Transport Workers Solidarity Committee

Activists tell shipping firm Zim -- Israeli ships not welcome in Vancouver
http://rabble.ca/news/2010/08/activists-tell-shipping-firm-zim-israeli-ships-not-welcome-vancouver
Activists tell shipping firm Zim -- Israeli ships not welcome in Vancouver
BY BOYCOTT ISRAELI APARTHEID COALITION | AUGUST 24, 2010

Vancouver - Port truck traffic slowed to a crawl along the Deltaport causeway as a group of about 50 protesters approached drivers with leaflets containing information about the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza. They also offered the drivers coffee and muffins in a gesture of solidarity. The protesters were there to draw attention to the fact that the Israeli container ship Zim Djibouti had landed in Vancouver to unload its containers.
Zim is an Israeli shipping company, one of the largest in the world.
"This action was part of the growing international campaign to pressure Israel to comply with international law and stop killing innocent civilians," said Gordon Murray, spokesperson for the Boycott Israeli Apartheid Coalition (BIAC).
"Workers in South Africa, Scandinavia, the United States, Turkey and India have already responded to the Palestinian call for action to end the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza and the suffering it is causing," said Mike Krebs, BIAC's other spokesperson.

Transit riders to assemble to demand a user-based transit system in Austin

 AUSTIN, Texas (August 23, 2010
Buss Riders Union/El Sindicato de Pasajeros Austin Texas

Media contact: For Imiedate release
Mac McKaskle
Macchire@yahoo.com
512-767-5910

Transit riders to assemble to demand a user-based transit system in Austin

 AUSTIN, Texas (August 23, 2010) - The Bus Riders Union-Austin Texas will host a stockholders meeting to develop plans to restructure the antiquated and unproductive bus and rail services that currently constitute Austin's public transit system.  As Austin has become a major urban area, it still retains a transit system based on small-town schedules and old Jim Crow-era routes. On September 18, at University Baptist Church, the Bus Riders Union of Austin will host a general assembly of the stockholders in Austin’s transit system to learn how tax-paying citizen-owners of the system can produce a transit system that gets people from where they are to where they want to be, when they want to be there.
In Austin , the system owners are often the last people who seem to matter in the running of transit, resulting in an inadequate system that results in a defeatist attitude that produces a “we have no choice” mind-set among Austinites needing a modern system that reflects the uniqueness of our city. The first Austin Public Transit Stockholders meeting will address these issues in transit in a five-hour open forum on September 18.  Sessions discussing how the transit system works, how it is affected by governmental policy, the nuisance tax of fares, how to organize power to win, and the system-wide way to improve service routing and scheduling, will be lead by community organizer Mac McKaskle, transit expert Richard Brooks, transit worker Glenn Gaven, and others. These sessions will be followed by a general assembly with speakers scheduled to include community leaders Richard Troxil, Steven Bayers, Stephanie Thomas and Bob Kafka.

Around the World, Dockworkers Blockade Israeli Ships
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6286/dockworkers_around_the_world_create_a_worker_blockade_of_israeli_ships/
Around the World, Dockworkers Blockade Israeli Ships
Wednesday
August 4
12:40 pm
By Mike Elk
On June 20, ILWU Local 10 dockworkers in Oakland, Calif., refused to unload an Israeli Zim Lines ship for 24 hours. Their protest was supported by more than 800 rallying local activists, the San Francisco Labor Council and the Alameda County Labor Council (the equivalent of local branches of the AFL-CIO).

Workers around the world have been joining the call to blockade Israeli ships from being unloaded, in essence creating their own blockade to protest the blockade of food and humanitarian supplies Israel has placed on Palestinians in the Gaza strip. On June 7, by the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU), the General Union of Palestinian Workers (GUPW), the Federation of Independent Trade Unions (IFU), and several other organizations produced a call for dockworkers to refuse to unload Israeli ships.

Their statement, released after the flotilla massacre that killed nine people earlier this year, said:

Turkish Dock Workers Union Joins Boycott against Israel
http://www.sendika.org/yazi.php?yazi_no=31229
Turkish Dock Workers Union Joins Boycott against Israel
24 Haziran 2010 -

The working class movement in Turkey is starting to join the Boycott Against Israel Campaign. While the working class movements around the world has escalated the campaign against Israel by refusing to unload Israeli cargo ships, the Dock Workers Union “Liman-Is” is the latest union in Turkey joining the anti apartheid, anti racist campaign against the state of Israel.

The recent campaign against Israel started by the left and progressive organizations is beginning to get support from the workers’ unions as well. The movement against Israeli apartheid was successful in bringing the entire spectrum of the left against Israel’s racist and imperialist regime. However now, the movement is starting to gain support within the working class organizations as well.

The Boycott Against Israel movement aims to cut all ties, military, economic, diplomacy, academic and cultural, with the state of Israel.

Following the Physicians’ Association of Turkey which had endorsed the campaign from the very beginning, the dock workers’ union Liman-Is is now also calling for a comprehensive boycott against the reactionary state of Israel. The movement had organized a successful symposium for Palestinian rights and against Israel where the representatives from the world had gathered to discuss the the strategy of such a boycott. During the discussions, the Chamber of Agricultural Engineers of Turkey, a participant in the symposium announced it was joining the boycott against Israel.

Anti-Zionist Trade Unionists Delay El Al Flight In Athens For Two Hours

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/anti-israel-protesters-delay-el-al-flight-in-athens-1.301921

Anti-Israel protesters delay El Al flight in Athens
Members of Communist-backed labor union say they blocked five El Al
counters for two hours to protest Gaza siege.
By Zohar Blumenkrantz and The Associated Press

An Israel-bound flight was delayed for about two hours at Athens
International Airport Wednesday after protesters against the blockade of Gaza blocked
check-incounters, airport officials said.

