pass resolutions and make official statements calling for an end to the genocide in Palestine.  

5. Raise awareness to the famine and genocide by making posts, engaging in political education, and disrupting spaces of complicity. 

As educators, we will share information and encourage our colleagues, students, community, and stakeholders to take actions that reflect the urgency of this time and the challenges that we are facing. We invite our labor siblings to join this vital work.  

In solidarity,

Melina Abdullah, CFA Political Action and Legislative Committee Chair
Margarita Berta-Ávila, CFA President
Michelle Ramos Pellicia, CFA Vice President
Loren Cannon, CFA Secretary
Vang Vang, CFA Treasurer
Lisa Kawamura, CFA Associate Vice President, North
Tracey Salisbury, CFA Associate Vice President, South
Meghan O’Donnell, CFA Associate Vice President, Lecturers, North
Elaine Bernal, CFA Associate Vice President, Lecturers, South
Chris Cox, CFA Associate Vice President, Racial and Social Justice, North
Preeti Sharma, Associate Vice President, Racial and Social Justice, South

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