A House panel is set to launch a high-profile investigation into claims that U.S. labor unions are shielding antisemitic behavior in workplaces and on college campuses, rather than defending Jewish members.

The House Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions will convene a Sept. 9 hearing in the Rayburn Office Building titled “Unmasking Union Antisemitism.” Witnesses will include attorneys Kyle Koeppel Mann of the New York Legal Assistance Group and Glenn Taubman of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Cornell University doctoral candidate David Rubinstein, and Joseph McCartin, professor at Georgetown University and head of its Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.

According to a spokesman for the House Committee on Education and Workforce, the hearing will examine how unions are “escalating antisemitic discrimination by protecting antisemitic workers instead of protecting Jewish ones.”

“Unions are defending students who disrupt campus proceedings or make Jewish students feel unsafe, instead of calling out or condemning antisemitic behavior,” the spokesman said. “Unions have also filed lawsuits against employers who try to ban antisemitic rhetoric in the workplace.”

“Labor laws meant to protect organizing efforts are now being warped to extend protections to non-union related activities and advance antisemitic harassment,” the spokesman added.

The committee’s press secretary, Sara Robertson, stressed that the hearing is designed to show that antisemitism is not confined to higher education.

“It has infected workplaces, and unions are actively defending these behaviors while forcing Jewish members to pay dues,” Robertson said.

The Sept. 9 session is expected to spotlight not only alleged failures by unions to address antisemitic conduct, but also broader questions about how federal labor protections intersect with the nation’s efforts to combat hate in schools, workplaces, and public life.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)