Scabs go to bat for Zionism, organized labour hits back
Written by: Jack Dempster
The cause of Palestine and the cause of labour are inextricably linked. Israel has always represented an outpost of imperialism in the Levant, and imperialism means the domination of capitalist class rule extending beyond the home markets of large nations to oppress and suffocate smaller nations. Israel has its roots in British imperialism and to this day the Zionist state is propped up by the capitalist ruling classes of America, Canada, Germany, and other imperialist powers.
The Canadian capitalist class, exploiters of workers and oppressor of nations domestically and globally, has always stood steadfast in defense of the Israeli settler state. The Canadian government’s official line is that “Canada supports Israel’s right…to assure its own security, as witnessed by our support during the 2006 conflict with Hezbollah and our ongoing support for Israel’s fight against terror.” Canada proudly proclaims that “Canada and Israel enjoy a steadfast friendship and strong, growing bilateral relations in many areas based on shared values, including democracy.” These words are backed up by action. Canada exports many millions of dollars’ worth of weaponry and other military goods to the Zionist regime.
If Canada is a “democracy,” then it is a capitalist democracy, an imperialist democracy, under which the Bay Street financial aristocracy exploits and oppresses the working class at home while fueling conflict and war abroad. Canda and Israel have strong economic, cultural, and military ties, which underpin the former’s support to the latter. Now, after roughly 20,000 Palestinian deaths in Gaza and the West Bank, Canadian regime officials have finally saw fit to vote on a non-binding UN resolution calling for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire,” with Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly adding jingoistically that “Israel has the right to defend itself.”
Against Canadian capitalism, with its open support for racist genocide, the labour movement in Québec and Canada stands as a potential defender of Palestine. Thousands, perhaps millions of workers have poured onto the streets of Toronto, Halifax, Montréal, Ottawa, and Vancouver for weeks on end in defense of the Palestinian national liberation struggle. Workers and immigrants disgusted with Israel also recognize that the violence inflicted upon the Palestinians today could be turned against themselves tomorrow.
Zionists, capitalist politicians, cops, and scabs have rushed to attack the working class for its support to Palestine. Besides overt police repression, the bosses have sought to bring the heat in many other ways, from the firing of workers to outright slander. Meanwhile, the gutter press has consistently mixed Anti-Palestinian racism with old-school union busting rhetoric.
Back on October 8, 2023, after the Palestinians broke through the walls of the Gazan concentration camp via the al-Quds Flood military operation, Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Ontario President Fred Hahn tweeted: “As we think about reasons to be thankful this #thanksgiving2023, I know I’m thankful for the power of workers, the power of resistance around the globe. Because #Resistance is fruitful and no matter what some might say, #Resistance brings progress, and for that, I’m thankful.”
In response, Hahn received an enormous backlash from the Zionist lobby.
The bourgeois press went into a frenzy over Hahn’s Tweets and a related Instagram post. Capitalist politicians did too. Ontario Premier Doug Ford stated that: “The comments by the President of CUPE Ontario glorifying and celebrating the rape, abduction and murder of innocent Israeli people are disturbing, and I denounce them wholeheartedly.” The Ontario Minister of Labour said: “It is unacceptable for anyone, especially the head of a major labour union in Ontario, to support glorifying the persecution and murder of innocent Jewish people,” while the Federal Labour Minister said chimed in to say that Hahn was “spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories”.
Hahn was compelled eventually to back down, tweeting on October 21 that “Hamas committed a horrific terrorist attack on civilians in Israel.”
During the same period, in the immediate aftermath of the al-Quds Flood operation, CUPE Local 3906 at McMaster University tweeted that “Palestine is rising, long live the resistance,” also quoting Palestinian revolutionary Ghassan Kanafani. The tweet went viral and was immediately met with anger and fury from the right-wing press. The university declared that it was “shocked and disappointed at the comments made…the university is in disagreement with any statement condoning violence.” The Local deleted the Tweet, but later responded with a statement that “we refute the conflation between support for Palestine as condoning violence against civilians. The Executive is united against colonial occupation and state violence, and stands in solidarity with those in decolonial struggle everywhere.”
Two days later Hamilton Centre NDP MPP Sarah Jama posted on Twitter calling for an “end to all occupation of Palestinian land.” In response, the Ontario NDP, which presents itself as a pro-working class party, summarily expelled Jama, with head honcho Marit Stiles asserting that Jama took “a number of unilateral actions” and facilitated “unsafe work environments” for staff, the latter of which presumably refers to Zionist harassment of Jama. Jama was also censured at Queen’s Park by the Ford government.
On November 6, 2023, Camille Awada, head of the Canadian Association of Professional Employees (CAPE), resigned over a controversy for supposedly antisemitic comments including:
“The European Zionists are the true Aryan race. They look down at the world as if we are cattle. Israel is the illegitimate Zionist terrorist apartheid state that is the root of all evil!”
On November 17, 2023, the right-wing lawyer Daniel Ableser attacked CUPE and took the opportunity to denounce mandatory membership in unions, asserting that:
“Unions should have to decide. Either they limit themselves to purely labour activities, such as collective bargaining and grievances, and are entitled to mandatory check-off and employer collection of union dues. Or they engage in whatever other activities they please but mandatory check-off does not apply to them so that employees do not have to be associated with views or actions they do not agree with.”
In early November 2023, CUPE 905, which organizes municipal government and library workers in New Tecumseth and York Region, released an email calling for members to “participate in vigils, rallies and other actions urging for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza,” and opposed “the unfolding genocide of the Palestinian people.” In the National Post article cited above, Ari Blaff attacked the Local’s statement for carrying “no reference to Hamas…or the Palestinian terrorist group’s genocidal intense to eliminate the Jewish State.”
