On Oct. 31 St. Louis Alderman Rasheen Aldridge introduced a resolution calling on the city’s public employee pension fund to divest from Boeing and other defense firms that have supplied weapons to Israel. The alderman argued that any pension funds that might facilitate the continued bloodshed and war crimes in Gaza would violate the intent of the city’s ceasefire resolution that was passed over two years earlier. Aldridge said, “We want ethical investments. We don’t want blood on our hands.”
Promoting this resolution is the local Not Another Nickel campaign which estimates that the city pension fund has $8 million invested in defense contractors including Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and RTX (formerly known as Raytheon). Not Another Nickel has shown how Boeing weapon systems have been used for war crimes and genocide in Gaza. Other local organizations supporting the resolution include Progressive Jews of St. Louis; St. Louis Jewish Voice for Peace; St Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee; St. Louis Catholic Worker, and others.
