British Trade Unions Back Boycott, Divestment, & Sanctions of Israel Until Ending Occupation of Palestine

Thursday September 17, 2009 23:49 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News

A Congress of Britain’s largest trade unions, representing 6.5 million workers, have voted overwhelmingly to commit to build a mass boycott movement for disinvestment and sanctions on Israel, until the Israeli occupation government agrees to a negotiated settlement based on justice for Palestinians.

Israel Boycott campaign poster (photo from Gavin Ian Campbell)

The motion was passed at the 2009 TUC (Trade Union Conference) Annual Congress in Liverpool, on Thursday the 17th of September, and is a culmination of a wave of motions passed at the local level by various trade unions this year.

The unions say that the boycott action comes after widespread outrage among British workers at Israel’s brutal invasion of Gaza in December and January. One of the campaign organizers says that this will lead to a mass campaign to boycott Israeli goods, especially agricultural products that have been produced in illegal Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank.

The motion additionally called for the TUC General Council to put pressure on the British government to end all arms trading with Israel and support moves to suspend the EU-Israel trade agreement. Unions are also encouraged to disinvest from companies which profit from Israel’s illegal 42-year occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.

Not all unions voted to participate in the boycott - the Fire Brigades Union, for example, tabled the motion. But the biggest unions in the UK, including Unite, the public sector union, and UNISON, which represents health service workers, voted in favour of the motion.

The motion also condemned the Israeli trade union Histadrut’s statement supporting Israel’s war on Gaza, which killed 1,450 Palestinians in three weeks, and called for a review of the TUC’s
relationship with Histadrut.

Britain’s trade unions join those of South Africa and Ireland in voting to use a mass boycott campaign as a tool to bring Israel into line with international law, and pressure it to comply with UN resolutions that encourage justice and equality for the Palestinian people.

Fair Use Notice

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.