Histadrut, the biggest Israeli trade union federation, has declared that it will be allowing legal migrant workers to become members as early as March 2010. Sources from Kav LaOved claim that this is a result of pressure from competing federation Koach La Ovdim, as the latter gains ground in traditional Histadrut areas and is also starting to make headway into the migrant labor section.
Until now, migrant workers could not be members of Histadrut. As it is the biggest Israeli federation of trade unions, and trade unions in Israel are only acknowledged when they are part of a federation, this meant that they could not legally organize. This gap was covered by a non-profit called Kav LaOved - literally "Worker's Hotline" - which gives free advice and cheap labor representation, both for migrant workers and for others not covered by any of the unions, but does not have the legal protection afforded to actual union organizers.
Then, just three years ago, a new trade union federation came into being. Their name is Koach La Ovdim - literally "Power to the Workers". They started organizing in many heretofore non-unionized jobs, mostly in contract work and temporary employment, such as security workers, baggage handlers, waiting, and even lecture work at Israel's Open University - the only university without a prior collective employment agreement. More relevant to this latest move by Histadrut is reported progress by Koach La Ovdim in their organizational drive among Nepalese care-workers. This, along with increasingly common outbursts of militancy among Chinese construction workers, has probably contributed to Histadrut's policy change.
The ability to join Histadrut may help migrant workers overcome their basic precarity in the Israeli workforce: the fact that they are automatically made illegal as soon as their employer decides to fire them, leaving them with little in terms of practical legal recourse, and with occasional debts to the head-hunters who had brought them, making "illegal" work in Israel their only course of action. But this depends on how Histadrut organizers and lawyers deal with actual disputes as those occur. Moreover, the fact that it will only allow legal workers to join could make its involvement moot, with increased dues being the only benefit. It seems that the second quarter of 2010 may well be interesting, in any case.
Further reading:
Comments
Good to hear about these
Good to hear about these progressive changes; it's worth putting them in context though; this is crudely an eqivalent of the BNP allowing black members...
Histadrut: Israel's racist "trade union"
Tony Greenstein, The Electronic Intifada, 10 March 2009
No, that article is
No, that article is misleading as to Histadrut's current position. It does not formally discriminate against any Israeli citizens, and is the biggest Israeli union federation. It does have Arab members, and the local Communist party, which is Arab-dominated, has membership in its elected management. So it is a bit more like the AFL-CIO starting to take up immigrants, in terms of overall significance to the migrant workforce, not the BNP (which is a party, and happens to have a limited union? There's a similar union for Likud in Israel, it's marginal).
According to the Palestinian
According to the Palestinian unions, Histadrut is still a racist organisation:
Refusing membership to undocumented workers is still racist.
What is misleading about Tony Greensteins article in relation to the roll of the Histradut today?
I'm also not happy with the term "Legal Migrant Workers". It is accurate to say "Migrant Workers with Papers" because international law gives everyone the theoretical right to cross borders; No one Is Illegal.
It still doesn't provide any
It still doesn't provide any details about its current position. Didn't the AFL-CIO or its forebears enact racist policies against black workers?
You may not be happy with "Legal Migrant Workers", but I use it as an entirely neutral term - they are legal according to Israeli law, that is, they have valid working visas. I'm afraid I'm not familiar with this international law you speak of; it is my understanding that international law actually allows states complete discretion in establishing limits and tests for immigration and tourism. The only exception is for people requesting refugee status.
I'm suspecting that we might be talking at cross-purposes here. It is not my position to defend Histadrut as the paragon of internationalist working-class organization - far from it. Nevertheless, it is the biggest trade union federation in Israel, it does service the Arab populace as well, and the fact that it has been pushed into accepting migrant workers by a rival federation seems significant to working-class struggle in Israel.
I've done a quick search on
I've done a quick search on the theoretical right to cross borders and found the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees
Einstein discovered that all positions are relative; there is no "neutral".
The AFL "subordinated Black workers into segregated affiliates" but the CIO were always for all workers. They were not started with the intention of expelling the Native Americans from America.
there may be freedom from
there may be freedom from penalties, but they can still be deported - there is no right to free movement of people in international law. This of course doesn't mean that I agree with this, but that's the way it is.
