CUPE National General Vice-President and CUPE Ontario President Fred Hahn in 2022. Photo credit: Facebook/Dave Bradley

Written by: Jack Dempster

Last week, supporters of the Zionist regime went on a new offensive against the President of CUPE Ontario and VP of CUPE National, Fred Hahn. Fred Hahn has been targeted by the bosses and Zionists for his solidarity with the Palestinian people, who have been suffering from a brutal escalation in Israel’s genocide after the Zionist entity was embarrassed by the Palestinian resistance’s October 7 Al-Aqsa Flood Operation.

What set off this most recent firestorm was Hahn posting a video on Facebook on August 11 linking Zionist participation in the recent Olympics to the Israeli bombing of residential buildings in the Gaza Strip. Hahn ended up deleting the video after a ferocious Zionist backlash, with Zionist members of CUPE such as Carrie Silverberg taking to the gutter press to whine that “I think I actually started crying, the emotion and sadness of how he continues to portray Jewish people.”

During the latest hue-and-cry over Hahn’s alleged “antisemitism,” Ontario Labour Minister David Piccini, who oversees the exploitation of Ontario workers, took the opportunity to harass Hahn, approaching him and stating that “you have to stop hating Jews.” The corrupt and union-busting Conservative Premier Doug Ford chimed in to state that Hahn “has been a bully for 20 years…. His bigoted comments, it’s unacceptable.”

The Zionists and labour-haters have been in a feeding frenzy over Hahn’s principled solidarity with the Palestinians, just as they have been over every expression of organized labour support for the Palestinian cause. It should come as no surprise that the Zionists and the Ontario capitalist class should feel such urgency to attack, smear, and defame union leadership. What came as a bigger disappointment was that the leadership of CUPE National, under National President Mark Hancock and National Secretary-Treasurer Candace Rennick, took the opportunity to bloc with the Zionists against Hahn.

On August 21, 2024, the public learned that CUPE National Executive Board had held, one day earlier, an emergency meeting over the controversy, where they decided to seek Hahn’s resignation from his position: General Vice President of CUPE National. The entire CUPE National Executive Board, with the exception of Yolanda McClean, voted against Hahn. The motion stated:

“That the National Executive Board has lost confidence in the ability of Fred Hahn to represent the national union in his role as a General Vice-President, and consequently calls for his resignation from that position.”

The bosses’ press, smelling blood, quickly exploited the split in CUPE. Doug Ford got into the mix, calling Hahn a “disgusting human being” and taking to X/Twitter to state: “I applaud CUPE National for asking Fred Hahn to step down.”

Embarrassed by this intervention from Ford, a class enemy, the CUPE National Executive Board hurried to publish an awkward statement claiming that “We do not take advice from a union-hating, public serving-gutting Premier trying to distract from his own scandals and track record.”

This witch-hunt against Hahn, who was elected to CUPE National last October, and re-elected as Ontario President just a few months ago, has inspired a wave of support from pro-Palestinian CUPE members, defenders of union democracy, and other supporters of the Palestinian cause.

For example, a rank and file 4400 brother, a caretaker and a participant in the militant 2022 OSBCU strike against the Ford regime, took to Facebook to state that:

“Today Candace Rennick and Mark Hancock have lined up with Doug Ford, the bosses of Ontario, and the genocidal Zionist state to try and throw our CUPE Ontario prez Fred Hahn out of office.

Fred has been the union leader at the forefront of support for Palestine, and these ghouls have found that unacceptable since October 7th.

There's 2 people who this motion shows are not fit to be leaders in CUPE, and Fred isn't on that list.

Stand strong Fred, we elected you because unlike them you'll fight the good fight, both for our locals and in the world at large.”

They also stated that:

“Mark Hancock, Candace Rennick and the rest of CUPE national have been forced to respond to the massive backlash for their attack on our CUPE Ontario prez Fred Hahn. They attempt to defend their demand of resignation by claiming that they're not folding to the bosses, to Ford, or the Zionist regime.

I agree.

They're not folding because Ford, the Zionists, the Bosses, and right now CUPE National executive are in agreement against Fred. They've all wanted Fred gone since the OSBCU - CSCSO strike. They don't want someone willing to organize against the bosses so well, and who'll break the bosses law like that. It's the worst kept political secret in CUPE. They're also aligned on the genocide of the Palestinians. They agree with the bosses to let it happen. They don't care about it, or as the national board of the biggest union in the country they'd have done something. They only claim to care about it here because they've overreached in trying to use the worst occurrence in society since WWII as a political bludgeon against their rival.”

A shop steward of CUPE Local 3902 also had this to say:

“Hands off Fred Hahn!

Fred Hahn has been very popular in CUPE Ontario and was willing to lead to an illegal general strike in response to Ford's attack on the right to strike back in 2022. It was CUPE National and Mark Hancock that folded when Ford gave them an out - fold your picket lines and we will take back our strike-breaking legislation. Fred saw that tactic for what it was - an ask from the boss for labour leadership to break its own strike. Fred said no, but Mark Hancock was happy to play that role.

What was the line again, Mark? ‘I think what we did was motivate the workers too well.’ Maybe Mark will say something similar to those organizing here against the genocide?

I've disagreed with Fred before, but he knows what side of the class line he is beholden to. He understands that international working class solidarity means doing everything to defend Palestinians from zionist genocide. Mark Hancock? Well, more and more, he seems a scab who takes his orders directly from the political representation of the bosses.”

Last Thursday, CUPE membership, including this author, received a message from Fred Hahn in their inboxes, in which he defiantly rejected the smear of antisemitism and refused to step down:

“I want to be clear - I utterly reject the charge of antisemitism; anyone who knows and works with me knows it to be a lie. It remains my strongly held view that it is a terrible mistake, and antisemitic, to conflate abhorrent actions by the state of Israel with Jewish humanity or identity.”

Reactionaries often claim that trade union leaders should “stay in their lane,” focus on the wages and benefits of their membership, and keep out of international politics. However, for this author and other militant unionists, fighting for the working class at home is directly linked to the fight abroad for Palestinian liberation. The Palestinians as a nation are oppressed by not only Israel, but also the entire imperialist world order of which Israel is but an extension. In fact, the same Canadian bosses who oppress workers here at home, continue to ship weaponry to the Zionist regime abroad.

Carrie Silverberg and other scab members of the unions, who rush to the bosses’ newspapers to attack their own union leadership as “antisemitic,” will not deter class conscious workers from standing against all forms of Zionism, racism, antisemitism, and anti-Muslim bigotry.

The gutter press has recently asked us CUPE members ‘what do you stand for?’

This author says: For Palestine, and for the defense of Fred Hahn!

Jack Dempster is a socialist trade unionist and writer based in Toronto, Ontario.

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