Last year, UNISON (the UK’s largest union) conference mandated the leadership to send a fact-finding mission to Israel and Palestine and one of the key tasks for that mission was to find out what Palestinians and Israelis thought. A central question to be asked was – should UNISON maintain a relationship with Israel’s Histadrut, or not?
The mission talked not only to mainstream Israeli trade unionists, but to a whole range of smaller groups, including a number of groups which have long been hostile to the Histadrut. And they talked to a range of Palestinian union groups. And everyone told them, without exception, that it was essential for UNISON to continue to constructively engage with the Histadrut. The Histadrut, everyone told them this, is the main organised expression of the Israeli working class and it would be wrong for unions outside of Israel to sever relations.
The UNISON NEC proposed that the conference adopt the report of the mission – but following a debate, conference delegates rejected not only the union leadership position, but that of the Palestinians as well.
As a result, the union has severed its relations with the Histadrut.
This is a massive blow – but not to the Histadrut, which will do fine with the “constructive engagement” that had been proposed.
The blow is to the credibility of UNISON,??? a union that once really did want to help build peace in the Middle East — and now has turned its back on the peoples of Israel and Palestine.
UNISON used to play a positive role in promoting Israeli-Palestinian peace and dialogue. It would invite representatives of Israeli and Palestinian unions to its conferences.
This is why it’s so sad to report what has happened at this year’s UNISON annual conference, where the union decided to abandon any effort to play a constructive role, instead choosing to engage in anti-Israel posturing.
3 thoughts on “UNISON turns its back on Palestinian advice, decides to sever relations with IsraHell Unions”
Perhaps you should not allow you extreme understanding of freedom of speech to allow lies to be spread on your website –
This is what the Coalition of Palestinian Trade Unions at their conference in May earlier this year decided and asked others to implement regarding Hisradut.
Check it out on the website http://www.bdsmovement.net/2011/ptuc-bds-formed-6912
The Conference decisively condemned the Histadrut and called on international trade unions to sever all links with it due to its historic and current complicity in Israel’s violations of international law and Palestinian rights. The Histadrut has always played a key role in perpetuating Israel’s occupation, colonization and system of racial discrimination by:
1. Publicly supporting Israel’s violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention and other tenets of international law
2. Maintaining active commercial interests in Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise[2]
3. Allowing Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank to join the organization[3]
4. Supporting Israel’s war of aggression on besieged Gaza in 2008/9;[4] it has later justified Israel’s massacre of humanitarian relief workers and activists aboard the Freedom Flotilla on 31 May 2010[5]
5. Illegally withholding over NIS 8.3 billion (approximately $2.43bn) over decades of occupation from wages earned by Palestinian workers from the Occupied Palestinian Territory,[6] deducted for ‘social and other trade union benefits’ that Palestinian laborers from the OPT have never received.
Recalling the trade union maxim “an injury to one is an injury to all”, and given the global trade union movement’s historic role in effective international solidarity with oppressed peoples around the world, PTUC-BDS:
* Cordially salutes all global trade unions for their solidarity with the Palestinian people, especially those that have endorsed BDS against Israel,
* Calls on trade unions around the world to actively show solidarity with the Palestinian people by implementing creative and context-sensitive BDS campaigns as the most effective way to end Israeli impunity. For example by:
o boycotting Israeli and international companies (such as Elbit, Agrexco, Veolia, Alstom, Caterpillar, Northrop Grumman, etc.) and institutions that are complicit with Israel’s occupation and violations of international law,
o reviewing pension fund investments with the purpose of divesting from Israel Bonds and all Israeli and international companies and institutions complicit in Israel’s occupation, colonization and apartheid,
o pressuring governments to suspend Free Trade Agreements, end arms trade and military relations with Israel with the intention of eventually cutting all diplomatic ties with it,
* Calls on port workers around the world to boycott loading/offloading Israeli ships, similar to the heroic step taken by port workers around the world in suspending maritime trade with South Africa in protest against the apartheid regime, and
* Calls on trade unions around the world to review and sever all ties with the Histadrut.
This cannot be clearer.
HI WASIM
HOW COME YOU CLAIM THAT WE ALLOW LIES TO BE SPREAD ON OUR WEBSITE. I DID SAY TO YOU IN MY LAST REPLY THIS IS NOT PAKISTAN OR SAUDI ARABIA
OUR POLICY IS THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH POLICY WE ARE OPEN FOR ALL VIEWS BUT THE PROBLEM WITH PEOPLE WITH CLOSED MINDS THEY CAN’T UNDERSTAND WHAT IS FREEDOM OF SPEECH ALL ABOUT. WE ARE A PLATFORM FOR ALL THOSE WHO ARE ANTI-ZIONIST AND ARE SUPPORTERS OF PALESTINE. SO IF DAVID DUCK WRITES AN ARTICLE IN SUPPORT OF PALESTINE WE WILL PUBLISH IT FOR HIM. THIS IS OUR POLICY WE ARE RUNNING A POLITICAL WEBSITE NOT A MOSQUE.CAN YOU PLEASE READ OUR DISCLAIMER.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR COMMENT.
I ignored your racist comments in the previous replies. It used to be the members of the National Front who used to taunt us about the banana republic and being Pakis.