Members of a Communist-backed labor union said they blocked five El Al
airline counters for two hours to protest the Israeli blockade of Gaza and the Jewish
state's oppressive policies.

"This was an action taken in solidarity with the Palestinian people and their
effort to establish a Palestinian state," union spokesman Giorgos Pontikos
told the AP. He said police were present at the protest but did not intervene.

An El Al spokesman said in response to the incident that airline "considers
flight safety and the safety of its passengers as its foremost values and
willnot compromise those in any way," saying that "at no time were the passengers in

PGFTU to Oakland ILWU: Don't meet with Israeli Consul
http://www.labournet.net/world/1007/pgftu1.html
PGFTU to Oakland ILWU: Don’t meet with Israeli Consul

Report by Manawell Abdul-Al, PGFTU
Published here: 09/07/10

first published by Labor for Palestine

source

Labor for Palestine comment:

The following letter was sent from the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) to International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10, whose member workers honored the Labor/Community picket line at the Port of Oakland on June 20, 2010, leading to the historic boycott of an Israeli Zim Lines ship.

Following this historic action, the Israeli consul-general in San Francisco, Akiva Tor, asked to address the Executive Board of ILWU Local 10, in an attempt to pressure dockworkers against their honoring of the picket line and boycott. On July 6, 2010, however, ILWU Local 10 Executive Board, after receiving this request from the PGFTU, denied permission to the Israeli consul and his delegation to address the union and reaffirmed the union’s position.

ILWU Local 10 has consistently stood as an example of international workers’ solidarity; its leadership in the boycott of South African apartheid, Latin America solidarity and opposition to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and occupation is well-known. In 2009, the ILWU Longshore Caucus adopted a statement commending South African workers who refused to unload Israeli cargo in protest of the Gaza massacre, and the ILWU Local 10 issued an official statement condemning the attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla.

Dockworkers, Worldwide, Respond to Israel's Flotilla Massacre and Gaza Siege
http://www.counterpunch.org/dropkin07132010.html
July 13, 2010

Blockade!

Dockworkers, Worldwide, Respond to Israel's Flotilla Massacre and Gaza Siege

By GREG DROPKIN

Three weeks after the massacre on the Freedom Flotilla, ILWU dockworkers in the San Francisco Bay area delayed an Israeli Zim Lines ship for 24 hours, the Swedish Dockworkers Union began a week-long blockade of Israeli ships and containers, dockers in the Port of Cochin, India, refused to handle Israeli cargo, and the Turkish dockworkers union Liman-Is announced their members would refuse to service any Israeli shipping. In South Africa, Durban dockers had already boycotted a Zim Lines ship in response to the invasion of Gaza last year. On the 5th Anniversary of the United Palestinian Call for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions, Israel faces the prospect of targetted industrial action to implement boycotts. How did it happen, what does it mean, and how can the solidarity movement respond to the new opening?

Oakland

At 5am on Sunday 20th June, 800 trade unionists and Palestine solidarity activists from the San Francisco Bay Area marched to the SSA (Stevedoring Services of America) terminal at Berths 57-58 in the Port of Oakland, where the “Zim Shenzhen” was due. Zim Lines is the main Israeli shipping company, with services connecting Israel to the world. The ship sailed from Haifa, calling at Piraeus, Livorno, Genoa, Tarragona, Halifax, New York, Savannah, Kingston, Panama Canal, Los Angeles before reaching Oakland.

Australia MUA Locals Passed Resolutions In Support Of Labor Boycott Of Israel in 2009
http://www.mua.org.au/news/union-peace-plan-for-middle-east/
Union peace plan for Middle East

9 APR 2009

Paddy Crumlin, MUA national secretary and ITF executive board member will be visiting the Middle East later this year, to promote the International Transport Workers’ initiative to bring the workers of Israel and Palestine together.
“It’s the working people who are suffering most from this conflict,” he said. “And it’s the workers and their unions who can begin a lasting peace process on the ground.”
The ITF has been leading a major international union relief effort behind the scenes, throughout the conflict after brokering an historic accord between the Palestinian and Israeli unions in Cyprus in July 2007.
The initiative has seen the creation of the Palestinian Drivers’ Assistance Project. Managed by the ITF in coordination with the Palestinian General Transport Workers’ Union and funded mainly by the Canadian Auto Workers Union (CAW), it aims to provide a hotline for Palestinian drivers facing the 500 military checkpoints each day.
ITF assistant general secretary Stuart Howard reports that the project, monitored by a Joint Liaison Committee (JLC) which also includes the Transport Section of Histadrut, the Israeli union, is to liaise with the army at West Bank checkpoints on behalf of Palestinian drivers.

Interview With Swedish dockworker Erik Heldesson of the Swedish Dock Workers Union About Dockers Boycott Of Israeli Cargo

http://www.laborforpalestine.net/wp/2010/07/04/voices-of-the-middle-east-and-north-africa-interviews-swedish-dockworker/
Interview with Swedish dockworker about boycott of Israeli ships and cargo

The June 30, 2010 Voices of the Middle East and North Africa, of KPFA 94.1 FM in Berkeley, featured an interview with Erik Heldesson of the Swedish Dock Workers Union conducted by Halil Bindi.

Heldesson discusses popular Swedish support for the dockworkers’ protest, and the importance of labor solidarity in confronting Israeli occupation and impunity.

Download the full program here! (10.3 MB)

http://www.laborforpalestine.net/uploads/vomena-iv.mp3