On May Day, Labour for Palestine Calls for Global Solidarity Against Genocide
Labour for Palestine marks this year’s International Worker’s Day by calling on labour activists across Canada and Quebec to stand in solidarity with Palestinian trade unions against the Israeli genocide and apartheid. As we commemorate the labour movement’s historical struggle for dignity and justice, we denounce the daily humiliation, abuse, detention, torture, discrimination, and murder of our Palestinian comrades. We condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the Canadian government’s complicity in the ongoing genocide by blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza and through its support and continued illegal flow of arms to Israel.
In light of our government’s abetment in the active extermination of Palestinian communities, their history, culture, and memory, the Canadian labour movement has a responsibility to use its power and interfere where it can. We call on labour activists to seize this day as an opportunity to begin organizing their places of work and answer the call of Palestinian trade unions for an arms embargo on Israel. To this end, we call on the Canadian government and the Canadian Labour Congress to declare all military goods and arms components flowing to and from Israel as “hot cargo.”
Our labour movement has a rich history of opposing imperialist regimes and rising for justice, as manifested during the military dictatorships in Argentina and Chile, the South African Apartheid, the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, and the Iraq war, to name a few. In the face of the ongoing genocide on Gaza, Labour for Palestine invites workers to join forces with its local chapters and caucuses to, among other actions, adopt motions within their unions to recognize the concept of “hot cargo,” and work towards the ability to withhold labour where it may serve the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and implement Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaigns within their places of work.
Finally, we applaud and express our unwavering support to the students currently carrying out encampment actions across Canada and the United States. The post-secondary education sector has deep ties with the Israeli occupation and the ongoing genocide in Gaza through pension investments and research partnerships. We call on workers in the sector to support and join campus actions and echo students’ calls for a free Palestine.
