30 MAY 2011
The Universities College Union national conference voted today to‘sever all relations’ with Israel’s Apartheid ‘Union’ Histadrut, as well as boycotting Ariel College, the settler institute in the West Bank.
Histadrut began its life in the 1920’s waging a campaign for Jewish Labour i.e. a Boycott of Arab Labur. For the first forty years of its life it refused to accept Arabs as members. When it did it corralled them into an Arab section – headed by a Jew!
When Histadrut was Israel’s second biggest employer, up till the early 1990’s, it deliberately didn’t invest in Arab villages or areas. This has consequences today given that Arabs are much more likely to be unemployed. Despite its formal commitment to equality it has never opposed sacking Arab workers to make way for Jewish workers, usually using the spurious excuse of ‘security’.
Last year Israel Rail tried to sack all its Arab workers on the grounds they hadn’t done national service in the army! Quite what army service has to do with working on the railways is unclear, but it is well known that Arabs (with the exception of the Druze primarily) don’t serve in the army of a Jewish State. Hence this was a device to sack Arabs in favour of Jews without explicitly being seen to do so. Israel Rail backed off after a fierce international campaign but Histadrut , which represented the Jewish workers, pointedly refused to oppose the racist attempt to sack workers.
Likewise Histadrut local organisations and labour councils have been at the forefront of the demand to expel migrant labour in order to reduce Jewish unemployment. Although the Histadrut has given lip service to organising migrant labourers in practice it has refused to do so. What it has done is effectively steal the contributions of Palestinian workers in Israel who it has steadfastly refused to represent in their conflicts with Jewish employers. For more on this see Histadrut Thieves Stole Over One Billion , Jonathan Cook’s article on Electronic Intifada and an article by the Alternative Information Centre in Israel.
It should be pointed out though that UCU isn’t the first British trade union to boycott Histadrut. Nalgo, the forerunner of Unison, the public sector trade union, was the first trade union to cut links with this settler union.
There is no doubt that but for the opposition of Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Bernard Regan, its trade union officer, it would have already adopted the same position again. All this is of course very embarrassing for the Socialist Action/CL factions in British Palestine Solidarity Campaign, whose position is to oppose a Boycott of Histadrut. In the words of Regan, Histadrut is a ‘changed organisation’.
A vote on whether to Boycott Histadrut or not wasn’t allowed at the AGM in February after PSC Chair Hugh Lanning fixed the agenda. Rumours that Trade Union Friends of Israel asked Bernard Regan to speak against the successful motion from Brighton University are, we understand, untrue. Since he is not a member of UCU it would not have been possible and guest speakers cannot speak on policy motions.
Congratulations to activists in UCU for this magnificent victory.
See: www.azvsas.blogspot.com
