Israel Matzav

Anti-Israel labor unions

You will recall the incident in Oakland on Sunday in which 'protesters' prevented the unloading of what turned out to be a Chinese ship mistakenly labeled an Israeli one. One aspect of that incident that has gone largely ignored has been the role of international labor in the battle against Israel. J.E. Dyer reports.

Whatever the personal sentiments of the longshoremen manning the day shift in Oakland on Sunday, the federations and councils with which their union leaders are affiliated take a firmly anti-Israel stance. The evidence of centralized labor planning for the Oakland protest is overwhelming.

The San Francisco Labor Council, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, urged union participation with its prior advertising of the protest and work stoppage. The Labor Council’s resolution on the May 31 flotilla incident, approved on June 14, is posted at the International Journal of Socialist Renewal’s website; in it, the Longshoremen’s Local in Oakland (ILWU 10) is among the 28 U.S. and foreign-labor organizations listed as having already condemned Israel.

As Zombie notes, the international Transport Workers Solidarity Committee publicized the dockside protest in advance. Its website also makes clear that union organizers around the world – as well as non-transport unions in the U.S. – knew of the plan days beforehand and sent encouraging messages to ILWU 10. On June 5, Jack Weyman, a member of ILWU 10’s executive board, expressed solidarity with Swedish dockworkers who announced a boycott of Israel. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) website, meanwhile, reports yesterday’s action as a “historic victory” and features the participation of labor as prominent, planned, and intentional.

It was all of those things. Days before the Sunday protest, the website of Labor for Palestine tallied up the union support “pouring in” for ILWU 10’s planned work stoppage. Labor for Palestine (LFP) is the labor-union arm of the Global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction (BDS) Movement for Palestine, about which the Jewish Federations of North America issued a warning resolution in November 2009. LFP was founded by al-Awda (the Palestinian Right to Return Coalition) and New York City Labor Against the War in 2004.

This appears to be an emerging trend.

But of course it is. After all, the Arab countries are just so hospitable to organized labor.... Or maybe it's because Israel has been gradually abandoning its role as the socialist paradise and switching to capitalism since the early '90's.... Or maybe it's.... Nah, could it be that again? Could it? But they're such good Democrats....

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:31 AM