Trades Hall backs boycotts
A DECISION by the Victorian Trades Hall Council to back boycotts against Israel has dismayed other union members.
A DECISION by the Victorian Trades Hall Council to back boycotts against Israel has dismayed other union members.
At a September 10 meeting of the Trades Hall executive council, the Australian Workers Union (AWU) was the only union to vote against a boycott resolution.
The AWU slammed the controversial decision, which contradicts the policy of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the International Trade Union Council.
The Victorian union roof body plans to send representatives to a boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) conference in Melbourne next month. It also pledged to promote the BDS campaign within the community.
Ironically, the Trades Hall decision comes at a time when Israelis and Palestinians have returned to the negotiating table, senior AWU official Michael Borowick said.
Borowick, assistant secretary of the AWU’s Victorian branch, attacked Trades Hall for being out of step with national policy and condemned the timing of the endorsement.
“Not only is it contrary to broad-based labour movement feeling in this country, but coming at a time when Israelis and Palestinians have resumed talks, it can only be counter-productive,” he said.
The Trades Hall Council’s embrace of boycotts on Israel comes as a landmark 2008 accord between Israeli and Palestinian unions is reaping benefits for Palestinian workers.
The AWU last year partnered with unions from the United States and Britain to launch Trade Unions Linking Israel and Palestine (TULIP), a movement dedicated to campaigning against national union movements boycotting Israel.
TULIP, and Australia’s driving role in it, were viewed as a milestone at the time, marking the continuing improvement of relations between the Australian union movement and Israel from historic lows in the 1970s and 1980s.
Borowick said there was no evidence to demonstrate a campaign to target Israel economically would contribute to self-determination or statehood for Palestinians, or enhance prospects for peace.
“A boycott of Israeli goods manufactured in West Bank settlements, or economic sanctions on Israel in general, would lead to increased unemployment and lower living standards for Palestinian workers.”
Some 22,000 Palestinian workers currently have jobs in the settlements, with many workers benefiting from the agreement between the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions and the Histadrut, which was reached with help from the International Trade Union Council.
“Measures of this sort, supported by international trade unionism, are demonstrably the direction labour movement involvement should take in this situation,” Borowick said.
PETER KOHN
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