Solidarity, not boycott: the way forward!
Last month, after the T&G conference had voted (under shameful circumstances) to boycott all things Israeli and the Israeli union federation (the Histadrut) had responded by breaking off links with the T&G, a comrade of mine on the T&G executive e-mailed me as follows :
“Boycott success!
“T&G has no ties with Histadrut. Boycott of Israeli workers a success. Failure to boycott Israeli capitalists not a problem as Camfield (Barry Camfield – the fake-left mover of the boycott resolution – JD) said that wasn’t our intention.
“Camfield’s farewell to our union (he’s retiring – JD) is to fuck up our leading role in bringing Palestinian and Israeli workers together through the ITF (International Transport Workers Federation-JD).
“Palestinian transport workers are the main victims of border harassment by Israel, Israeli transport workers are amongst the main victims of bombers”.
(The ‘boycott’ decision is) “A triumph of abuse of process to suppress democratic debate, not just at the conference, with most of the members of the committees it (ie the boycott resolution – JD) progressed through being totally unaware of the consequences of their stupidity. This is not exceptional in the T&G or the labour movement at large. It is normal process. This anti-democratic disregard for honest debate does not come from the right wing. It is routine internal and external political practice of left groups.
” Does anybody fancy doing something about this?“, he concluded.
Well, we still have a battle on our hands to mobilise the rank-and-file to reverse the boycott motions in the T&G and the other British unions that have been so ill-advised as to have passed them.
But, in the meanwhile the ITF has some excellent news: Palestinian and Israeli transport workers’ representatives have met together under the auspices of the ITF to discuss “common issues such as collective bargaining, delayed payment of wages, loss of union membership and the increasing outsourcing of work to contractors . They agreed to establish a joint liaison committee to provide a mechanism for dealing with practical problems faced by transport workers in the region and for building trust between Israeli and Palestinian transport unions”.
“In particular the committee aims to deal with the difficult and sensitive issue of the problems faced by Palestinian transport workers at miltary checkpoints…”
What a pity that the British/Irish T&G, that did so much to establish those links in the first place, has now excluded itself from the solidarity process by its ignorant, stupid and counter-productive “boycott Israel” gesture.
Hat-tips: ‘Modernity’ and Bob from Brockley (both on the direct right of here, so I’m not bothering with links).
Shiraz Socialist 
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