The action is being organized by the Labor/Community Coalition in Solidarity with the People of Palestine, of which USPCN is a proud initiator. The coalition includes: Arab American Union Members Council, ANSWER- Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, Palestine Youth Network, US Palestinian Community Network, Al Awda – Right to Return Coalition, Arab Youth Organization, MECA-Middle East Children’s Alliance, Students for Justice in Palestine, Arab Resource and Organizing Center, International Action Center, International Solidarity Movement, San Jose Peace and Justice Center, International Socialist Organization, Peace and Freedom Party – SF, Transport Workers Solidarity Committee and many labor activists in the Bay Area.

Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions | Palestinian Boycott National Committee | UK Palestine Solidarity Committee | Oakland Education Association | Cuban Workers Central CTC

From the Transport Workers Solidarity Committee:

Message from the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU)

To our respected sisters, brothers and comrades in the trade unions, labor councils and workers’ organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Since the beginning of the workers’ struggles in your country – the United States of America – international solidarity has been a constant part of workers’ organizing and struggle in solidarity with workers and people facing injustice everywhere in the world. We, the workers and the people of Palestine are suffering under oppression of the Israeli occupation of our land and people. This occupation began long ago, the longest-lasting occupation of the modern era.

As people who cherish life and wish to live in freedom, we look to and call upon ourfellow workers of the world, particularly today our friends of truth, democracy and freedom in the San Francisco Bay Area to take a stand of courage alongside Palestinian workers to obtain justice and freedom for the workers and people of Palestine. We call upon you to support our struggle to obtain our liberty, practice our self-determination, and build a sovereign, democratic Palestine, like all other nations on earth.

Dear brothers and sisters, trade unionists, workers, and people of the San Francisco Bay Area, we remember and salute your historic and massive action on the docks in 1984, when you acted to boycott the apartheid regime in South Africa.

We look to you today from the Gaza Strip and all of Palestine, and call upon you to repeat that courageous stand today. This genuine solidarity is something we have longed for and expected. As you are responding to our appeal, we expected from you nothing less because of your history of defending the oppressed, including our people suffering under Israeli occupation, and your stand in opposition to the attack on the unarmed Gaza Freedom Flotilla seeking to deliver humanitarian assistance to the besieged Palestinian people in Gaza. Your action today is a milestone ininternational solidarity from honest and brave U.S. workers and trade unionists.

Greetings to you from the trade unionists and workers of Palestine…from the trade unionists and workers trapped in Gaza, seeking freedom…from the entire world who cares for humanity, freedom, justice, progress, and to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

On behalf of your brothers, sisters and comrades in the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions,

/s/
Manawell Abdul-Al
Executive Committee Member
Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions
June 19, 2010

Letter From UK Palestine Solidarity Committee To ILWU President McEllrath

ILWU President Bob McEllrath
robert.mcellrath@ilwu.org

17 June 2010

Dear Pres. McEllrath,
I write to congratulate ILWU Local 10 and its membership for their response to the Israeli act of piracy on the high seas and murderous attack on the Freedom Flotilla, immediately condemned by both the International Transportworkers Federation and the International Dockworkers Council.

The Flotilla aimed to break the ongoing siege of Gaza, still under Israeli military control following the invasion of Dec 2008 – Jan 2009 which killed 1400 Palestinians, mainly civilians including 300 children. The International Committee of the Red Cross condemns the siege as “collective punishment imposed in clear violation of Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law”, and states “The only sustainable solution is to lift the closure”.

In Feb 2009 the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union, affiliated to the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and to the ITF, refused to handle the Zim Lines ship “Johanna Russ”, which had sailed from Haifa at the height of the Israeli bombardment.

