The AFL-CIO, Palestinian Workers & Zionism
The AFL-CIO, Palestinian Workers & Zionism
By Steve Zeltzer
July 23, 2005
It is appropriate that this important national conference is convened days before the 2005 national AFL-CIO convention. The present crisis in the AFL-CIO is in part related to its international collaboration and support for the military and economic policies of the US. The failure to provide a transparent operation nationally and internationally is part of the crisis wracking the AFL-CIO.
In 2002, during the Israeli invasion of the West Bank, none other than AFL-CIO president John Sweeney joined in a press conference with Bush administration officials and Benjamin Netanyahu to support the US-backed Israeli invasion of the the West Bank.
Despite the fact that the invasion is a violation of many UN resolutions and is conducted to maintain the continued occupation of the West Bank, Sweeney and the AFL-CIO leadership have put their support for the policies of Israel and Zionism above their support for basic labor and human rights. This invasion was also opposed by many unions around the world but this has not seemed to bother the leaders of the AFL-CIO.
Seven years ago, inn 1998, Sweeney accepted the Israeli Bonds 50th anniversary Labor Achievement Award for his sterling effort to get unions to invest their pension funds in these bonds.
The Israeli invasion, the construction of the apartheid wall and the flagrant attack on the democratic and labor rights of Palestinian workers are in fact the present policies of the pro-Zionist leadership of the AFL-CIO. As you enter the offices of the AFL-CIO in Washington D.C. you will find a statue of Golda Meir. This is no accident, since the history of the AFL-CIO and its predecessors was tied to the formation of the state of Israel.
In the post WW II period before Israel was established and the AFL and CIO merged, the leaders of the US trade union movement were actively at work supporting US imperialism. Most of these trade union leaders supported the Korean war, the Vietnam war and every military intervention of the US government without exception.
CIA labor operatives like Irving Brown were sent to Europe and Turkey as well as many other countries to fund and establish US style business unions. This open support for US imperial interests was nothing new. In fact it continued in the witch-hunts throughout the American labor movement to purge and eliminate all militants, socialists and communists from the unions. George Meany, the first president of the AFL-CIO, continued this policy internationally. He installed Tom Kahn into the International Affairs Department and took millions of dollars of US government money to actively intervene in unions throughout the world. Tom Kahn defended the use of covert US government funds for its’ international operations by arguing that since this was “tax-payer money” US unions were entitled to use this for their operations. It was just getting your money back from the government according to Kahn.
A key component in the anti-Communist and pro-imperial policies of the AFL-CIO was its collaboration and support for the Israeli trade union federation, the Histadrut. This Zionist federation had an open record of discrimination against Palestinian workers and had as its founding principle the support and defense of a Jewish state. The Histadrut has collected tens of millions of dollars in taxes from Palestinian workers and refused to allow these funds to be transferred to the very Palestinian workers they were collected for. Legally, all workers in Israel, regardless of nationality, are covered by the contracts reached between the Histadrut federation and employers. All doing the same job should be paid the same wage. In reality, this rarely happens . . .
. . . “All West Bank and Gaza workers who work through government labor exchanges pay a fee to the Histadrut. The government deducts an “organization tax” of 1% from their wages and gives it to the Histadrut to provide “trade union protection.” The Histadrut claims to be unable to give such protection as it lacks access to the necessary records. The result is that collective agreements go unmonitored and employers benefit by paying discriminatory wages. Although they pay dues to the Histadrut, West Bank and Gazan workers are not entitled to vote in union elections, nor to take part in local workers’ councils. They are even denied observer status on plant workers’ committees.”
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Where Palestinians and Israelis in the same union do comparable work, Palestinians are normally paid one-third the wage of their Israeli counterparts. Marty Rosenbluth discusses an example in the 1987 November/December issue of International Labor Reports:
“Two years ago, workers at the Berman Bakery in Jerusalem walked out in protest over poor pay and conditions. All 35 were from the West Bank and were registered with Israeli government labour exchanges. Some had been at the bakery for several years. Yet they were making one-third of the wages paid to an Israeli for the same job. They complained to the plant’s workers’ committee but the union did nothing. Haim Maman, spokesperson for the Histadrut, the General Federation of Workers in Israel, told them, ‘We have no commitment to West Bank workers.’
The Histadrut also has a sordid record of collaboration and support for the South African apartheid state. Israel was a critical ally of South Africa and was involved not only in supporting it politically but in transferring nuclear and military technology to the regime. Through its commercial enterprises, the Histadrut was engaged in these very military transfers. Histadrut-owned military plants helped keep the regime well armed and in a better position to suppress the Black working class. This was one of the key reasons that the South African labor movement and the ANC opposed Zionism politically. They had personally seen the role of Zionism in supporting the apartheid regime.
The AFL-CIO has not only been uncritical of the Histadrut but has been a key component in supporting the Zionist state economically and politically. US labor organizations have bought Israeli bonds even though the return on these bonds is below other investments. These purchases are not about defending the pensions of their US rank and file members. Democrat controlled states in some cases have changed state laws to allow unions to invest in Israeli bonds even though the return on these bonds is lower than other US-issued bonds. Of course the supporters of Israel have also made sure that the US is now guaranteeing Israeli bonds so any default would be paid for by US taxpayers. This was crucial to enabling use of union pension funds to purchase low grade investments that would otherwise have been prohibited.
Without the knowledge or consent of the rank and file of the “House of Labor”, billions of dollars have been invested in Israeli bonds. These bonds are helping to prop up a regime and state that ensrines not ‘separate but equal’ but special rights for Jews. Discrimination is illegal in the US and is opposed by US unions. But because of their ideological support for Israel and Zionism, such discrimination is accepted.
