On International Workers' Day, the Palestinian labor movement reiterates solidarity with workers across the world resisting all forms of oppression and calls for ending complicity in Israel's ongoing genocide and apartheid.
This May Day, we the undersigned Palestinian trade unions and federations urgently renew our call to unions around the world to:
- Uphold and defend the inalienable rights of the Indigenous people of Palestine as stipulated in international law, particularly the right of our refugees to return home and receive reparations, and;
- Escalate BDS pressure to end all state, corporate and institutional complicity in Israel’s illegal occupation, apartheid and genocide.
On this international day of worker solidarity, we remind ourselves that an injury to one is an injury to all. Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza has hastened the onslaught of a “might makes right” era that threatens humanity at large. This has manifested itself in the collapse of respect for international law, human rights and workers’ rights.
Today, the Palestinian struggle for justice is at the heart of the battle against a world order of “might makes right” that is being imposed by the U.S-Israel genocidal axis and enabled by European colonial powers. As Israel’s wars of aggression against the peoples of the region expand from Lebanon to Syria and from Yemen to Iran, and as the US threatens the peoples of Cuba, Greenland, Venezuela, among others, it is clear hardly anyone is safe from this might-makes-right descent to the abyss. Simultaneously Israel is accelerating its brutal ethnic cleansing, annexation, settler violence, and violence against our prisoners in the West Bank. This affects us all and therefore should unite us all.
Our struggle for justice in Palestine is inseparable from the global struggle against systemic racism, exploitation, climate devastation and all forms of oppression.
It is the duty of unions to ensure that the workers they represent—whether in ports, on ships, in businesses, or in government offices—are not involved, often without their knowledge and/or consent, in actions that involve complicity in atrocity crimes anywhere, including Israel’s war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
Click here for some of the many inspiring expressions of meaningful solidarity by workers and unions from around the world.
The 2024 decisions of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – that Israel is plausibly committing genocide, that its occupation is illegal, and its policies amount to apartheid – make ending all complicity in Israel’s crimes not only a moral but also a legal obligation. States, institutions (including unions) and corporations must impose targeted, lawful sanctions on Israel.
We, the undersigned Palestinian trade unions, call on workers and unions around the world to escalate their support for our liberation struggle by:
- Adopting ethical procurement policies (EPP) and, where applicable, ethical investment policies (EIP) that exclude corporations implicated in grave human rights violations anywhere, including in Palestine.
- Pressuring corporations and institutions they work in to end any complicity through ending contracts that directly or indirectly support Israel’s atrocity crimes, and adopting EPP and/or EIP.
- Peacefully disrupting and blocking the transfer of military, energy and other dual-use supplies to Israel, by:
- Participating in actions to identify and stop the illegal transfer by sea, land or air, including by pressuring states to enforce international obligations in relation to such shipments, and by pressuring complicit corporate actors.
- Refusing to handle Israeli or Israeli-bound military supplies, energy and other dual-use cargo.
- Rejecting any racist agreement with Israel that facilitates the substitution and further oppression of Palestinian workers.
- Escalating economic, academic, cultural, and sports BDS campaigns.
- Pressuring your governments to uphold their legal obligations following the ICJ rulings of 2024, as stated by UN human rights experts, by, at a minimum, imposing “a full arms embargo on Israel, halting all arms agreements, imports, exports and transfers, including of dual-use items that could be used against the Palestinian population under occupation,” as well as canceling or suspending “economic relationships, trade agreements and academic relations with Israel that may contribute to its unlawful presence and apartheid regime in the occupied Palestinian territory.”
- Cutting all ties with Israel’s colonial Histadrut federation and expelling it from all international fora.
- Declaring your union an Apartheid-Free Zone (AFZ) to end corporate and institutional complicity with systems of oppression, particularly Israel's regime of apartheid and genocide against the Palestinian people.
- Organize, join and amplify peaceful actions to mark the 78th anniversary of the Nakba, on or around 15 May.
Signatories:
- General Union of Palestinian Workers (GUPW)
- Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU), Gaza
- Palestinian Union of Postal, IT & Telecommunications Workers
- Federation of Independent Trade Unions
- The Palestinian New Federation of Trade Unions
- General Union of Palestinian Teachers (GUPT)
- Association of Employees of The Financial Sector - Palestine
- Health Services Employees’ Association
- Union of Workers in Kindergartens and Private Schools
- Jawwal Employee Association
- Union of Workers in Local Authorities
- Palestinian Electricians Union
- Southern Electricity Company Employees Union
- General Union of Palestinian Women