Trade Union Friends of Israel

We do this by:

• taking delegations of British trade unionists to meet with their Israeli and Palestinian counterparts

• encouraging individual unions to play an active part in developing relationships
with sister unions in the region

What are we trying to achieve?

This has been a critical year for both Israelis and Palestinians and for TUFI as an organisation. Tumultuous political changes within the Palestinian territories could have a positive effect on the working relationship with the two trade
union organisations in the region but it is still fraught with difficulties, particularly for trade unionists in Gaza.

TUFI is taking this opportunity to create initiatives within the British trade union movement to lend support to their Israeli and Palestinian counterparts to promote trade union co-operation. As the TUC said from its findings on the Report of the Delegation to the Middle East in January 2007, “it is British trade unionists role to facilitate contact between the Histadrut and the PGFTU”.

TUFI wants to work with British trade unionists to enable co-operative actions that seek to find solutions to the difficulties the two sides face in working together.

What’s happening in the region?

Whilst this year’s talk of boycotts of Israel from the trade union movement has taken the headlines, the reality on the ground has been very different.

The Histadrut held their Congress in Tel Aviv in early July where four members of the PGFTU were welcomed as guest visitors. They were present for the duration of the Conference and participated with their Israeli counterparts.

Agreements

More recently (August 2007) Israeli and Palestinian transport unions forged a groundbreaking agreement held under the auspices of the International Transport Federation (ITF). Around 20 Israeli and Palestinian transport workers met to discuss common issues, such as collective bargaining, delayed payment of wages, loss of union membership and the outsourcing of work.

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 workers.

It was reported that both sides had their disagreements and there were some “raw and difficult” moments, however both are committed to a course of action to co-operate and make representations on each other’s behalf, such as the easing of checkpoints with the Israeli security services.

You can see the full details of this agreement on
the ITF website www.itf.org.uk

Boycotts

Supporting a boycott of Israel hurts both Palestinian and Israeli trade unionists and workers alike. We need to encourage joint working initiatives to unite the two peoples, rather than divisive boycott activity of one group. This has been supported by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and numerous international trade union confederations as well as by the leadership of many UK trade unions.

Over 40 sister unions in the US have signed a joint declaration that calls for unions to support “engagement, rather than disengagement, with the Israeli people and the Palestinian people is needed, so that a just and fair resolution to this conflict may be pursued”.

We believe that British trade unionists should have more to offer to secure a lasting peace than a divisive call to boycott Israel.

Therefore TUFI would like the British Trade Union movement to work positively for a lasting peace to support the following:

Statement of aims and objectives for working for peace.

• Work with the International Confederations to bring together trade unionists by industry to make agreements citing the ITF as an example of what is achievable

• Ask trade unions to support joint training and seminars for sister Israeli and Palestinian Trade Unions