Next week, the IDC-affiliated Swedish Dockworkers Union and the ITF-affiliated Norwegian Transportworkers Union will begin a joint blockade of trade with Israel. As the Swedish Dockworkers Union states, the action aims to influence the Israeli government to “Lift the illegal and inhuman blockade of Gaza, which has been going on for over three years” and to “Allow an independent, international inquiry into Israel’s boarding of the Freedom Flotilla (of which the Swedish Ship to Gaza was a member) in international waters” [4]

The Scandinavian blockade responds to an appeal last week from the entire Palestinian trade union movement, calling on dockers worldwide to boycott shipping trade with Israel “until Israel complies fully with international law and ends its illegal siege of Gaza”.

As with the battle to end South African apartheid and the military occupation of Namibia, action by trade unionists in solidarity with their Palestinian counterparts will be decisive and can impose a real price on Israel’s continued systematic racist discrimination against the Palestinian people and defiance of international law.

I hope and trust that the ILWU will uphold its very proud record of international solidarity this weekend.

Yours in solidarity

Greg Dropkin
Liverpool Friends of Palestine

cc:

ILWU Secretary-Treasurer William Adams
ILWU Local 10 President Richard Mead
ILWU Local 10 Secretary-Treasurer Farless Dailey
ILWU Local 10 Executive Board member Jack Heyman

Oakland Education Association OEA Calls On ILWU Longshore Workers Not To Load and Unload Ships From Israel

June 18, 2010

Dear Brothers and Sisters of the ILWU,

At the June 2, 2010 Executive Board meeting of the Oakland Education Association, the following motion was passed:

“Consistent with our position on Gaza adopted in February 2009, the OEA condemns the Israeli attack on the humanitarian flotilla, calls for the lifting of the blockade, reaffirms the right of both Palestinians and Jews to live in Israel-Palestine, and supports an action by transportation workers nationally and internationally who refuse to handle military-related cargo destined for the Israeli Defense Forces.”

We join with the United Nations and Amnesty International, along with numerous international and national trade union organizations, including the Educational International, in condemning the Israeli commando attack on the Free Gaza Aid Flotilla and call for an impartial and independent international investigation of the attack.

We call on our brothers and sisters of the ILWU not to load or unload the Israeli ship docking at Stevedore Services of America. We recall the action of longshoremen in San Francisco in 1984 when they refused to unload a ship carrying South African cargo, which mobilized the anti-apartheid movement worldwide and was the inspiration for similar actions globally. And we remember May 19, 2007, when Oakland teachers and longshore workers shut down the same war shipping profiteer Stevedore Services of America in the Port of Oakland for a day as teachers demanded that Port revenues be used for the schools and other social services, not for war. We salute the ILWU for your long and proud history of supporting social justice.

In solidarity,

Betty Olson-Jones
President, Oakland Education Association
(510) 763-4020 x15
272 E. 12th Street
Oakland, CA 94606

Cuban Workers Central CTC Backs Labor Boycott Of Israeli Ship In Oakland California On June 20, 2010

Havana, June 18, 2010

To: Tim Paulson, Executive Director, San Francisco Labor Council

Robert McEllrath, President
International Longshore and Warehouse Union

William Harvey, President
Alameda Labor Council

The Cuban workers support the just protest of the workers and community of the San Francisco Bay Area that will take place on June 20 against the cruel and inhumane blockade which the Israeli government maintains in the Gaza Strip, depriving thousands of women, children and men of the most basic rights, especially the right to life.

Our people have lived for more than 50 years under an unjust and abominable blockade by the United States government. Therefore, we understand very well how the Palestinian people feel and we will always be in solidarity with their just cause. Today, we send you our most sincere support.

Long Live the Solidarity of the Working Class!
End the Blockade of Gaza!
Respect and Justice for the Palestinian People!