AIW wrote: I've done a quick
AIW
(Emphasis mine)
Excuse me for quoting myself, but:
tojiah
If international law were as you said it was, all states worldwide would be in breach of it, as every single state in the world poses limits on immigration, which would make it de facto not international law. Whether or not people should be allowed free travel (which I do support) is another thing, but ignoring current law and practice is of no help at all in dealing with the reality we actually live in.
AIW
No, Einstein found a way of adapting and improving upon Galilean relativity - that is, the way one deals with the laws of physics and physical processes inside a frame which itself is moving at a constant velocity in relation to the frame in which we originally posed a problem - first to a world with a maximal velocity, and then finding a way of including accelerations and gravity into it. That has nothing to do with the fact that "legal migrant workers" is a useful term when discussing the labor situation in Israel, and I'm not going to stop using it unless you give me a very good reason. Say, one that doesn't stem from a complete misunderstanding and misappropriation of one of my favorite 20th Century theoretical physicists.
AIW
They didn't have to, as it was a fait accompli by the time they were set up.
Nevertheless, this doesn't matter one bit, because I'm talking about what is happening now in Israel: recent developments, not the Histadrut's tortuous, brutal history.
Some debate. Anyone have any
Some debate. Anyone have any interesting comments about this? What is the situation in the UK, or the US? Do most unions accept migrant workers, seek them out as members, run organization drives including them, etc?
In Norway the unions are
In Norway the unions are relatively xenophobic. While they do accept immigrants, they do not seek out to organize e.g. seasonal immigrant labour instead arguing that they are lowering wages and put pressure on the govt. to curtail immigration (I might add, this was the situation a couple of years back, so things might have changed.)
Quote: No One Is Illegal is a
No One Is Illegal Manifesto
AIW: Post revolution, there
AIW:
Post revolution, there should be nothing barring people from moving wherever they wish, under the obvious constraints such as not to step over others. It is unclear what "legal" and "illegal" would even mean there.
Currently, we should all support fights for free passage and emancipation of immigrants and refugees, if only for the fact that their illegality or secondary legal status pushes down wages for all of us, plus maintaining the atmosphere of segregation which would make it difficult for us to migrate if we wish to or are forced to. In that sense, we perhaps should push for everyone to be declared legal, as in protected from prosecution by the state.
However, the situation is now that many immigrants and refugees are illegal, particularly in Israel, and no amount of pushing fingers into our ears and chanting "No One is Illegal! No One is Illegal!" is going to be of help to anyone. The fact that Histadrut - again, the largest trade union federation in Israel - has announced that it will allow legal migrant workers to join its ranks, under pressure from a fledgling rival federation, is significant in terms of the class struggle in Israel. If you have anything to add to that or with which to argue with that, that doesn't involve random quotations off of the internet taken out of context, and if a significant part of this contribution isn't just such a disconnected quotation repeated verbatim, that would be lovely. Otherwise this "debate" is getting rather pointless, and I'd rather hear more comments such as Khawaga's.
Khawaga:
That does seem similar to Histadrut's ongoing policy of simply expressing outrage over the amount of migrant worker visas the state distributes each year. As for xenophobia, I'm not sure how it is in Norway, but the Israeli migrant worker market is basically stratified, with "Philippina" being synonymous with "migrant elderly care worker", "Thai worker" being synonymous with "agricultural worker", etc. This is also true of citizen workers, say, in the building trade, where most wet-work is done by Israeli Arabs/Palestinians, while most Israelis who go into it either do dry-work as a student/temp job or manage other workers as contractors, alongside their wet-work.
Tony Greenstein
Tony Greenstein wrote:
Kav LaOved wrote:
PGFTU Executive Committee member Manawel Issa Abdellal wrote:
Who is Tony Greenstein? He is
Who is Tony Greenstein? He is more than welcome to come into this thread or send me personal messages in order to argue with me, as I refuse to debate by proxy, especially when it is clear that whatever he's arguing with, he's not arguing with my own points, but a caricature of them.
The rest of your post is, as usual, misleading quotations taken out of context. Your quote from Kav Laoved is from 2002, a point you conveniently omit, and therefore does not address the consequences or ramifications of Histadrut's latest move. The quote from the PGFTU Executive Committee member is undated, but the fact that he is referring to internecine conflict in Gaza and to Dahlan suggests that this is from 2006. It is a very interesting question, whether Histadrut's move towards migrant workers would only show up as a dues income - a point which I raise in the original news update - or whether it may push them to actively represent Palestinian workers in Israel, as well. I suppose that will have less to do with Histadrut and more to do with how its rivals will force it to maneuver about it, or whether this added legitimacy will encourage self-organization by them.
