Last week, the delegate assembly of the Professional Staff Congress union, which represents 30,000 workers at CUNY, voted to pass a resolution to oppose military aggression against Venezuela. Workers in the United States have to take up the fight against imperialism from within the belly of the beast — and as educators, we need to be on the front lines of that fight.

In the past year, the United Federation of Teachers has passed several important resolutions — from forming committees to defend immigrant communities to protecting NYC public students from ICE detention to defending ongoing LGBTQIA+ advocacy to taking up a “Hands Off Our Schools” campaign.

It’s time for the UFT to follow the lead of the members of PSC-CUNY in voting to denounce the U.S. military aggression on Venezuela and to commit to mobilizing against imperialist war on Latin America and the Caribbean.

Part of the resolution was that “the PSC will bring this resolution forward for consideration by our state affiliate NYSUT, and our national affiliate the AFT, in order to help build a broad labor movement that opposes U.S. intervention in Venezuela.” As a sister union of PSC-CUNY under the American Federation of Teachers, we need to push our union to take a stand against imperialist aggression that Trump has been escalating over the course of his second term. As one of the largest unions in the United States, this could catalyze other major unions to take a stand as well.

As the PSC statement notes, U.S. militarization, which paves the way for even greater attacks on the Venezuelan working class and youth, also diverts public funds away from public systems like CUNY, where they are desperately needed. This is also true for New York City public schools, which serve the children of the working class of New York City, in which over 20 percent of the population have Caribbean roots. The Trump administration has been systematically defunding public education and the Senate has just approved Trump’s $901 billion record military budget for 2026. While the government stuffs its coffers for war, it is cutting billions of dollars in federal education funding,  harming the most marginalized students. It is deploying ICE to attack immigrant families, including multiple NYC public school students currently in detention, even a 6-year-old student at P.S. 166Q who has been kidnapped by ICE and separated from his father. Standing against imperialist aggression on Venezuela has everything to do with fighting ICE and cuts on public services.

Over the past year, the U.S. has increased its military presence in the region to nearly 15,000 troops as part of “Operation Southern Spear.” Since September, the U.S. military has struck at least 28 civilian vessels and killed over 100 people in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean. In early December, Trump implemented a blockade and has been seizing sanctioned oil tankers. Cloaked in “war on drugs” rhetoric, these attacks have the clear intent of regime change and securing control over the oil resources of the Caribbean and Latin America.

The Venezuelan working class and oppressed will bear the most brutal consequences of this blockade, who face not only an acute economic and social crisis due to imperialist sanctions and increasing military attacks, but also repression by the Maduro government. As workers in the epicenter of imperialism, we must stand in complete solidarity with our working-class siblings in Venezuela and Latin America and their right to self-determination in the face of these attacks.

But we can’t stop at resolutions that do not go beyond words. PSC-CUNY, the UFT, our parent union, the AFT and beyond need to use our power as workers to reject these imperialist advances that hurt workers and youth abroad. Workers and students in Italy who organized a general strike for Palestine have been leading the way in showing how the working class can play a central role in fighting against imperialism.

Our struggles are connected; our fight for our class siblings abroad is inextricably linked to our fight against right-wing attacks against immigrants, trans folks workers, and students in our own city. This means we also have to fight the anti-worker Taylor Law that defangs the NYC public sector labor movement by telling us it is illegal to go on strike. By breaking these chains on the working class — through strike power — we can actually wage a serious fight to win the demands of the resolutions that we’ve passed this year and fight for more.

From our unions and our schools, we must speak out loudly as educators against Trump’s aggression, and to organize towards the kind of strike action that can grind the gears of U.S. imperialism to a halt. Money for healthcare and education, not for war and militarization!

The post Educators Must Mobilize Against Imperialist Attacks on Venezuela appeared first on Left Voice.

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