Carmen Godínez
America Coordinator
Department of International Relations
Cuban Workers Central (CTC)

Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee applauds the planned Labor and Community Picket of an Israeli Zim Line ship

Occupied Palestine, June 17, 2010 – The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee, whose membership includes the entirety of the Palestinian trade union movement salutes all trade union branches, trade union activists and people of conscience in the San Francisco Bay area who have responded to the Palestinian trade union movement’s appeal issued June 8, 2010, [1] that called for taking effective and concrete measures to block Israel’s maritime trade in response to its massacre of humanitarian relief workers and activists aboard the Freedom Flotilla. The planned Labor and Community Picket of an Israeli Zim Line ship will be a moral and principled display of solidarity with Palestinian workers and the people of Palestine.

The global trade union movement, especially the dockworkers component of it, has once again demonstrated its courage and commitment to human rights by adopting concrete, ground-breaking labor-led sanctions against oppressive regimes in a show of effective solidarity with oppressed peoples around the world. Inspired by the courage of dockworkers unions around the world that boycotted South African maritime trade during the anti-apartheid struggle, trade unions are once again taking the lead in defending the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, freedom, the application of the right of return for our refugees, and an end to Israeli occupation and apartheid.

The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee warmly salutes all those that that stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Sunday, June 20 5:30 A.M (morning)

Port of Oakland, Berth 57, Middle Harbor Rd.

Protest Israel’s Attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla!
Boycott Israeli Ships and Goods!
Lift the Blockade NOW – Let Gaza Live!
Bring Down Israel’s Apartheid Wall!

Unions, labor federations and other organizations around the world — including the San Francisco and Alameda County Labor Councils –have condemned Israel’s deadly attack against the Gaza Freedom Flotilla on May 31, 2010. Nine people were killed and dozens seriously injured in the Israeli commando attack in international waters on ships attempting to bring humanitarian cargo to the suffering and blockaded people of Gaza. Six people aboard the ships are still missing and presumed dead.

The Israeli attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla was a blatant act of piracy on the high seas. No Israeli ship should now be allowed to carry on trading activity anywhere in the world without facing picket lines, protests and embargo. Dock workers in several countries including South Africa, Norway, Sweden and Malaysia have declared that they will refuse to handle Israeli cargo in the coming weeks.

We call on everyone who stands for justice and against occupation and apartheid to join the June 20 picket at the Port of Oakland. This is a moment of great opportunity. In San Francisco in 1984, a picket line and refusal to unload cargo of a ship carrying South African cargo was a key event in mobilizing the anti-apartheid movement worldwide.

Sponsored by: Labor / Community Committee in Solidarity with the People of Palestine:

Arab American Union Members Council, ANSWER- Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, Palestine Youth Network, US Palestinian Community Network, Al Awda- Right to Return Coalition, Arab Youth Organization, MECA-Middle East Children’s Alliance, Students for Justice in Palestine, Arab Resource and Organizing Center, International Action Center, International Solidarity Movement, San Jose Peace and Justice Center, International Socialist Organization, Peace and Freedom Party – SF, Transport Workers Solidarity Committee and many labor activists in the Bay Area [list in formation – reply to endorse]

Issued by Labor for Palestine – http://laborforpalestine.wordpress.com – laborforpalestine.us@gmail.com

Sign the letter! + Donate to Labor for Palestine

Download PDF of letter for distribution

“Sanctions alone cannot eradicate apartheid; that task is ultimately left to the people of South Africa themselves. But economic pressure and political isolation of the South African government can hasten the day when justice and freedom reign in that troubled land.” –Richard L. Trumka, June 23, 1987

“We call on other workers and unions to . . . do all that is necessary to ensure that they boycott all goods to and from Israel until Palestine is free.” –Congress of South African Trade Unions, February 3, 2009

“We urge all international trade unions to heed the call of Palestinian civil society, including the trade union movement, by endorsing BDS. We further urge all trade unions and trade union federations to sever their links with the Histadrut, a Zionist organization that has always played a key role in perpetuating Israel’s occupation, colonization and system of racial discrimination, and that has justified and applauded Israel’s war crimes in Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009.” –Palestinian Trade Union Movement Unanimously Confirms Support for BDS, November 25, 2009

——————-

Dear Brother Trumka:

As labor and anti-apartheid activists, we strongly disagree with your October 27 speech denouncing the movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

The BDS campaign was initiated in 2005 by Palestinian civil society — including its entire labor movement. Inspired by the international boycott that helped topple apartheid South Africa, it demands Palestinian self-determination, including an end to Israeli military occupation, the right of refugees to return to the land from which they have been ethnically cleansed since the Nakba of 1947-1948, and equal rights for all throughout historic Palestine.

