Monthly Archives: April 2008

NYCLAW Support for ILWU May Day Work Stoppage

NYCLAW Support for ILWU May Day Work Stoppage

April 23, 2008

Robert McEllrath, ILWU President
1188 Franklin Street
San Francisco, CA 94109
(415) 775-0533
(415) 775-1302 FAX

Dear Brother McEllrath:

New York City Labor Against the War (NYCLAW) salutes the ILWU’s Pacific Coast May Day Shutdown to Stop the War in Iraq and Afghanistan.

From the beginning, Bush & Co. have sought to justify this war for oil and empire with phony claims about “fighting terrorism,” finding”weapons of mass destruction,” and spreading “democracy.” Despite overwhelming rejection of its policies at the polls, the administration has steadily escalated its war in the Middle East.

This has meant not only ordering thousands more troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, but also arming and financing Israel’s war on Lebanon and its increasingly brutal slow-genocide of the Palestinians, launching a proxy invasion of Somalia, bombing Pakistan, and threatening to attack Iran.

As in all such wars, ordinary working people pay the price. In Iraq and Afghanistan, this war has killed more than a million people, caused more than 50,000 G.I. casualties, promoted civil war, cost at least $1.2 trillion and pushed the economy into crisis — with no end in sight.

At home, the administration continues to attack civil liberties, the Arab-Muslim community, undocumented immigrants, Katrina refugees, people of color and labor.

Yet this is a bipartisan war. Congressional Democrats — including senators Clinton and Obama — have given Bush every penny he has asked for. They have refused to filibuster war spending (which requires only 41 Senate votes) and won’t even promise to get out by the end of the next presidential term in 2013. At most, they call for “redeployment” to maintain U.S. control of the region.

A generation ago, a war ended when Vietnamese resistance and the Black freedom movement ignited a grassroots working class mutiny in the military, auto plants, ghettos and barrios, against what Martin Luther King Jr. accurately called “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today . . . my own government.”

It will take a similar mutiny to end this war. The ILWU has a proud tradition of work stoppages to protest South African apartheid and U.S. death squads in Central America. Your May Day action shows how workers — both in and out of uniform — have the collective power to end this war, bring the troops home now, and get the U.S. out of the Middle East.

Issued by NYCLAW Co-Conveners
(Other affiliations listed for identification only):

Larry Adams
Former President, NPMHU Local 300

Michael Letwin
Former President, UAW Local 2325/Assn. of Legal Aid Attorneys

Brenda Stokely
Former President, AFSCME DC 1707; N.E. Regional Coordinator, Million Worker March Movement

Palestinian union: Boycott the “Israel at 60” celebrations

Palestinian union: Boycott the “Israel at 60” celebrations

Report by Husain Fuqaha
Published: 21/04/08

Sixty years of Dispossession and Ethnic Cleansing –
Boycott the “Israel at 60” Celebration!

Bernard Regan adds:

Dear Colleagues

I am circulating for information the attached document [text reproduced below] which I have received from Husain Fuqaha, General Secretary of Public Services Union section of the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions and a senior member of the PGFTU (See Email below also.). The statement is endorsed by the Public Services Union, the Ramallah Region of the PGFTU and is endorsed by a number of other PGFTU branches. I have asked for information from the PGFTU in Nablus to see if this statement is also endorsed by the PGFTU Headquarters but have received no reply to date. I understand that Shaher Sae¹d is currently out of the country. I have rung and spoken both to PGFTU Nablus and Husain Fuqaha.

However since I have received a number of urgent requests from trade unions in Britain for information on the attitude of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign towards the events celebrating the establishment of the state of Israel I thought it necessary to circulate the attached document. Whilst Palestine Solidarity Campaign has not made any formal statement on this matter we wish to draw your attention the attached statement which reflects the sentiments of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

In particular the statement concludes by saying:

“We urge international civil society in all its components, particularly institutions and individuals working in the arts, academia, sport, trade unions and communities of faith to boycott the “Israel at 60” celebrations wherever they are held in the world. These celebrations, by definition, insult our history, violate our rights and deepen our oppression. They also render the path to justice, freedom, equality and sustainable peace based on international law longer than ever before.”

