[Mayworks-org] 'Labour for Palestine', April 18, 2007

[The Bullet]

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A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 48... April 18, 2007

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Labour for Palestine: Can We Build the BDS Campaign?

Herman Rosenfeld

Just less than a year ago in May 2006, the Canadian Union of Public
Employees (CUPE) Ontario unanimously passed in convention its
pathbreaking Resolution 50 in support for the global campaign against
Israeli apartheid. The resolution called on the union to educate its
members on the apartheid nature of the Israeli state. It also mandated
that education be undertaken on Canadian political and economic
support for these practices. CUPE Ontario would also participate in
the international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS)
against Israel until the realization of Palestinian self-determination
and the right of return of Palestinian refugees.

The Palestinian rights of self-determination, and the general
economic condition of Palestinian workers, are important struggles for
the North American labour movement. In this context, it is necessary
to make an assessment where the union movement is at on Palestine, why
that is the case, why it is important to struggle to change the labour
movement's position, and what are some things we can do inside the
North American and Canadian labour movements to move the struggle
ahead.

Unions and American Imperialism

First, we must recognize that while there are some positive positions
taken on paper, such as some of the Canadian Labour Congress
statements against the war in Afghanistan or in defence of Venezuelan
democracy, there is no real engagement of the union movement today
against American imperialism. Needless to say, on the issue of
Palestine there are no solid formal positions, apart from the CUPE
resolution, let alone participation in the movement.

The union movement in Canada has more or less staked out official
positions that are critical of the role of the United States: the
continuous efforts to sponsor trade liberalization and neoliberalism;
the unilateral push to use military force to push forward that agenda
and the continuous efforts for integration between the U.S. and
Canadian ruling classes. There is no real effort to build a movement
around any of these issues. Unions are missing, for example, from the
anti-war movement: they might help fund activities of the peace
movement, but union memberships are not there on the ground. There is
neither regular union education nor conscious use of union resources
to train and develop the corps of activists necessary to build a mass
movement.

Compare these dog days of union mobilization to the time when they
actively did build movements. Those who participated in the Days of
Action general strikes in Ontario and the anti-globalization
demonstrations across North America saw the massive participation of
labour. This was the result of internal education and mobilization.

On the issue of Palestine, political education and mobilization of
memberships are even worse. Many unions, particularly in Canada, give
official support for Palestinian rights and most unions lined up to
protest the massive attacks on Lebanese civilians in the Israeli
aggression of last year. Most unions oppose the Israeli apartheid
wall, and the continued Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. Most
call for a negotiated peace that recognizes the national rights of
Palestinians in some form. Many even call for an end to the boycott
and support a continuation of aid to Palestinian institutions.

Except for the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), there was mostly silence
in response to CUPE-Ontario's Resolution 50. CAW didn't respond as a
union, but its president, Buzz Hargrove, spoke out strongly against
the resolution. The rest of the union's leadership remained silent,
and so has almost all of the Canadian union leadership (with positions
in the U.S. union movement generally even worse).

There is deep reluctance among union leaderships to step outside the
prevailing North American consensus to call Israeli oppression a
system of apartheid. There is a refusal to challenge openly Israel as
an aggressor state that continues to oppress the Palestinian people,
and the role Israel plays as an arm of western imperialism in the
Middle East. Union leaderships still too often want to appear to be
"even handed" in the Israel-Palestine conflict. There is no effort to
build or support a movement to pressure Israel to change.

The specificity of the union position on Palestine can be posed
another way. In many areas of political struggle today, the union
movement takes a very good position but fails to follow up the talk
with political mobilization. But on Palestine, unions both talk and
act in a way that is inconsistent with the principles of international
solidarity.

Challenging Zionism in the Union Movement

The union movement responds this way partially through ignorance and
concerns that challenging Zionist ideas and power reinforces
anti-Semitism. It is partially rooted in the traditions of a kind of
liberal and humanitarian internationalism that has, for years,
characterized the Canadian trade union foreign policy establishment.
There has long been a lack of a truly independent working class
perspective of what Canada's international policies could and should
be. The Canadian union movement still tends to invoke a golden age of
peacekeeping before the Bush 'war on terror' and the alliances with
political elites on international 'human rights' issues. There is
little in the way of an alternate vision of the world order outside of
U.S. and Western hegemony. This would require challenging the
relationship of Canadian ruling classes to the U.S., and their own
interests in imperialist agendas, and the political projects of
globalization and neoliberalism that has established the current world
order and sought rollback union power.