Support for BDS has grown rapidly, especially since December 27, 2008, when Israel broke a truce with the democratically-elected Palestinian government and attacked Gaza. In the resulting massacre, Israel killed more than 1400 Palestinians, hundreds of them children; maimed and wounded thousands more; and utterly devastated Gaza’s infrastructure, including the Gaza headquarters of the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions.

In the best tradition of labor solidarity, South African and Australian dockworkers responded by refusing to handle Israeli cargo, and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) “call[ed] on other workers and unions to follow suit and to do all that is necessary to ensure that they boycott all goods to and from Israel until Palestine is free.”

Their action echoes the West Coast dock-workers who refused to handle cargo for Nazi Germany (1934) or fascist Italy (1935); those in Denmark and Sweden (1963), the San Francisco Bay Area (1984) and Liverpool (1988), who refused shipping for apartheid South Africa; those in Oakland who refused to load bombs for the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile (1978); and those at all twenty-nine West Coast ports who held a May Day strike against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (2008).

Since Gaza, the 2005 BDS call also been endorsed or reaffirmed by numerous other labor bodies around the world, including the trades union congresses of Ireland, Scotland and the UK; UNISON (UK); Transport and General Workers’ Union (UK); L’Union syndicale Solidaires Industrie (France); Canadian Union of Postal Workers; Canadian Union of Public Employees-Ontario; six Norwegian trade unions; and Intersindical Alternativa de Catallunya.

It is no accident that South African workers play a leading role in the BDS movement. They remember that Israel was apartheid South Africa’s closest ally. They agree with Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s observation that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is “worse than apartheid.” They recognize that the Gaza massacre mirrors the infamous Sharpeville massacre of 1960, which gave birth to an international boycott against South African apartheid.

This rising tide of labor support for BDS has only been further vindicated by Israel’s rejection of the war crimes indictments issued against it by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the UN’s Goldstone Report and numerous other bodies — many of them Israeli.

The BDS campaign is particularly relevant to workers in the United States.

In the past ten years alone, U.S. military aid to Israel was $17 billion; over the next decade, it will be another $30 billion. As in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, U.S. aircraft, white phosphorous and bullets kill and maim on behalf of the occupiers, while both Democratic and Republican politicians condone the slaughter. Amidst deepening economic crisis, workers in this country pay a staggering human and financial price for U.S.-Israeli war and occupation throughout the region.

Despite all of this, however, many U.S. labor officials — often without the knowledge or con-sent of union members — have ignored Palestinian appeals for justice. Instead, they continue to collaborate with the Histadrut, the Zionist labor federation that not only supported Israel’s war on Gaza, but which has spearheaded — and whitewashed — racism, apartheid, dispossession and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians since the 1920s.

They have invested billions of our union pension funds and retirement plans in State of Israel Bonds. They have actively encouraged the U.S. to provide the money and weapons that oppress Palestinian workers, and to ensure Israel’s role as watchdog for U.S. domination over the oil-rich Middle East.

The Jewish Labor Committee has exploited its carefully groomed “progressive” image by hurling false accusations of “anti-Semitism” against those who challenge racism in the U.S. labor movement, who support affirmative action for workers of color, who criticize notorious “AFL-CIA” support U.S. war and empire, and — above all — who oppose apartheid Israel.

Thus, it was the JLC that in July 2007 mobilized top AFL-CIO and Change to Win officials to condemn British union support for BDS. It is the JLC that seeks to deflect outrage over the Gaza massacres by launching Trade Unions Linking Israel and Palestine, whose stated purpose is to sabotage the BDS campaign, while demanding boycotts against Iran, which — unlike Israel — receives no U.S. aid and has no “weapons of mass destruction.”

In the 1980s, as president of the United Mine Workers, you rightly argued that, “economic pressure and political isolation of the South African government can hasten the day when justice and freedom reign in that troubled land.” Two decades later, the cause of “justice and freedom” for Palestinians requires no less of you as president of the AFL-CIO. As trade unionists, we must immediately and completely:

1. Divest from State of Israel Bonds.

2. Support workers’ refusal to handle Israeli cargo.

3. Break ties with the racist Histadrut.

4. Oppose U.S. military and economic aid for Israel.

Initial Signers
(List in formation – sign on below — *For identification only)

Monadel Herzallah, President, Arab American Union Members Council, California

Larry Adams, Co-Convener, New York City Labor Against the War; Former President, NPMHU L. 300*

Michael Letwin, Co-Convener, New York City Labor Against the War; Former President, UAW L. 2325/ALAA*; Al-Awda NY; International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network/Labor

Brenda Stokely, Co-Convener, New York City Labor Against the War; Former President, AFSCME DC 1707*; Co-Chair, Million Worker March Movement

Sam Weinstein, Former President, UWUA L. 132*; International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network/Labor

Stanley Heller, AFT L. 1547*, Delegate, CT Central Labor Council*

Marty Goodman, Former Executive Board Member, TWU L.100*

Frank Rosen, General Vice President (retired), UE*

Steve Zeltzer, Producer, Labor Video Project

Anthony Arnove, National Writers Union/UAW L.1981*

Mike Gimbel, Chair, Labor-Community Unity Committee, AFSCME DC 37 L. 375*; Delegate, NYC Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO*

Dave Welsh, Delegate, San Francisco Labor Council*

Lee Sustar, Chicago Labor Against the War

Timothy Kaminski, UAW L. 110* (ret.)

Janice Rothstein, AFSCME L. 3299*

Andy Griggs, UTLA*; LA Palestine Labor Solidarity Committee, Cafe Intifada

Emma Rosenthal, UTLA*; LA Palestine Labor Solidarity Committee, Cafe Intifada

Pete Nowicki, AFSCME L. 145*

Jim Crampton, 1199SEIU/UHWE*

Allan Fisher, AFT L. 2121, SF Community College*

Sharon Black, AFT L. 2*; Bailout the People Movement

Bill Balderson, Oakland Education Assn.*

Sarah Ringler, AFT L. 1936, PVFT*

Frank Pinto, UPTE-CWA L. 9119*

Steve Desavouret, TCU/IAM 6608*

Louis LaFortune, AFT L. 1936, PVFT*

Azalia Torres, Former Executive Bd. Member, UAW Local 2325/ALAA*

Patrick Langhenry, UAW Local 2325/ALAA*

Lucy Herschel, Delegate 1199SEIU/UHWE*

Carol Seligman, South San Francisco California Teachers Association*

International Endorsers

Rubina Jamil, Working Women Organization; All Pakistan Trade Union Federation*

Tony Leon, Secretary General, Venezuelan Union of Oil Industry Workers*

Download PDF of letter for distribution

To endorse this statement, please complete the form below or contact: laborforpalestine.us@gmail.com

Sign the letter!

* required information (Please list full name of your labor union or organization)

Donate to support Labor for Palestine!

Labor for Palestine needs your support to maintain our grassroots activities. Please click below to donate to us via Paypal!

http://laborforpalestine.wordpress.com/

Boycott Appeals from Palestinian Labor

Palestinian trade unions unanimously support boycott movement
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10915.shtml

A Statement by the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) and the Palestinian Trade Union Blocs and Frameworks
http://bdsmovement.net/?q=node/596