In view of the urgency of some of the requests for information I have received from unions here I thought it necessary and urgent to share this information with you.

Yours fraternally

Bernard Regan
PSC Trade Union Officer


Email from Husain

From: husain@pgftu.org
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:07:41 +0200 (EET)
Subject: 60 years of dispossessionDear All,From the heart of Palestine we send you our brave workers greetings.This year, 2008, marks the passage of the 60 years of Israeli occupation and Palestinian struggle for freedom and to end suppression policies against the us in general and particularly of our workers.This memorial comes while Israeli is celebrating on the ruins of our houses and on the bodies of our children, women and elderly. And, while, the Palestinian people continue the painful struggle for liberation of land and to defend their basic human rights.Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions of Palestine send you their statement on this occasionHusain Fuqaha
the secretary of the PGFTU


Palestinian appeal to international civil society
Sixty years of Dispossession and Ethnic Cleansing

Boycott the “ Israel at 60” Celebration!

How can you celebrate? The establishment of the state of Israel sixty years ago was a settler – colonial project that systematically and violently uprooted more than 750 thousand Palestinian Arabs from their lands and homes. Sixty years ago Zionist militias and gangs ransacked Palestinian properties and destroyed hundreads of Palestinian villages. How can people of conscience celebrate this catastrophe?

Israel at 60 is a state that continues to deny Palestinian refugees their UN- sanctioned right to return to their homes and receive compensation, simply because they are “ non- Jews”. It still illegally occupies Palestinian and other Arab lands, in violation of numerous UN resolutions. It persists in its blatant denial of fundmental Palestinian human rights, in contravention of international humanitarian law and human rights conventions. It still subjects its own Palestinian citizens to a system of institutionalized discrimination, strongly reminiscent of the defunct apartheid regime in South Africa. And Israel gets away with all this, thanks to the unprecedented immunity granted to it by the unlimited and munificent US and European economic, diplomatic, political, and academic support.

In view of this multi- faceted oppression that is the reality of Israel today, we regard any Arab or international participation, whether individual or institutional, in any activity that contributes, either directly or indirectly to the “ celebrations” of Israel’s establishment, a collusion in the perpetuation of the dispossession and uprooting of refugees, the prolongation of the occupation, and the deepening of Israeli apartheid. Inviting Israel as a “guest of honor” to the Turin and Paris book fairs, for example, is not only a deliberate betrayal of basic principles of human rights, including those enshrined in the laws of the European Union itself, but is also a deliberate attempt to cover up Israel’s crimes against the Arab pople. Especially its successive war crimes in Lebanon and Palestine, and its acts of slow genocide against a million and a half Palestinians in the besieged and collectively punished Gaza Strip. In short, celebrating “ Israel at 60” is tantamount to dancing on Palestinian graves.

We urge international civil society in all its components, particularly institutions and individuals working in the arts, academia, sport, trade unions and communities of faith to boycott the “Israel at 60” celebrations wherever they are held in the world. These celebrations, by definition, insult our history, violate our rights and deepen our oppression. They also render the path to justice, freedom, equality and sustainable peace based on international law longer than ever before.

Canadian Union of Postal Workers passes historic Boycott Resolution

Canadian Union of Postal Workers passes historic Boycott Resolution

Report by Katherine Nastovski
Published here: 21/04/08

Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA) Congratulates Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) on Historic Boycott Resolution!

16 April 2008

CAIA extends its warm congratulations to the delegates of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers national convention held in Ottawa, Canada, April 13-17th 2008. At the convention, CUPW passed an historic resolution, Resolution 338/339, in support of the global campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israeli Apartheid. This resolution is an extremely significant landmark for the Palestinian solidarity movement in Canada. It represents the first time in North American history that a national union has passed a BDS resolution. The resolution recognizes Israel as an apartheid state and expresses CUPW’s support for boycott and divestment from Israel. It was passed almost unanimously after nearly one hour of discussion on the convention floor.