The trade union leadership tends to avoid taking on the McCarthyism
of the Zionist lobby in Canada. The actions of the lobby can be seen
in the intimidation of the Ontario Secondary Schools Teachers
Federation, both the general union leadership and specific activists,
as solidarity activists tried to push forward resolutions on the
Israel BDS campaign. The hegemony of the Zionist establishment over
most of the institutions in the Jewish community - although there are
some new organizations forming - scares many union leaders away. Some
union people - among who are included a number of people who are
leading key activist campaign - do not want to "turn off" those who
might not understand the issues of Zionism (with its particular
nationalism and project for the colonial settlement of Palestine) and
Palestinian rights.

This failure inside the labour movement speaks more generally to the
lack of a cross-union network of socialist activists struggling across
a range of issues. Such a network is necessary to root the Palestinian
struggle - along with other solidarity struggles - inside the heart
and soul of the labour movement. This is what was crucial to the
struggle against South African apartheid in the 1980s. The existence
of even a small network in CUPE has made a difference to advancing the
Israel BDS campaign there, but its limits are also evident in
generalising the campaign even in CUPE nationally as well as to other
unions.

Organized Labour and the Palestinian Struggle

The Palestinian struggle is not just another issue on the union
agenda. The Middle East remains a central component of U.S. strategy,
around oil, geopolitics and the push to lock-in global capitalism into
regions of the world that remain nominally outside of Western power.
Israel remains one of the principal vehicles for this strategy, partly
directly through the instability and turmoil it sows across the Middle
East. But Israel also plays a key role in, for example, pushing for
invasion in Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran; relentlessly attacking secular
nationalist and progressive movements in the Arab countries; expanding
and locking in new settlers in the Occupied Territories; in a
relentless campaign of assassination and jailing of Palestinian
leadership; in support of U.S. foreign policies; and many others. The
struggle for Palestinian national rights, therefore, is, at the
present political moment, strategically central to weakening the power
of neoliberal globalization more generally, and the ongoing
integration of Canada and Canadian foreign policy within U.S.
imperialism more specifically. The struggle is also a component of
rebuilding union activist networks and political leadership back in
the union movement.

This struggle is part of the wider need for secular, progressive and
nationally consistent movements to remake, not only the boundaries,
but also the dominant narrative of Middle East politics in North
America. It would also take away the discursive and moral advantage of
those who continue to use the card of terrorism, fundamentalism and
religious sectarianism to win over working people. It is important to
build a consciousness of this issue among working people. This is what
happened when an earlier generation of activists built a movement
against South African apartheid. It created a whole generation of
dedicated anti-imperialists who went on to lead struggles against the
1991 Gulf War, the war in Iraq, the invasion of Afghanistan and other
issues.

Why International Solidarity?

There are basic slogans which underpin the union movement: 'an injury
to one is an injury to all,' or 'no one class or nation can be truly
free if it oppresses others.' The working class was created as part of
a capitalist system that even in its early years was an international
and even a global system. Building international links between working
people and oppressed peoples and nations has always been a strategic
component of workers' struggles for our own liberation and for defence
of livelihoods and jobs.

It is easy to identify several such crucial solidarity linkages
today: sweatshop workers in China; maquiladora workers in Mexico;
illegal immigrants forced to work without protections in North
America; unions struggling for workers' control in Venezuela; and
workers struggling for legalized independent unions in many parts of
the world. Palestinian refugees and workers in the Occupied
Territories confront some of the worst conditions in the world. Some
have been living in refugee camps for almost an astonishing 60 years;
there are vastly more people unemployed and on welfare than working in
the Gaza. Palestinian workers are denied the right to work at decent
wages and working conditions as a result of Israeli colonization and
continued occupation.

In all these different places and conditions, workers in other
countries are either going to be our allies in struggling against
capitalism, or we will each be used to undermine each other.
Collaboration with social injustices against working people and
oppressed national communities strengthens our enemies. Supporting
their struggles is just as important to us as building solidarity in
our own workplaces and communities: they are about building our unions
in Canada and North America. To argue that the only role of unions is
to bargain for better wages and benefits for the workers organized in
a specific local is the argument of the bosses. 

When co-workers say this, we need to educate them about realities,
just as when a co-workers says that we don't need unions at all.

