A chief negotiator for the Service Employees International Union's national office who accused Israel of committing "genocide" protested the Jewish state alongside his radical wife and violent communist son, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.
Larry Alcoff, a 20-year veteran of the SEIU who has led high-profile labor negotiations in Chicago and Washington, D.C., has been an outspoken opponent of Israel on social media since Hamas's Oct. 7 massacre. Alcoff was joined by his wife Linda and son Jose at an Oct. 28 pro-Palestinian march that forced the temporary closure of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City. During the march, Linda Alcoff wore a sticker reading, "Zionist donors and trustees, hands off our universities." Jose Alcoff, a known communist and leader of the radical Antifa movement, has advocated for the violent overthrow of the government and was charged with felony assault in 2019.
The Alcoffs have plenty of allies within the SEIU. Several of the labor union's leaders expressed solidarity with Hamas in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks, the Wall Street Journal reported. And Starbucks Workers United, an SEIU affiliate, expressed "Solidarity with Palestine" in a deleted social media post showing Hamas bulldozers that broke into Israeli territory on Oct. 7. Starbucks threatened the union with legal action following a Free Beacon report on the union's anti-Israel rhetoric.
SEIU Connecticut State Council executive director Kooper Caraway tendered his resignation shortly after saying during a protest in Connecticut that corporate America and the federal government "want us to think [Hamas] are enemies of working class people."
"But they are not," Caraway said. "Our comrades are in Gaza," he added as he denounced capitalism.
The SEIU said in a statement announcing Caraway's resignation that it "unequivocally condemns the horrific terrorist attack by Hamas." But the union has remained silent on Larry Alcoff's anti-Israel activism.
Alcoff urged his followers to donate to Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) to help her efforts to put a stop to Israel's campaign of "ethnic cleansing and genocide." He also attacked Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) for supporting Israel.
"Amazing that Schumer and Hakim [sic] Jeffries stand on a stage in solidarity with rightwing Christian Nationalists in support of Israeli occupation and genocide against the Palestinian people," Alcoff wrote in a Nov. 16 Facebook post.
Alcoff is one of the highest-paid employees at the SEIU's national office, earning a total of $171,000 in 2022, according to Department of Labor records. He is a close ally of SEIU International president Mary Kay Henry, who in April 2022 appointed him to serve as deputy trustee of SEIU Healthcare Michigan.
Linda Alcoff, a professor of philosophy at New York's Hunter College, praised her husband in a 2006 book for imparting valuable lessons on "class struggle, identity, and community."
The Alcoff matriarch also takes pride in her son's radical tendencies, fondly reminiscing in a now-deleted December 2016 Facebook post that as teenagers, Jose and his brother requested "duct tape, bulk cutters [sic], gas masks," and spray paint for Christmas.
"I was a good Mom," she wrote. "One Christmas I wrapped up a bull horn and put it under the tree. Those days may be returning. Happy holidays guys."
Jose Alcoff has advocated on social media for the overthrow of the federal government and capitalism and earned the moniker of "King Communist" during the Occupy Wall Street Protests in 2011, the Daily Caller reported. He later rose to prominence as a leader in the Washington, D.C., Antifa movement during the Trump administration.
"You can't reform out the elements of a system," Alcoff wrote in a January 2016 tweet through his pseudonymous account, @sabokitty. "You need to break with it, to destroy it. To plant seeds for another world. #ResistCapitalism." He said in another post that he wanted to join a "conspiracy to destroy the United States from within."
Alcoff was charged with several felonies in early 2019 for allegedly hurling racial slurs while he assaulted two Mexican-American Marines, who he thought were members of the Proud Boys. The charges were dropped in 2022 after he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct.
Prior to his arrest, Jose Alcoff worked at Americans for Financial Reform as a payday loan campaign manager. In that capacity, he was pictured alongside prominent Democratic lawmakers, including Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.), advocating reforms to rein in predatory loan practices.
The SEIU and members of the Alcoff family did not respond to requests for comment.