The Post reached out to several CUPE 905 scabs who, based on “fear of retribution from the union,” spoke anonymously, with one claiming that their own union was “perpetuating hate by reiterating Hamas propaganda.” This member opposed the Local’s call to attend “vigils, rallies, and other actions,” insinuating that it was making “a call to arms,” supporting “violence and hate…against Jewish people.”
Now there’s a human rights complaint being lodged against CUPE on behalf of a number of scab members on the pretext that CUPE supposedly supports antisemitism. Leading the charge is Carrie Silverberg, previously on the executive of CUPE Local 1734, who is quoted as saying:
“Enough is enough…. those tweets, the day after the massacre and horrendous terrorist attack –for [Hahn] to be celebrating the death of Jews? I cried.”
In a recent article, Silverberg expanded on her position, stating that “I have been a member of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) for the last 16 years. This isn't by choice. I am required to be a member of the union to work for my current employer…. I have come to expect antisemitism from the leadership of my union, which I am forced to be a part of and pay dues to.” She also stated that “the president of CUPE Ontario, who is also the Vice-President of CUPE National, openly celebrating the massacre, kidnapping, torture, and rape of innocent people in Israel….” She ended with the following proclamations: “In CUPE, Jewish lives do not matter! I do not matter! How can I continue paying dues to this hateful organization?”
Similarly, in the region of Peel, Ontario, several teachers have been moaning over a supposed prevalence of “antisemitism” in the Peel District School Board, with some teachers even attacking their own union, the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO). The National Post quoted Jennifer, a “Jewish teacher in Brampton,” who appeared in the article to tattle on ETFO VP Vickita Bhatt for posting pro-Palestinian messaging on social media. Another teacher cited in the article, Allen, was quoted as saying that it’s not fair that “Israel gets lumped in with Western colonization,” despite Israel practicing land resettlement (allowing illegal settlements which steal more Palestinian land) in the occupied West Bank. The National Post article also agreeably cited Darryl Singer, a lawyer whose firm is in the process of suing three university over “antisemitism.” Singer was quoted as saying that the ETFO “is antisemitic… you have union reps who are out there trumpeting their antisemitism views publicly.”
These attacks from CUPE (and PSAC) members on their own unions in defense of the Zionist regime, should be considered political scabbing, and they bring to mind those old words by the socialist writer Jack London:
“After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, and the vampire, He had some awful substance left with which He made a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a waterlogged brain, and a combination backbone made of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles.”
Zionism is not synonymous with Judaism. As we have seen, Jews all over the world have been protesting in defense of the Palestinians. However, the Zionists have always sought to tie Judaism to Zionism, asserting that they are one and the same. Canadian bourgeois society has eagerly weaponized identity politics to smear any expressions of pro-Palestine sentiment as “antisemitism.” But Zionism is a fundamentally racist and anti-working class movement, which is why the right-wing press is so happy to constantly smear and attack both Palestine and the unions.
Labour resistance
In the face of these union-busting attacks and Zionist hysterics, the labour movement has not been silent. The working class is not simply a neutral victim which can be attacked and smeared without a response. The workers haven’t turned the other cheek; they’ve hit back.
The Labour4Palestine milieu has been mobilizing union members in defense of Palestine. On December 15, 2023, for example, Labour4Palestine blocked traffic in Ottawa as a protest against Export Development Canada and its ties to Israel, as well as to denounce the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement. On December 17, L4P organized a contingent at a Toronto Palestinian rally.
Additionally, in response to a call of action from Palestinian trade unionists, Toronto-area workers have been engaged in pickets and blockades of weapons factories.
Palestine also entered the Ontario Federation of Labour’s 2023 Convention as a lively topic. According to a detailed report from a CUPE 3902 delegate, Palestine was all over the conference.
First, the Hamilton and District Labour Council (HDLC) put forward an emergency resolution calling for an end to the OFL’s affiliation with the Ontario New Democratic Party until Sarah Jama was restored to her position. The motion went simply unconsidered by the OFL brass, for whom political support to the NDP is somewhat of a catechism.
Then, another resolution hit the floor, with the pacifist demand of calling on the Federal government to call for a ceasefire in Palestine (a demand which, as mentioned above, has now been taken up by the federal government). The resolution also called for useful things like donating to humanitarian aid in Gaza as well as educating trade unionists about Canada’s complicity in Israeli apartheid. Although CUPE Ontario leadership and other delegates supported the resolution, one delegate called to include language condemning Hamas and the October 7 Al-Quds Flood operation. After a debate, the resolution passed, but with a new point condemning the Gazan uprising.
Other rank-and-file unionists are pushing for the Palestinian cause. Resolutions have been put to CUPE 4400 general meetings, the same union which last year went on a militant strike against the anti-working class Ford government. One motion, as reported to this writer by a 4400 member, was based upon a resolution issued by the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) and other global leftist organizations and unions. That global resolution calls on workers to “recognize Zionism’s use as a weapon of Western imperialism and the Israeli state as an instrument to suppress sovereignty and unity in the Arab world — and advance violent reaction far beyond it” and to “recognize that as a colonial project and imperial outpost, the Israeli state stands against the tendency of history to advance toward liberation, and that the liberation of the Palestinian people will therefore represent not only a severe blow to imperialism everywhere but also a progressive leap for all humanity.”
The working class stands tall and rises to the occasion of the defense of Palestine. History will absolve the proletariat, despite all the slanders and vitriol emanating from the scabs and other servants of imperialist class rule.
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Jack Dempster is a socialist trade unionist and writer based in Toronto, Ontario.
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