Breads Bakery Union Says Chain Forced Workers ‘To Support Genocide’ by Fundraising for Israeli Paramedics After October 7

The activist employees unionizing against a beloved Jewish boulangerie in New York City, Breads Bakery, say their campaign to force the chain to cut ties with Israel was sparked in part by the company’s fundraisers for Israeli paramedics and emergency services after Hamas’s October 7 massacre.The union, which first emerged in January, released a statement on social media Tuesday reiterating its demand that the bakery sever all ties with the Jewish state, including halting Israeli imports and discontinuing what it called “Zionist themed goods.”The union justified its demands by lamenting that the company forced employees to “use our labor to support genocide and the occupation of Palestine.” As evidence, it cited a campaign launched in the weeks following October 7, 2023, in which the bakery sold heart-shaped challahs and donated the proceeds to Israel’s national emergency responder, Magen David Adom.Magen David Adom volunteers were among the first on the scene of the October 7 attacks, with many arriving in active war zones. The organization, run primarily by volunteers, provides pre-hospital care and blood services to all communities, including Druze villages and Palestinian towns. The union, nonetheless, denounced the campaign as evidence that management had “coerced workers to participate in fundraisers supporting the IDF.”The union also assailed the bakery for joining a fundraising gala for the American Friends of Unit 669, a nonprofit that supports the Israeli Air Force’s combat search and rescue unit. Unit 669 rescues and treats both soldiers and civilians in life-threatening situations, regardless of religion or nationality. During the war in Gaza, Unit 669 was called in to rescue Palestinians from Hamas opposition groups injured during search operations in the strip. The unit evacuated them to Israeli hospitals for treatment.“It’s scary to learn that one’s hands are being used to produce for genocide, that one’s boss could compel them to participate in a political project they had no intention of participating in simply by working at a bakery,” the union wrote. It pledged not “to back down on any of our demands” and expressed solidarity “with every worker who stands up against their bosses, from the Hudson River to the militarized waves that crash against Gaza’s shores.”Breads Bakery, which began with a location in Tel Aviv and now operates six outposts in New York City, is run by chief executive Yonatan Floman and founder Gadi Peleg, both Israeli Jews. The bakery specializes in Jewish and Israeli confections like babka, rugelach, challah, and bourekas.The union is represented by the United Auto Workers and claims to have the support of more than 30 percent of the bakery’s 275 employees. Beyond its boycott demands, the union is also pressing for baseline hourly wage increases, holiday and busy-season pay, and automatic raises after a set period of employment.One of the key figures behind the campaign is a doctoral student at Columbia University, Johannah King-Slutzky, who drew attention in April 2024 for demanding “humanitarian aid” for anti-Israel student activists who violently occupied a campus building. Ms. King-Slutzky has never worked at Breads. The bakery’s management has not commented further beyond its original statement: “We make babka; we don’t engage in politics. We celebrate peace and embrace people of all cultures and beliefs. We’ve always been a workplace where people of all backgrounds and viewpoints can come together around a common purpose, sharing in the joy and love of a bakery, and we find it troubling that divisive political issues are being introduced into our workplace.”Under federal law, a union must secure the backing of at least 30 percent of workers to petition the National Labor Relations Board for an election. But even if the union clears that threshold, the bakery has no legal obligation to negotiate on Israel-related demands.

Breads Bakery Union Says Chain Forced Workers ‘To Support Genocide’ by Fundraising for Israeli Paramedics After October 7

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