CUPW represents more than 50, 000 postal workers across Canada and has been at the forefront of campaigns against privatization and deregulation at Canada Post. The union has a proud history of international solidarity. During the South African apartheid years, CUPW was at the forefront of labour solidarity with South African workers and engaged in concrete actions such as the refusal to handle mail from South Africa.

The CUPW resolution was modeled on Resolution 50 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (Ontario), which was passed in May 2006 and re-affirmed in 2007. The resolution commits CUPW to “support the international campaign of BDS until Israel meets its obligations to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law including the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and lands as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.”

The resolution states that CUPW will work “Š with Palestinian solidarity and human rights organizations to develop an educational campaign about the apartheid nature of the Israeli state and the political and economic support of Canada for these practices.” The resolution also calls on the Canadian government to increase humanitarian aid to Palestinians who have been affected by the conflict, and commits CUPW to research on Canadian involvement in the occupation.

CAIA congratulates CUPW on this vital show of support for Palestinian workers and their families. At a time when the Palestinian people are suffering under brutal siege and daily bombardment this resolution is an important show of solidarity. Today alone, 22 Palestinian civilians, including 5 children, were killed by Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip. The explicit recognition by yet another Canadian union that Israel is an apartheid state, deserving of international isolation and boycott in the manner of South African Apartheid, is an inspiration for the North American and international labour movements. It is one further confirmation that the Israeli apartheid regime has deservedly become a pariah for progressive movements across the globe.

We call on supporters across the world to take the following action in support of CUPW:

1) Immediately email and fax the CUPW National office congratulating them on their stand against Israeli apartheid (sample letter below). Please fax your letter of support to CUPW National Office at ++ (613) 563-7861 or email endapartheid@riseup.net and we will pass them on to the CUPW national officeholders.

2) If you are a member of a union then get involved! Please contact the CAIA Labour Committee, Labour for Palestine, at labour@caiaweb.org for ideas and ways to get involved in Palestinian solidarity work within your workplace and union.

3) Visit your local post office and thank the workers for this resolution! Let them know that you appreciate this show of solidarity with Palestine.


Sample letter

Dear CUPW-Executive:

Thank you for passing the resolution to support the campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.

Like South Africa, Israel will have to be subjected to intense international pressure before it recognizes Palestinians as a people with the right to self-determination. Your union played a critical role in the fight against South African Apartheid – it is wonderful to see you taking on this leadership role again in the fight against Israeli Apartheid.

No doubt you will come under intense pressure from pro-Israeli, pro-apartheid organizations to reverse this courageous decision, but rest assured that the overwhelming majority of people in the world are not fooled by right-wing, racist rhetoric and the mainstream media bias surrounding this issue.

Thank you again!

The Palestinian BDS National Committee* Salutes the Canadian Union of Postal Workers on their Historic Decision to Boycott the Israeli Apartheid Regime

For Immediate Release

The Palestinian BDS National Committee* Salutes the Canadian Union of Postal Workers on their Historic Decision to Boycott the Israeli Apartheid Regime
18 April 2008

The BDS National Committee (BNC), comprising over 200 Palestinian civil society organizations and including all major Palestinian workers’ unions, salutes the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) for their decision to support the international campaign for Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against the Israeli apartheid regime. This decision, the first of its kind at the national level of a union in North America, constitutes a major step forward in the global struggle for freedom and justice. It further exemplifies the cause of workers’ solidarity against oppression and racism, particularly at a time when Israel is intensifying, with impunity, its acts of genocide against close to 1.5 million Palestinians in occupied Gaza.

Delegates to the annual convention of the CUPW, representing over 50,000 postal workers, voted overwhelmingly in support of resolution 338/339. This resolution also states that the union will work “with Palestinian solidarity and human rights organizations to develop an educational campaign about the apartheid nature of the Israeli state and the political and economic support of Canada for these practices.”

Israel’s apartheid and colonial policies and practices have resulted in the near collapse of the Palestinian economy, resulting in massive loss of work and livelihood. These policies have had a particularly acute effect on Palestinianpostal workers. The apartheid regime has ensured that there is no Palestinian controlled access to other countries; as a result, all incoming and outgoing Palestinian mail has to pass through the Israeli postal service which routinely delays delivery, often for several months. In the course of fulfilling their duty, Palestinian postal workers have to travel through Israeli checkpoints at which Israeli soldiers regularly delay their passage, often detaining them for hours under the sun or rain, or denying them passage altogether. By virtue of working under conditions of a brutal military occupation, Palestinian postal workers regularly risk imprisonment, injury, and death while at work.