Investment of US union pension money has also been orchestrated by the Jewish Labor Committee, Israeli politicians and the Israel Bonds National Labor Division. Nearly every top US trade union official has supported this campaign – from Terence O’Sullivan of the Laborer’s, Richard Trumka, Michael Monroe of the Painters, Morton Bahr of the CWA, Dennis Hughes of the NY State AFL-CIO and Mike Sacco of the Seafarers Union. Black trade unionists such as AFSCME Secretary Treasurer Bill Lucy, who is also the president of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists and the A. Philip Randolph Institute, which was led by Norman Hill, have also actively supported the purchase of Israeli bonds. The Israeli Bonds Labor Advisory Board is co-chaired by Barbara Easterling, Secretary Treasurer of the CWA.
A key question for US workers is the democratic transparency of their unions. Most US trade union members are not active in their unions. The unions that invest millions of dollars of their pension money in Israeli bonds and businesses do not make it their business to inform the rank and file of these investments.
The primary goals for the campaign to defend the democratic and labor rights of Palestinian workers is to educate and inform union members about the conditions of Palestinian workers, and the role of the AFL-CIO in helping to prop up the apartheid conditions and the government that supports these policies.
Another important element is the campaign to silence particularly Black, Palestinian and Jewish academics who are critical of the policies of the Israeli government. The Anti-Defamation League, with a budget of over $30 million has compiled a “black list” of professors or lecturers critical of Israel. ADL supporters and agents around the country mobilize against professors who voice criticism of Israel. They orchestrate an atmosphere of fear and terror either to get the academic fired or to prevent them from getting tenure.
One of the most overt cases is that of Sami Al-Arian, currently incarcerated under trumped up charges of “terrorism”. The ADL supported efforts to fire Al-Arian who was a professor at South Florida University. The ADL and racist and reactionary Fox TV host O’Riley launched a national witch-hunt charging that Al-Arian was a “terrorist”. He did win labor support despite this propaganda blitz. Roy Weatherford, president of USF’s AFT faculty union filed a grievance against his illegal termination, as well as the Association of American University Professors. Despite this important effort, the government, using new provisions of the so called “Patriot Act”, arrested Al-Arian and put him in solitary confinement. The ADL has been part of an international campaign to convict Al-Arian for his viewpoints in solidarity with the rights of Palestinians. We were successful in getting the San Francisco Labor Council to support his defense and to tie this to his labor rights.
Despite these efforts, the US government, with the acquiescence of the AFL-CIO leadership, has used the Patriot Act to launch a national racist campaign of terrorism not only against Arab American and Muslim working people but also against other people of color. This witch-hunt has been used to try to silence critics of Israel throughout the country. This is precisely one of the goals of the Patriot Act.
US Workers Support Equal Rights
The vast majority of US workers support democratic rights and equality for all. This puts them in direct opposition to the Histadrut and the Israeli government.
There have been successes in the fight to divest union money from Israeli bonds. In the UAW when Arab American workers found out that the UAW leadership had purchased Israeli bonds a march and rally of over 2,000 workers was held in Detroit to protest these investments. Following the militant march, the UAW divested its bonds.
In California, resolutions in defense of Palestinian labor and human rights have been passed by the San Francisco Labor Council and by SEIU 535 SF Chapter. ILWU Local 10 also passed a resolution against the attack on Palestinian unions and included a call for a “halt of all military aid to the State of Israel”.
It is no accident that ILWU Local 10 has taken this stand. The majority of its members are Black and it was also involved in supporting the fight against apartheid in South Africa. Local 10 ‘hot cargoed’ (refused to work cargo) from a South African ship in San Francisco. Supporters of Israel opposed the San Francisco Labor Council resolution protesting the bombing of the PGFTU offices by US supplied Israeli helicopters. Natalie Berg, a past staff member of AIPAC and a member of the San Francisco Community College School Board called the leaders of the San Francisco Building Trades and threatened to stop all union construction contracts unless the resolution was rescinded. Walter Shorenstein, the largest building owner in San Francisco who is also known as a bag man for the Democratic party nationally called then SF Labor Council Secretary Treasurer Walter Johnson and demanded that the resolution be dumped. The resolution was only rescinded after a long debate in the SF Labor Council. The bureaucrats exercised a per capita count to over-ride the clear vote of delegates in attendance. The fact of the matter is that the delegates who regularly attended the SF Labor Council were unmoved by the pressure of the Zionists and their supporters to rescind the resolution. They stood by their principles. The role of Israel’s supporters in the Democratic Party in the major cities of the United States is critical. Time and again they have influenced and steered the union bureaucracy toward their support for Israeli bonds and the Israeli state.
A major problem for the supporters of Israel in the U.S. labor movement, at least on the West Coast, is that many of the delegates supporting these resolutions within are Jewish union members, delegates and labor activists. This has made it extremely difficult for the Zionists to charge anti-Semitism. It’s a valuable lesson to other unionists, in the instances when debate occurs, about the double standard that the supporters of Israel and the Histadrut have when it comes to Israel and equal rights. They defended the bombing of the PGFT offices by saying that it was only “collateral damage” and it was not actually aimed at the trade union offices.
The issue of Palestinian labor and democratic rights is an issue that can win wide resonance within the US labor movement if American workers have the facts. It is our job to provide that information and make sure that the statement “equality and justice for all” includes Palestinian workers.