Advancing the Palestinian Struggle

There are a number of ways that union activists in Canada and North
America can advance the struggle of the Palestinian people and workers
for national self-determination.

First, we need to build a network across unions on this issue. We
need to root ourselves in a strong, principled and well-intellectually
and politically-armed movement. That is being built now. This is the
ground floor that we are beginning to build.

Second, we need to be able to identify and address principal concerns
workers raise and some of the key positions to advance: anti-Semitism;
terrorism; religious sectarianism; the role of Canadian and U.S.
foreign policies; ties to our own interests; centrality in defeating
globalization and neoliberalism; importance of international
solidarity; and so forth. We are developing the educational materials
and arguments for this now. In particular, we cannot avoid learning
how to speak to Jewish workers and addressing their legitimate
concerns about Israel and Palestine.

Third, we need to build internal networks, inside each of our unions.
This is what we did during the South African anti-apartheid era. There
were many key activists who finally understood internationalism
through that struggle and learned about what imperialism really is. We
have to reach these kinds of people again. It matters a lot: when
activists in key local unions also work to explain this issue to
co-workers, they can't be rooted out.

Fourth, when anti-imperialist activists also get involved in local
leadership positions in the union, they can earn a lot of respect for
these ideas and add another dimension to education and building the
union. Getting union locals to pass resolutions creates space to do
more work.

Fifth, in order to do any of these, there needs to be a cross-union
network of activists, around Palestinian solidarity but also beyond
it. Each presupposes the other. There are a number of dimensions to
building internal networks: forming a core of people in key places in
different local unions and structures; working with them to provide
materials and to start collectively organizing; building clear links
between the union and people on the ground organizing in Palestine, as
it is important for people to see that this campaign is tied to real
people in struggle; provide speakers and public spokespeople so that
the issue remains as a real reference point in the political universe;
use electronic newsletters and other forms of communications that
cannot be stopped from circulating and proliferate easily; and,
finally, join in local Palestinian networks, such as Coalition Against
Israeli Apartheid and its Labour for Palestine network in Toronto.

Developing union networks and campaigns against Israeli apartheid are
big steps forward in the struggle. It signals that Israel as an
apartheid state is gaining wider understanding. This can only
reinforce the unbelievable endurance of the Palestinian people on the
ground in Palestine and in refugee camps of the justice of their cause
and their rights to national self-determination as any other people.
The specific union challenge is to continue to deepen the confidence
of workers to become active in the BDS campaign against Israeli
apartheid. This cannot be apart - and is indeed one component - of
rebuilding union networks in Canada and North America in the struggle
for a different social order.

Herman Rosenfeld is a retired CAW activist in Toronto, and a member
of Labour for Palestine and Trade Unionists Against the War.

******************************************************************

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NEW BOOK: LABOUR FOR PALESTINE

The Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA) is proud to announce
the publication of a new book, "Labour for Palestine: A Reader for
Unionists and Activists in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
Campaign Against Israeli Apartheid".

The 106-page book brings together important material exploring themes
such as the history of the Palestinian struggle, Zionism and the
Israeli labour movement, Canadian ties to Israeli apartheid, the
global campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions, and commentary
around the CUPE Ontario resolution in support of BDS in May 2006.

The book is an invaluable resource for unionists and activists
involved in Palestinian solidarity. It can be ordered from the Toronto
Women's Bookstore <http://www.womensbookstore.com>
 at for CDN$13 plus postage.

For more information please see http://www.caiaweb.org
 or email endapartheid at riseup.net

*****************************************************************

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Audio from the Book Launch:

 <http://www.socialistproject.ca/inthenews/#event74>

Labour for Palestine Presents:

LIFT THE SIEGE! -- PALESTINIAN WORKERS CALL FOR SOLIDARITY

Launching the New Book:

LABOUR FOR PALESTINE: A Reader for Unionists and Activists

Date: Sunday March 25

Place: Steel Workers Hall, 25 Cecil Street

Time: 2:00 - 5:00 pm

Last month, Palestinian trade unions issued an urgent call
<http://www.stopthewall.org/downloads/pdf/S-F2.pdf>
 for international solidarity. Labour for Palestine, a group of
cross-union rank and file activists active in the Coalition Against
Israeli Apartheid, invites all concerned trade unionists to
participate in a public meeting on the Canadian labour movement and
solidarity with Palestine.

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