This resolution comes at a time when Israel prepares to celebrate the sixtieth year since its establishment, a celebration in which many of the most powerful governments of the world will participate. For sixty years, thePalestinian people have endured and resisted the ongoing displacement of the majority of Palestinians, as well as the land confiscation, military violence, institutionalized racism, and political repression of those who managed to remain in their homeland. CUPW’s resolution is a statement to the world that when the states of the world stand behind oppression and apartheid, it is up to the people of the world to oppose it.

We call on the workers of CUPW to ensure that their union implements this historic resolution. We also call on all people of the world to follow CUPW’s example, and work within their societies and institutions to support the isolation of the Israeli apartheid regime until the apartheid system is dismantled, and the Palestinian refugees return to their homes and lands from which they were expelled. Only thus can a just peace based on international law and fundamental human rights be built and maintained.

* The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) is a wide coalition of major unions, networks and organizations representing Palestinian civil society.

For more information please contact:
Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel: info@boycottisrael.ps
Badil Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights: info@badil.org
Stop the Wall Coalition: info@stopthewall.org

NYCLAW: U.S. Labor and Gaza

From: New York City Labor Against the War <nyclaw01@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 5:53 PM
Subject: NYCLAW: U.S. Labor and Gaza

Since it was first issued on Monday, New York City Labor Against the War’s statement, U.S. LABOR AND GAZA (below) has been endorsed by 330 people around the world, and posted at numerous sites, including:

*MRZine
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/nyclaw250308.html

*Labournet
http://www.labournet.net/world/0803/gaza20.html

*Pacbi
http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=705_0_1_0_C

But to break the silence on Palestine, we need you and/or your organization to:

1. Endorse: http://www.petitiononline.com/Gaza/petition.html

2. Post and forward.

3. Otherwise publish.

4. Stay in touch with these efforts by joining NYCLAW’s listserv at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LaborAgainstWar/

Thank you!

—–

U.S. LABOR AND GAZA
New York City Labor Against the War
March 23, 2008

New York City Labor Against the War joins the Congress of South Africa Trade Unions in denouncing Israel’s recent massacres in Gaza, the victims of which include at least 130 Palestinians — half of them civilians, including dozens of women and children — since February 27.

WHO ARE THE TERRORISTS?

Israel claims that it is fighting “terrorism” in Gaza. This is the same hollow excuse with which the U.S. seeks to justify war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the erosion of civil liberties and labor rights at home.

In fact, Israel’s attacks are part of a relentless, U.S.-orchestrated campaign of collective punishment — with complicity of the corrupt Palestinian Authority — to overthrow the democratically-elected Hamas government.

Long before its latest massacres, Israel had turned Gaza into the world’s “largest open air prison,” assassinating activists, and cutting-off essential goods and services to 1.5 million people. Only as a result did Hamas abandon a unilateral two-year truce.

Even now, Israel seeks to derail Hamas truce offers by escalating arrests, home demolitions, settlements and murder in the West Bank — from which no rockets have been fired.

Despite media portrayals, this violence is overwhelmingly one-sided against Palestinians, who have no aircraft, artillery or tanks.

Thus, while only one Israeli has been killed by rockets launched from Gaza since May 2007, Israel’s modern arsenal killed 60 Palestinians on March 1 alone.

On February 29, Israel’s Deputy Defense Minister, Matan Valnai, threatened a bigger “Shoah” — a reference to the Nazi Holocaust.

As UN official John Dugard has pointed out, Palestinian rockets are not the cause, but the “inevitable consequence,” of Israeli state terror in Gaza, the slow-motion genocide which human rights organizations describe as “worse than at any time since the beginning of the Israeli military occupation in 1967.”

Following the latest attacks, a Council on Foreign Relations expert explained, “You have Palestinians who wouldn’t necessarily support the violence but they are saying, ‘Well, what choice do we have?'”

SIXTY YEARS OF ETHNIC CLEANSING AND GENOCIDE

Israel’s war on Gaza can only be understood as an attempt to stamp out all resistance — including nonviolent protest — to Israel’s ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.

Indeed, most of Gaza’s population are survivors of Zionist expulsions since the Nakba (Catastrophe) of 1948, when 13,000 Palestinians were massacred, 531 towns and villages erased, 11 urban neighborhoods emptied, and more than 750,000 (85 percent) driven from 78 percent of their country.

In 1967, Israel seized the remaining 22 percent of Palestine — including East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza — which, in violation of UN resolutions, remains under Israeli military rule.

Today, as a result of these policies, at least 70 percent of the 10 million Palestinians are refugees — the largest such population in the world. Despite other UN resolutions, Israel vows that it will never allow them to return.

Palestinians who managed to remain within the 1948 areas — today, 1.4 million (or 20 percent of the population in Israel) — are permanently separated from their families in exile, subject to more than 20 discriminatory laws, treated as a “demographic threat,” and threatened with mass expulsion.

In East Jerusalem and the West Bank, 140 illegal, ever-expanding Jewish-only settlements and road systems dominate the water resources and control 40 percent of the land. Palestinians are confined, separated, denied medical treatment, and degraded by an 8-meter-high separation wall, pass laws, curfews and 600 military checkpoints.

From 2000-2007, 4,274 Palestinians in these 1967 territories were killed, compared with 1,024 Israelis. The military has seized 60,000 political prisoners; it still holds and tortures 11,000.

All of these conditions have dramatically worsened since the Annapolis “peace conference” in November.

U.S. SPONSORSHIP

Israel’s war on Palestine depends completely on U.S. money, weapons and approval.

Since 1948, Israel — the top foreign aid recipient — has received at least $108 billion from the U.S. government. In the past ten years alone, U.S. military aid was $17 billion; over the next decade, it will be $30 billion.

Israel’s recent assault on Gaza was endorsed by a Congressional vote of 404-1. Democratic and Republican presidential candidates fall over themselves to offer more of the same.

On March 22, Dick Cheney reassured Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of “America’s. . . . commitment to Israel’s right to defend itself always against terrorism, rocket attacks and other threats,” and that the U.S. and Israel are “friends — special friends.”

This “special friendship” means that, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is U.S. aircraft, cluster bombs and bullets that kill and maim on behalf of the occupiers. Just one of many targets was the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions headquarters in Gaza City, destroyed by F-16s on February 28.

Such support bolsters Israel’s longstanding role as watchdog and junior partner for U.S. domination over the oil-rich Middle East — and beyond. In that capacity, Israel was apartheid South Africa’s closest ally.

After 9/11, it helped intensify the demonization of Arabs and Muslims. It has 200 nuclear weapons, but helped manufacture “evidence” of Iraqi WMD. With U.S. weapons and support, it invaded Lebanon in 2006.

Together, these wars and occupations have killed, maimed and displaced millions of people, thereby creating the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. Now, Israel is the cutting edge of threats against Syria and Iran.

In other words, oppression and resistance in Palestine is the epicenter of U.S.-Israeli war throughout the Middle East. These stakes are reflected in the ferocity of Israel’s attacks against Gaza.

LABOR’S ROLE

In Palestine, South Africa, Britain, Canada and other countries, labor has condemned Israeli Apartheid.

Workers in the United States pay a staggering human and financial price, including deepening economic crisis, for U.S.-Israeli war and occupation.

But through a combination of intent, ignorance and/or expediency, much of labor officialdom in this country — often without the knowledge or consent of union members — is an accomplice of Israeli Apartheid.

Some 1,500 labor bodies have plowed at least $5 billion of union pension funds and retirement plans into State of Israel Bonds.

In April 2002, while Israel butchered Palestinian refugees at Jenin in the West Bank, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney was a featured speaker at a belligerent “National Solidarity Rally for Israel.” In 2006, leadership of the American Federation of Teachers embraced Israel’s war on Lebanon.

These same leaders collaborate with attempts by the Jewish Labor Committee (JLC) to silence Apartheid Israel’s opponents — many of whom are Jewish.

In July 2007, top officials of the AFL-CIO and Change to Win signed a JLC statement that condemned British unions for even considering the nonviolent campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.

Just days ago, the JLC and the leadership of UNITE-HERE bullied a community organization in Boston into revoking space for a conference on “Zionism and the Repression of Anti-Colonial Movements.”

Even the leadership of U.S. Labor Against the War, which receives funding from several major unions, remains adamantly silent about U.S. government, corporate and labor support for Israeli Apartheid.

Labor leaders’ complicity parallels infamous “AFL-CIA” support for U.S. war and dictatorship in Vietnam, Latin America, Gulf War I, Afghanistan and elsewhere. It strengthens the U.S.-Israel war machine and labor’s corporate enemies, reinforces racism and Islamophobia, and makes a mockery of international solidarity.

A NECESSARY STAND

More than forty years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came under intense public attack for opposing the Vietnam war. Even within the Civil Rights Movement, some dismissed his position too “divisive” and “unpopular.”

In his famous speech at the Riverside Church in April 1967, Dr. King answered these critics by pointing out that “silence is betrayal,” and that “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today . . . [is] my own government.”

At the National Labor Leadership Assembly for Peace in November 1967, he reiterated the most basic principles of labor solidarity: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. . . . Ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.”

These principles are no less relevant today.

Yes, the Israel lobby seeks to silence opponents of Israeli Apartheid. All the more need for trade unionists to break that silence by speaking out against Israeli military occupation, for the right of Palestinian refugees to return, and for the elimination of apartheid throughout historic Palestine.

Therefore, we reaffirm our support for an immediate and total:

1. End to U.S. military and economic support for Israel.

2. Divestment of business and labor investments in Israel.

3. Withdrawal of U.S. and allied forces from the Middle East.

————-
Issued by NYCLAW Co-Conveners
(Other affiliations listed for identification only):

Larry Adams
Former President, NPMHU Local 300

Michael Letwin
Former President, UAW Local 2325/Assn. of Legal Aid Attorneys

Brenda Stokely
Former President, AFSCME DC 1707; Co-Chair, Million Worker March

————-
NYCLAW, with Al-Awda-NY The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, is a cofounder of Labor for Palestine .

Previous NYCLAW materials on Palestine include:

Response to Anti-Boycott Attacks (October 19, 2007)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LaborAgainstWar/message/2683

Open Letter to UTLA President A.J. Duffy (October 9, 2006)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LaborAgainstWar/message/2466

U.S. Government and Labor Aid to Israel (September 1, 2006)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LaborAgainstWar/message/2442

Labor and the Middle East War (August 11, 2006)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LaborAgainstWar/message/2429

Conference: Palestine, Labor and the AFL-CIO (July 23, 2005)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LaborAgainstWar/message/2245

From Palestine to the US – Labor Fights Back! (October 7, 2004)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LaborAgainstWar/message/2111

Report on the New York Visit by Representatives from the PGFTU (December 22, 2002)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LaborAgainstWar/message/1359

An Evening With Palestinian Trade Unionists (December 13, 2002)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LaborAgainstWar/message/1328

Protest Israeli Consul’s Speech to AFL-CIO (May 21, 2002)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LaborAgainstWar/message/1001

No Labor Money for Israeli War Crimes! (May 21, 2002)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LaborAgainstWar/message/999

Monday Israeli Consul Protest Postponed April 26, 2002)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LaborAgainstWar/message/926

————-
Subscribe to the NYCLAW low-volume listserv:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LaborAgainstWar/

New York City Labor Against the War (NYCLAW)
nyclaw01@gmail.com
PO Box 620166, PACC, New York, NY 10129

Sincerely,

 

Canadian Union of Postal Workers joins the international campaign against Israeli apartheid

Canadian Union of Postal Workers joins the international campaign against Israeli apartheid

April 2008: Sign on Statement and Appeal for Solidarity

We the undersigned organizations congratulate the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) for joining the international boycott of Israeli apartheid. We call on workers and labour unions worldwide to join CUPW in creating a strong and effective labour movement in solidarity with struggles against Israeli apartheid and violence.

