By Ross Kirshenbaum
This article was originally published by Truthout
Workers across the US are demanding divestment from firms that profit from weapons and surveillance. I’m one of them.
Last month, I joined more than 45 bus drivers, teachers, and government workers to testify before the Washington State Investment Board, demanding responsible investment of our pension funds. I arrived grateful to be surrounded by fellow pensioners who were grounded in a shared commitment to fighting for investments that reflect our values.
Quickly it became clear that the Washington State Investment Board was going to strictly enforce the 45-person speaker limit that it implemented last year after beneficiaries began regularly demanding divestment at their meetings. This meant that my friend, a Palestinian member of my union who had taken off the day to testify, was barred from speaking. I had a minute to speak and yielded my time to him. We would not allow their bureaucratic procedures to silence us. We spoke out because we believe our state’s investments should earn money for our retirement funds without compromising our values.
This mobilization of beneficiaries began with Washington’s Cut Ties with Genocide campaign, launched by Washington for Peace and Justice and Jewish Voice for Peace Seattle. Sitting in an early meeting of the campaign, I was heartbroken to learn that the Washington State Investment Board invests my pension money into companies that enable genocide abroad, surveil and warehouse my neighbors, and contribute to climate chaos around the world. When I began my career as a bus driver in 2016, I was proud to have a pension. Now I felt like my pension was tainted. I could see clearly that my future financial stability was built on the destruction of other people’s futures.
What are these harmful investments? The Washington State Investment Board has invested over $204 million in Lockheed Martin, one of the world’s leading weapons manufacturers. Lockheed Martin produces the F-35 fighter jets that have been crucial to the Israeli military’s genocide in Gaza. These jets have the capacity to carry and detonate 2,000-pound bombs — bombs that destroy whole families, buildings, and neighborhoods in Gaza, leaving behind craters in the earth. In just one horrifying example from 2024, the Israeli military used F-35 jets to drop three 2,000-pound bombs on an Israeli designated “safe zone” in Khan Younis, killing 90 Palestinians and injuring hundreds.
The Washington State Investment Board has also invested more than $73 million in Palantir, a secretive data and AI company whose technology enables mass surveillance in the U.S. and across the world. In March, immediately after the horrifying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) occupation of Minneapolis, the ACLU reported that Palantir technologies “form the backbone for ICE’s mass deportation regime.” Palantir’s leaders embrace surveillance and provide essential data to Donald Trump’s fascist forces. When the Washington State Investment Board invests in these companies, us pensioners are conscripted into complicity with Israel’s genocide against Palestinians, the mass deportations of our neighbors, and global climate devastation.
As a pension beneficiary, I care deeply about ensuring that our state’s public investments are both moral and profitable. The Washington State Investment Board manages over $230 billion in assets, which include retirement funds of public employee pensions for over 600,000 workers like me. Studies show that ethical investing can generate about the same or even more income than investing in war profiteers and human rights abusers.
We in Washington are not alone in our call: We’re part of a movement across the country of pensioners demanding that our retirement stop enabling human rights violations.
In Maryland, the Baltimore Teachers Union has joined community allies to demand an end to the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System’s investment in Israel Bonds.
Pensioners in Maine have been involved in a legislative push to get Maine’s state pension fund to divest from corporations and countries enabling severe human rights violations — companies like Lockheed Martin.
Union members in New Jersey are calling for their pension fund to divest from Palantir. Workers and retirees across New York State have been tirelessly advocating for their pension funds to be divested from Israel Bonds as well. And just this week, in a victory for workers of conscience, the New York City comptroller announced he would not reinvest city funds in Israel bonds.
Pension workers campaigning for divestment from Israel Bonds, weapons manufacturers, and other harmful corporations are an essential front in our movements for collective liberation. We are also part of a rich lineage of public sector employees and retirees organizing for human rights. In the movement against South African apartheid, rank-and-file activists with unions such as the UAW and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) joined community members to demand their pension funds divest from companies doing business with apartheid South Africa.
We believe our campaign is winnable because we have seen the success of divestment campaigns throughout history and across the country, and because the Cut Ties With Genocide campaign already won a major victory this year. In March, the Washington State Treasurer’s Office sold over $62 million in Caterpillar bonds — cutting ties with one of the corporations profiting from Israel’s violence against Palestinians. Caterpillar manufactures bulldozers that the Israeli military uses to destroy homes in the Occupied West Bank as part of a broader campaign of ethnic cleansing. This was a very significant victory for many of us in Washington State, especially because the Israeli military used a Caterpillar bulldozer to murder Rachel Corrie, an activist from Olympia, Washington, more than 23 years ago. With all those who came before us at our backs — like Rachel, like the pensioners that fought for divestment from South African apartheid — we will continue this struggle for divestment.
It was especially meaningful to me that I testified before the Washington State Investment Board during the most sacred week of the year in the Jewish tradition — the Days of Awe between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, a sacred time for reflection and recommitment. I spoke out as a beneficiary of the Washington State pension fund, but also as an American Jew who is vehemently against this genocide being waged with my pension money and in my name. For nearly three years we have watched the Israeli military murder families, students, and journalists. We have watched them destroy hospitals, universities, and waterways. Each of us has the responsibility to do what we can in our communities to stop this genocide. It is through relentless collective action that I believe we can build a more just future for all of us.
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