Perhaps you do not know this but it is in Britain that people are sent to prison for reading or writing Poetry, It is Britain that does not allow Palestinians to come to this country to talk about Palestine. As far as I know Pakistan still allows Palestinians to come to Pakistan and speak. Freedom of speech is not about closed minds. It is a mantra for those who are easily duped.
Why have you brought a mosque into the debate. If you think David Duck was writing in support of Palestinians than perhaps you need to go and read the article again. All he was saying was that he does not want any non-europeans to be allowed into Europe, Palestinian or otherwise. Whereas some of the new racists only target muslims. How him being universally racist convert him to being pro-palestinian escapes me.
I will not limit my freedom of speech based on your disclaimers. It is like the disclasimer NATO bombs carry saying that children touch these bombs at their own risk and NATO denies any responsibility.
Thanks
3 thoughts on “UNISON turns its back on Palestinian advice, decides to sever relations with IsraHell Unions”
Perhaps you should not allow you extreme understanding of freedom of speech to allow lies to be spread on your website –
This is what the Coalition of Palestinian Trade Unions at their conference in May earlier this year decided and asked others to implement regarding Hisradut.
Check it out on the website http://www.bdsmovement.net/2011/ptuc-bds-formed-6912
The Conference decisively condemned the Histadrut and called on international trade unions to sever all links with it due to its historic and current complicity in Israel’s violations of international law and Palestinian rights. The Histadrut has always played a key role in perpetuating Israel’s occupation, colonization and system of racial discrimination by:
1. Publicly supporting Israel’s violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention and other tenets of international law
2. Maintaining active commercial interests in Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise[2]
3. Allowing Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank to join the organization[3]
4. Supporting Israel’s war of aggression on besieged Gaza in 2008/9;[4] it has later justified Israel’s massacre of humanitarian relief workers and activists aboard the Freedom Flotilla on 31 May 2010[5]
5. Illegally withholding over NIS 8.3 billion (approximately $2.43bn) over decades of occupation from wages earned by Palestinian workers from the Occupied Palestinian Territory,[6] deducted for ‘social and other trade union benefits’ that Palestinian laborers from the OPT have never received.
Recalling the trade union maxim “an injury to one is an injury to all”, and given the global trade union movement’s historic role in effective international solidarity with oppressed peoples around the world, PTUC-BDS:
* Cordially salutes all global trade unions for their solidarity with the Palestinian people, especially those that have endorsed BDS against Israel,
* Calls on trade unions around the world to actively show solidarity with the Palestinian people by implementing creative and context-sensitive BDS campaigns as the most effective way to end Israeli impunity. For example by:
o boycotting Israeli and international companies (such as Elbit, Agrexco, Veolia, Alstom, Caterpillar, Northrop Grumman, etc.) and institutions that are complicit with Israel’s occupation and violations of international law,
o reviewing pension fund investments with the purpose of divesting from Israel Bonds and all Israeli and international companies and institutions complicit in Israel’s occupation, colonization and apartheid,
o pressuring governments to suspend Free Trade Agreements, end arms trade and military relations with Israel with the intention of eventually cutting all diplomatic ties with it,
* Calls on port workers around the world to boycott loading/offloading Israeli ships, similar to the heroic step taken by port workers around the world in suspending maritime trade with South Africa in protest against the apartheid regime, and
* Calls on trade unions around the world to review and sever all ties with the Histadrut.
This cannot be clearer.
HI WASIM
HOW COME YOU CLAIM THAT WE ALLOW LIES TO BE SPREAD ON OUR WEBSITE. I DID SAY TO YOU IN MY LAST REPLY THIS IS NOT PAKISTAN OR SAUDI ARABIA
OUR POLICY IS THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH POLICY WE ARE OPEN FOR ALL VIEWS BUT THE PROBLEM WITH PEOPLE WITH CLOSED MINDS THEY CAN’T UNDERSTAND WHAT IS FREEDOM OF SPEECH ALL ABOUT. WE ARE A PLATFORM FOR ALL THOSE WHO ARE ANTI-ZIONIST AND ARE SUPPORTERS OF PALESTINE. SO IF DAVID DUCK WRITES AN ARTICLE IN SUPPORT OF PALESTINE WE WILL PUBLISH IT FOR HIM. THIS IS OUR POLICY WE ARE RUNNING A POLITICAL WEBSITE NOT A MOSQUE.CAN YOU PLEASE READ OUR DISCLAIMER.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR COMMENT.
I ignored your racist comments in the previous replies. It used to be the members of the National Front who used to taunt us about the banana republic and being Pakis.
Perhaps you do not know this but it is in Britain that people are sent to prison for reading or writing Poetry, It is Britain that does not allow Palestinians to come to this country to talk about Palestine. As far as I know Pakistan still allows Palestinians to come to Pakistan and speak. Freedom of speech is not about closed minds. It is a mantra for those who are easily duped.
Why have you brought a mosque into the debate. If you think David Duck was writing in support of Palestinians than perhaps you need to go and read the article again. All he was saying was that he does not want any non-europeans to be allowed into Europe, Palestinian or otherwise. Whereas some of the new racists only target muslims. How him being universally racist convert him to being pro-palestinian escapes me.
I will not limit my freedom of speech based on your disclaimers. It is like the disclasimer NATO bombs carry saying that children touch these bombs at their own risk and NATO denies any responsibility.
Thanks