At the national convention of CUPW, representing over fifty thousand workers across Canada, a strong majority of delegates voted for a resolution in support of the international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israeli apartheid.

Marking the first time a country-wide labour union in North America has voted to participate in the global campaign against apartheid in Palestine, CUPW’s resolution represents a critical juncture for the involvement of North American labour in this campaign. International support for CUPW’s resolution – which recognizes the Palestinianpeople’s inalienable rights, including the right of return – could prove key to shoring up this victory.

In Canada, CUPW has been at the forefront of campaigns against privatization and deregulation of postal services in Canada, while maintaining a proud history of international solidarity. During the South African apartheid years, CUPW played a lead role in labor solidarity with South African workers, engaging in concrete actions such as the refusal to handle mail from South Africa.

CUPW has now joined the international campaign against Israeli apartheid, committing itself to “support the international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions until Israel meets its obligations to recognize thePalestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law including the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and lands as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.”

Israel’s apartheid and colonial policies have resulted in the near collapse of the Palestinian economy, resulting in massive unemployment and bleak poverty. In the West Bank, over 51 % of the population is estimated to live under the poverty line; in Gaza, the figure rises to 81 %. Israel’s policies have had a particularly acute effect on Palestinianpostal workers, as the apartheid regime has ensured that there is no Palestinian-controlled access to other countries.

As a result, all incoming and outgoing Palestinian mail has to pass through the Israeli postal service, which routinely delays delivery, often for several months. In the course of fulfilling their duty, Palestinian postal workers are forced to travel through Israeli checkpoints at which Israeli soldiers regularly delay their passage, detaining them for hours under the sun or rain, or denying them passage altogether. Working under a brutal military occupation, Palestinianpostal workers can risk imprisonment, injury, and death in the course of a day’s work.

CUPW’s resolution comes at a time when Israel prepares to celebrate the sixtieth year since its establishment, a celebration in which many of the most powerful governments of the world will participate. For sixty years, thePalestinian people have endured and resisted ongoing displacement, land confiscation, military violence, institutionalized racism, and political repression of the minority who managed to remain in their homeland. CUPW’s resolution is a clear statement to the world that when the states of the world stand behind oppression and apartheid, it is up to the people of the world to oppose it.

Every passing week demostrates the urgent need for a strong popular movement against Israeli apartheid. Last week, Israel once more stepped up the violence of its bloody siege of Gaza, leaving dozens of Palestinian civilians dead. Israel continues to impose collective punishment on the 1.5 million Palestinians of Gaza, who live with chronic shortages of electricity, fuel, food and basic necessities as a result.

We call on all workers and labour unions to join CUPW in creating a strong and effective boycott movement to help bring an end to this injustice and violence.

—> Actions you can take:

* Endorse this statement: send the name of your organization and city to
tadamon[at]resist.ca

* Send a message of solidarity through email or fax to the CUPW National office congratulating them on their stand against Israeli apartheid. Please fax your letter of support to CUPW National Office at:

+ 1 613 563 7861 or email care of tadamon[at]resist.ca.

* Ask your union, community group, association or collective to follow CUPW’s lead and adopt a position in support of the international campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israeli apartheid.

* In Montreal, join the “Boycott Apartheid” bloc in the Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine demonstration to mark the 60th year of the Nakba on Saturday, 10 May 2008, 1pm Dorchester Square (Peel & René-Lévesque). To join the boycott bloc, look for the ‘boycott Israeli apartheid’ banner…

—> Endorsed by:

Tadamon! Montreal (Montreal, Quebec)
Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) (Palestine)
Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (Toronto, Canada) Fédération nationale des enseignantes et enseignants du Québec (Quebec) Association pour une Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante (ASSÉ) (Quebec) Campaign to boycott Supporters of Israel (Beirut, Lebanon)
People’s Movement (Beirut, Lebanon)
Civil Resistance Campaign (Beirut, Lebanon) Committee Against Normalization of Relations with “Israel” in Jordan (Jordan)