To reiterate: I am not defending Histadrut, as I am fully aware of its turgid history, and certainly have no illusions about the benevolence of its policies - but none of the information you have provided changes the fact that the alleged intention of the main Israeli trade union federation, Histadrut, to take up migrant workers is an interesting development in Israeli working-class politics, as is the fact that this seems to have been prompted by the gains made by a rival trade union federation (Koach LaOvdim), which is lacking in Histadrut's history and colonial interests.
Quote: Who is Tony
He's the author of the Electronic Intifada article you accsed of being "Misleading as to Histadrut's current position."
I think you are defending Histadrut when you argue:
Which Communist Party is this?
He's not defending Histadrut
He's not defending Histadrut (as he's already said), he was arguing there that your comparison of Histadrut to the BNP is erroneous.
Well, he's more than welcome
Well, he's more than welcome to come over to this thread and argue with me after he's read the entire conversation. I don't think I found anything objectionable about his article, but I did find its use by you misleading in this context, since, like Django said, comparing Histadrut to the BNP union is factually inaccurate, in terms of Histadrut's comparative role in Israeli working-class politics and the significance that this move could have on that.
Edit: I was referring to the Communist Party of Israel.
AIW wrote: I think you are
AIW
How is that defending histradut. Reads to me like a statement of facts, and then an (admittedly weak comparison to AFL-CIO. Even the news article that Tree wrote is in the spirit of "this is interesting, I wonder what will happen to the union landscape in Israel and what effects it will have on class struggle in Israel". Tree is clearly not a supporter of Histradut and is not trying to improve their image.
AIW, it seems like you're just having a knee-jerk reaction as the news article is not criticizing Israel enough. Are you heavily involved in Palestine solidarity activities?
Quote: Do most unions accept
Yes and no, certainly British general unions are very pro having migrant workers paying subs, will provide some legal protection and will support initiatives to recruit migrant membership, however the level of support they offer in a more direct sense is often appalling, such as the debacle with Unite and Justice For Cleaners.
Quote: AIW, it seems like
My intention was to put Histadrut in context. I'm not convinced that what I am involved in is any of your business.
I tought this related to Tony Greenstein's article rather than to my comment.
The Wikipedia page on Maki does not imply that it is "Arab-dominated":
AIW wrote: My intention was
AIW
Which is fair enough, though your response came off more as a rant than "contextualization". While histadrut has its faults (plenty of them) Histadrut is not the BNP.
Quote: Histadrut is not the
OK, they're better compared to a more racist and much bigger sister of Solidarity, the BNP union.
Lol, you're not getting it.
Lol, you're not getting it. Again, no one here is trying to defend histadrut at all or ranking it according to some good to bad scale on unions (you'd find that many folks here very critical of unions, as such). Your so-called contextualizations are not helped at all by comparing it to racist political parties or their affiliated unions. Histadrut is clearly a very different beast than Solidarity
If you'd just said that histadrut is racist for these and these reasons (and you do provide some by proxy), then I think you have a decent argument.
Are you ever going to bother
Are you ever going to bother reading anything you quote thoroughly? Honestly, this is getting quite exasperating.
Wikipedia
(Emphasis mine)
AIW you look like your are
AIW you look like your are desperately trying to point score, because you feel that the article was too friendly to Histadrut. Who you clearly feel should be denounced at every opportunity (for valid reasons), but this is clearly an important development and it will be interesting to see how this pans out in reality. You really aren't adding much here and are coming over as defensive and missionary.
Tony Greenstein wrote:
Tony Greenstein wrote:
he's not talking about
he's not talking about joining it! Look, I think you've got the wrong end of the stick here, like has been pointed out many times Judas is not defending Histadrut - I think that he like many people on here ultimately thinks that all trade unions are anti-working class organisations.
All people have done, however is point out that your comparisons to things like the BNP union, solidarity, are inaccurate. For starters, solidarity only has about 20 members, and doesn't act like a trade union anywhere, as it is not affiliated to the TUC, has no workplace branches, no recognition agreements, etc, it is actually just a small fascist political group.
AIW, just to reiterate all
AIW, just to reiterate all the above points, Tree of Judas, the guy you've been arguing with, is not a supporter of Histradut. You don't need to convince him or anyone else on here that they are a reactionary force.
