Canada's biggest labour body agreed to cut ties with its Israeli counterpart
The largest labour organization in Canada has committed to cutting ties with Israel’s trade federation, the Histadrut.
A resolution passed at the constitutional convention of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) in Winnipeg earlier this month also calls on the Canadian government to support a two-way arms embargo, suspend the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement and condemn Israeli settlement expansion.
Kevin MacKay, who attended the convention as a delegate from the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE), told PressProgress that, when it came time for the vote, “We had a lot of the biggest labour leaders in the hall lining up at the mic to either speak or show support for the resolution.”
“It’s amazing to have leadership on board,” said MacKay, an anthropology professor at Mohawk College. “That’s not always the case.”
Until the eleventh hour, delegates like MacKay weren’t sure if they would be voting on a resolution to cut ties with the Histadrut — after a resolution to declare trade, services and relationships with Israel to be “hot cargo” was disqualified altogether.
MacKay is a member of Labour For Palestine (L4P), a volunteer-run effort made up of workers from across Canada. The group has been organizing to pass hot-cargo resolutions at provincial labour federations that would instruct workers to refrain from handling all goods produced by, or going to, Israel.
Less than a week before the convention began, activists with L4P got word that the resolution they spearheaded, which would have committed the CLC to issuing a hot-cargo declaration and cutting ties with the Histadrut, had been given a “non-concurrence” decision by the CLC’s General Resolutions Committee, meaning it wouldn’t be presented to delegates for a vote.
“We believe that this is a political discussion and a political decision,” Hassan Husseini, a member of L4P’s national steering committee, told PressProgress just ahead of the convention. (more...)
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