Palestinian workers demand wages from PA
Sep 1 2006 12:08
After I saw the item on the libcom news about this, I read this on Ma'an, the Palestinian news agency. Pretty interesting.
Quote:
The spokesman announced that they have received information about some elements who wish to use the protests as an excuse to attack governmental departments such as hospitals and schools.
Familiar language 
Hamas are right that it is Israel, the US and the EU imposing the wages freezes. But that don't stop them wearing expensive suits and driving around in flash cars. Wages to most loyal sectors of the PA security are still being paid too.
Sep 1 2006 12:45
#2
"Hamas claim the strike has “no relation to national interests” and is being co-ordinated by the Fatah party “that has no ties with employees” – many union leaders are Fatah members. However, despite these party-political manoeuvres the grievances are very real; with unemployment running at around 30% and around 25% of the workforce affected by the current withholding of wages, over half of the workforce is surviving on very little income. The UN estimates 80% of the population lives in "poverty"." (Libcom news article)
I agree with Joseph K and with the libcom news article. Movements like this are important precisely because they "have no relation to national interests" - ie they tend to break the national concensus which is reinforced every day by the war. This is somewhat relevant to the discussion with Revol68 a week or so ago. Revol was stressing the possibility of class struggle developing out of Palestinian workers resisting the occupation (or its effects), but this development shows that a struggle between Palestinian workers and 'their own' bosses is a concrete possibility right now, and - along with the revival of struggles by Israeli workers against austerity - far more likely to bring the class struggle out into the open.
Sep 1 2006 12:54
#3
Alf wrote:
I agree with Joseph K and with the libcom news article.
as it happens they're the same in this case 
but yeah stuff like this is promissing, the striking workers are hardly pro-occupation yet they can see their 'own' bosses in the same light. its probably fantasy land, but imagine the potential if there was a concurrent strike in Israel - the antagonism transposed to capital 
[/wishful thinking]
Sep 1 2006 12:53
#4
That news article is very cool; I'm very glad libcom news is up'n'running again. Anyone else wants to start posting stuff to it please do!
Sep 1 2006 13:28
#5
Joseph K. wrote:
the timebomb is class struggle.
and sure enough:
all of a sudden there's money for Hamas (co-founded by Israel of course as an anti-leftist measure). There is a spectre stalking the world ...
Sep 2 2006 15:25
#6
Joseph K. wrote:
I don't know if there is or not, but the fact the strike is aimed at the PA not Israel/US etc seems to say they're prepared to fight the boss whatever form he takes.
Well there is no way to aim anything resembling a real strike at Israel or the US, so I'm not sure it's as significant as you say. There is no way for Palestinian workers to withdraw their labor from Israel, since Israel kicked them all out and replaced them with "guest workers" from SE Asia, Africa etc. But for sure it is significant. The other factor we need to understand though, is that insofar as the PA is tollerated by Israel and the US is is basically in it's co-laberationist tendancies and elements. Another factor for the anger against the PA - they suck on every level.
There are frequent, unreported (even by us in the ISM Media Group most times) general "strikes" in Ramallah (and I hear often the whole of the West Bank). But they are mainly symbolic acts of protest against Israel. For example: when that family was killed on the beach in Gaza, there was a strike - all the shops closed, everyone apart from a few things for essentials etc. When asassinations happen, there are "strikes". When a big, popular local Fatah fighter (also part of the PA security, probably also part of al-Aqsa brigades) was assassinated in my neighbourhood a few months back, there was an extremely solid strike (no sneaky little doors open like usual). To be honest, they are more like periods of mourning than real strikes - labor isn't really being withdrawn from an enemy. Often they arise out of frustration of not knowing what else to do. An sometimes "strikes" are even decalared from on high by the PA. For examples, at the end of last year, there was a al-Qaidaish/jihadist bombing in a hotel in Amman that wiped out a wedding party because it blew up the floor above them. The aparent target was a bunch of shady characters - including one mucky muck who was head of PA "Internal Security" i.e. department of co-laberator and internal enemy execution. Used by the PA against Hamas extensively in the 90s - not a popular guy. But the PA declared a 3 day "strike" to protest the bombing and put his poster up everywhere in Ramallah.
Once I was having somes beers and an argile with a Palestinian in a restaurant and couple of guys arrived nearby the restaurant and fired off a couple of rounds from their AKs and people started paying and legging it out of the restauret - "there's a stike: we have to leave now" my friend told me. Bastards - I had half a pint left as well.
Joseph K. wrote:
what are people saying in Ramallah?
It's hard to gauge how for this will be taken. But for sure, people are already starting to regret trusting Hamas. Don't forget, that despite some token payments, salaries for government employees have not yet been resumed. There's been a lot of politicking between the two main parties over who get's what salaries (e.g. salaries have generally been payed to the lower bracket - not a principled socialist measure, but reflecting the fact that the fat cat civil servants at the top are all still Fatah!). In general, the equivalent of just one month's salary has been paid in the last 6 months. So it's REALLY easy for people to justify not turning up for work! It's not like a fight over pay rises, there are NO wages - there is a generally popular fear of not being able to make ends meet. What middle class there is are selling their gold to buy food.
My guess of what will happen is that the people who strike, and who actually believe in the nationalist unity rhetoric are gonna be disillusioned at the riot-cop batons coming down on their heads when they strike, hence it may get more radical.
Or Israel could launch a full-scale invasion and re-occupation of the West Bank again and all that will be forgotten and people will side with those who beat them on the head over those who bomb them with F-16s and apaches.
Funny old world eh?
Sep 2 2006 15:40
#7
asa wrote:
There is no way for Palestinian workers to withdraw their labor from Israel, since Israel kicked them all out and replaced them with "guest workers"
true, but there's been plenty of flag-waving anti-israel demos and this seems to have taken a line deliberately hostile to the PA, or at least Hamas (if Fatah's string-pulling comes off). They could have just demo'd against Israel and not struck.
asa wrote:
Once I was having somes beers and an argile with a Palestinian in a restaurant and couple of guys arrived nearby the restaurant and fired off a couple of rounds from their AKs and people started paying and legging it out of the restauret - "there's a stike: we have to leave now" my friend told me. Bastards - I had half a pint left as well.
thats interesting, 'strike' can have a different meaning in different contexts. But i think where there are real grievances there is the potential for workers to deliberately take the rhetoric more seriously than intended, like when dissidents in the Eastern Bloc started actually advocating democratic socialist republics (i've nicked that point from zizek 
), which relates to ...
asa wrote:
My guess of what will happen is that the people who strike, and who actually believe in the nationalist unity rhetoric are gonna be disillusioned at the riot-cop batons coming down on their heads when they strike, hence it may get more radical.
infact i think by striking people are putting rhetoric about national unity lower below their own material interests, since it's Hamas calling for unity by not striking. It seems its maybe a seed of something, nothing more.
Sep 7 2006 10:29
#8
Heh heh.
Looks like even Hamas supporters are participating
Palestinian government is unable to end the general strike, or pay the salaries.
As far as Ramallah goes, support is weakening. For the first couple of days it was quite solid - all shops were shut in support. By the third day here, they started to open up. Heard tell of armed (almost certainly Fatah/al-Aqsa) groups making threats to burn down open shops. By now, shops seem to be back to normal.
Kids not back at school though.
Sep 9 2006 14:44
#9
cheers for the updates asa!
Sep 12 2006 09:36
#10
NP, I enjoy.
Especially when I spot something like that virgin mary poster next to nasrallah
exactly, i think it must appear to many palestinians that the nationality of the men with guns enforcing their poverty is irrelevant. Fatah seem to be organising many of the demos as part of their politicking with Hamas, but that doesn't mean there isn't a class sentiment on the ground. I don't know if there is or not, but the fact the strike is aimed at the PA not Israel/US etc seems to say they're prepared to fight the boss whatever form he takes.
I think this is the 'ticking time bomb' the UN are using to get cash out of the capitalist powers, gaza's been exploding in nationalist terms for years - the timebomb is class struggle.
what are people saying in Ramallah?