A message from Eric Lee at TULIP:
First, I'd like to ask each of you to show your support for striking Palestinian workers at the Salit quarry.
LabourStart, the news and campaigning website of the international trade union movement, was asked by an independent trade union in Israel (WAC Ma'an) to launch an online campaign to pressure the Israeli employer to come back to the bargaining table.
In my view, this is exactly the kind of solidarity Palestinian workers need — not boycotts, not demonisation of Israel, but genuine trade union solidarity. Read more here.
Second, that other kind of useless posturing — instead of genuine solidarity — is exemplified by the Congress of South African Trade Unions which cannot let a week go by without bashing Israel. This time, it was a call for an arms embargo targeting the Jewish state. COSATU had nothing to say about an arms embargo on, say, Syria, where the regime is slaughtering its own civilians.
Real trade union solidarity is doing things like building support for the Salit quarry workers — not empty slogans about the evils of Zionism.
