MEDIA RELEASE: Sudbury and District Labour Council Supports BDS Campaign in Solidarity with Palestine

MEDIA RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – DECEMBER 17, 2014

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: Reuben Roth, rroth@laurentian.ca or at 705-675-1151 ext. 4362

Palestine Solidarity Working Group Congratulates the Sudbury & District Labour Council for their Support of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Campaign against Israeli Goods, Funds and Corporations

Sudbury, Ontario – Sudbury’s local Palestine Solidarity Working Group extends its congratulations to the Sudbury District Labour Council (SDLC) for passing a motion on November 27, 2014, in favour of the growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign in support of Palestinian rights.

The Sudbury District Labour Council, an affiliate of the CLC, passed a motion which reads: "The Executive Board recommends the Sudbury and District Labour Council support the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement." In addition to this motion stating support for the principles of BDS, the SDLC supported five specific actions (see below) in keeping with Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign. The motion will be in effect until the State of Israel complies with international law. 

The motion was in response to a July 2014 call for international union solidarity from the Palestinian trade union movement, with support from the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and its affiliates as follows: “We, the Palestinian trade unions, call on trade unions around the world to take urgent measures, and in particular to intensify Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, until it complies with international law. We ask you to consider the following actions:

1. Stop handling goods imported from or exported to Israel,
2. Divest your trade union pension — and other — funds from Israel Bonds as well as from corporations and banks that complicit in Israel’s occupation and human rights violations,
3. Dissociate from Israeli trade unions which are complicit in the occupation
4. Support our call for a military embargo on Israel
5. Share information with your members about the siege and destruction of Gaza and ask your members to boycott Israeli products and to share their knowledge with family, co-workers, and friends.”

The call for solidarity was issued by the following Palestinian trade unions: Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions-Gaza; General Union of Palestinian Workers; Union of Professional Associations; and the Federation of Independent Trade Unions.

Palestinian unions state that “civil society solidarity is the only force that can help stop the ongoing slaughter of our people and send them a message that they are not alone, exactly as effective international solidarity had done in supporting the struggle for freedom in apartheid South Africa.”

In passing this motion, the SDLC joins a growing list of unions supporting the BDS campaign, in Canada and around the world. In Canada this includes the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, the Canadian Union of Public Employees-Ontario, the National Teachers Federation of Quebec and the Centrale des Syndicats du Quebec. Other organizations supporting the BDS campaign in Canada include the Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario, more than sixteen different student unions across the country, Independent Jewish Voices, the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty and many other organizations.

Globally the BDS campaign has been endorsed by national trade union federations in South Africa, the UK, Scotland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, the Basque Country (Spain), Brazil and other countries across Latin America, in addition to scores of national and local unions. Africa’s largest trade union federation, ITUC-Africa,  which represents 15 million workers from 56 African trade union federations, has also endorsed BDS. The European Trade Union Congress is currently taking boycott action against produce imported from illegal Israeli settlements on the West Bank.   

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: Reuben Roth, rroth@laurentian.ca or at  705-675-1151 ext. 4362.