What he is saying is that they are not the same thing as a far right political party, nor are they the same as a tiny outcrop of that party, even if they have in the past agreed on the issue of immigrant membership. I agree with the pope that environmentalism is important, it doesn't make me a catholic.
The reason this is important is because by comparing them you give random observers the impression that you're one of the "anything I disagree with is the same thing as fascism" wingnuts which infest the left. It's counterproductive in a situation where there are plenty of real things to criticise to keep trying to ratchet up the accusations like that.
Criticise what is, not what you think will shock the most.
Histradut should not be
Histradut should not be described as a trade union. It has displaced 3,737,494 registered refugees (UN)
(No subject)
:wall:
Could you point out to me
Could you point out to me where that document says what you claim? No you can't, as it does not even mention Histradut. Basically I think you are trolling!!
So any moves towards this are good if caused by the boycott, but bad if caused by Hisadrut responding to losing ground to a new union federation.
Can we not just lock AIW in a
Can we not just lock AIW in a room with Binyamin the persecuted Zionist folk hero and leave them to get on with it?
How about we stop feeding the
How about we stop feeding the troll? Tony Greenstein should have no problem registering an account and posting to this thread if he chooses to, rather than being present by troll proxy.
Rob Ray
This is the likely end result here as well. As soon as the migrant workers are registered as Histadrut members, they'll start paying dues, but Histadrut will lose the immediate incentive for actually supporting them, since it's a lot harder to move from one federation to another than it is to just join one, I think.
As I said, it's "Good to hear
As I said, it's "Good to hear about these progressive changes". So I'm not saying that these changes are bad but that they are good. What do you mean by "trolling"?
It's an internet term used
It's an internet term used when people are using a forum to put their own point of view across while refusing to address what others are saying, are being deliberately disruptive for whatever reason, or are on the windup.
stop
stop feeding.................................................................................................................
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damn now I am.
Sorry you feel that way
Sorry you feel that way Rob.
I can see that there are similarities between Histadrut and the AFL-CIO; just as Histadrut is "one of the key elements of the Zionist state", so the AFL-CIO is one of the key elements of the US state. The parallel between Histadrut and Solidarity the BNP union is that both are the union arm of a Nationalist movement. I agree that they are vastly different sizes.
When I said:
I was using the UN document to reference the number. Tony Greenstein's article explains the roll of Histadrut.
Wasn't me who said it, though
Wasn't me who said it, though I'll admit to feeling a little frustrated when you responded to me saying "criticise what is" by blaming Histradut for displacing 3.7m refugees citing a UN study which didn't even mention them.
AIW wrote: I can see that
AIW
This can be said of almost all unions, so what's your point? Your arguments are based in an Israeli exceptionalism, which is just bollocks.
Why do you think that my
Why do you think that my arguments are based in an Israeli exceptionalism? I think they're not. I support the workers struggle for the freedom to organise, as I'm sure do you. Is there any evidence for your claim that nearly all trade unions are Nationalist?
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but would I be right to say that Kav La'Oved is not a union federation because independent trade unons are illegal in Israel?
Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide
Independent trade union
Independent trade union federations are not illegal in Israel. Ma'an and Koach LaOvdim are examples of independent ones, and even before them, there was a federation which provides a much closer analogy to the BNP union, the National_Labour_Federation, which is closely affiliated with Likud. Histadrut is the biggest labor federation, and used to also be one of the largest employers, but it was never the only one.
Kav LaOved, however, are by definition not a labor federation, they are a help-line and provide workers with support, but do not organize or unionize any themselves.
I was not aware of this
I was not aware of this debate or forum before, hence why I'm only just posting and I have v little time at the moment. I would recommend you see my blog www.azvsas.blogspot.com where there are many articles on Histadrut etc.
Basically I don't accept that Histadrut has changed. Its support in a statement in January 2009 for the murderous assault on Gaza demonstrates that. It has never taken up the cause of Gazan workers sent back to Gaza without pay. Its recent promise to unionise migrant workers has to be seen in the context of international pressure. In fact they have always supported deportation of migrant workers to reduce unemployment for Israeli Jews.
One reason why there is very high unemployment among Arab Israelis is because when Histadrut was the largest employer in Israel after the state itself, it consciously refused to invest in Arab areas.
I would perhaps be convinced that Histadrut had changed if e.g. it had protested when Israel Rail last year tried to sack its Arab workers in order to replace them with Jews. The pretext was that they only wanted to employ those who had served in the army, but this has often been the pretext for discrimination in Israel (welfare benefits are lower if you or your relations haven't served - though they've found a way around this for Orthodox Jews who also don't serve in the Army - they give an extra large grant to the Ministry of Religion!).
I don't accept that trade unions are part of the state normally. That is a crude analysis which belies experience. They mediate between the state and workers, especially their leaderships. In Israel Histadrut founded the State, it was the most important such organisation.
Today it is a slimmed down affair which is why so few Arabs are members. Previously they joined for the health benefits, Histadrut owned the only NHS (Kupat Holim) in Israel and that was the only way you could get free medical treatment.
Rakah does participate in Histadrut. This is because the Communist Party is not Zionist and in fact supported the creation of the Zionist state in 1948. It has never understood nor wanted to understand the nature of Zionism and how it is a different creature from a normal capitalist state. People can be too simplistic. We oppose, I hope, capitalism but Apartheid in South Africa and e.g. Nazism weren't just capitalist. The former was a settler colonial state and hence white workers were the most racist of all (and also created white settler unions). The latter of course was fascist. Israel is like the first, not fascist but a settler colonial state and Histadrut, with its Jewish Labour (i.e. boycott Arab Labour) campaign began explicitly as an organisation dedicated to excluding Arab labour, first from the economy and then from the land altogether.
Histadrut has changed apparently. That presumably is why they urged the Israeli Labour Party to join the Netanyahu coalition with Avigdor Lieberman, who is a fascist. I have yet so see one scrap of evidence that Histadrut is now campaigning against the increasing discrimination and overt racism of Israeli society. I can see none whatsoever.
And further. We have a campaign inside British unions to have a boycott of Histadrut. UNISON, my own union and Britain's second largest voted last year to review its relationship with Histadrut. So has the Scottish and British TUC amongst others. To now start saying that Histadrut is just another union is to take a position against Boycott. is that what is being suggested here?
TG wrote: Basically I don't
TG
Depends on what type of change you're referring to. The OP simply states that Histadrut now accepts migrants as members, which they didn't do before. This is change, but only to meet the competition from other unions.
Nothing more, nothing less was stated in the OP.
I'm sorry, if you wish to
I'm sorry, if you wish to argue with a strawman, go ahead. If you actually want to argue with me, I suggest you bother reading this thread, then start arguing against the facts and claims that I bring up, none of which includes the position that Histadrut has "changed" in any of the facile ways you bring up, and all of which have to do with the fact that Histadrut holds a position in Israeli working-class politics that is much closer to that of the AFL-CIO and Unison than to BNP's Solidarity (as in they are more of a mainstream national union, with all that entails, rather than a fringe explicitly right-wing union), so that it's interesting that they're trying to move into the migrant worker unionization, in terms of how this may affect migrant workers and how this reflects the leaps and bounds made by Koach LaOvdim, the up-and-coming federation which hasn't Histadrut's murky history.
As for BDS, I am opposed to it for a lot of reasons, some of which can be seen in another thread, so your insinuation, that I may step dangerously close to being against the boycott, is not as intimidating as you may have intended. :roll:
Yeah, Histadrut is a "normal" union - just like the AFL had segregated locals, the AFL-CIO mostly supported the Vietnam War throughout, Unison supports Labor which still sends troops to both Iraq and Afghanistan (edit: but does not clamor for "British Jobs for British Workers", my bad, thanks Steven.), and so on. That's what national unions do.
Judas, just a quick point
Judas, just a quick point because I agree with everything you have said on here pretty much. But with UNISON you are mistaken, while it does support labour it has never used the slogan "British jobs for British workers", in fact it pays lipservice to organising migrant workers in order to attempt to boost its dwindling membership.
As for how genuine this effort is, regular posters here may remember how UNISON was in fact the opposite of helpful when me and my colleagues were attempting to defend a migrant co-worker and UNISON member, when they refused to allow us a strike ballot despite 97% of members voting to strike in an internal ballot.
Steven. wrote: Judas, just a
Steven.
Thanks, fixed in post.
The most effective tactic for
The most effective tactic for national liberation movements is the strike, so the situation of military occupation is an essential opportunity for the working class. The employing class know that. That is why they use the OPT as a testing ground for their technologies of control.
That is definitely relevant
That is definitely relevant to this almost two-year-old thread. :roll: