GLOBAL SOUTH UNITED: Why 1st of May is important for PALESTINIAN SOLIDARITY
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The International Workers Day has its roots in the general strike for an 8-hour working day that led to the Haymarket massacre in Chicago in 1886.
Fighting against colonial powers and their expansion inthe global south is intertwined with resisting the exploitation of the working class by capital. Israel, as a western settler colonial project, is the ultimate product of capitalism. It is ethnically cleansing the Palestinian people to exploit their land, bodies, natural gas, water, trees, crops and all their resources. All to the benefit of the bourgeois capitalist corporations making profits of it. The force exploiting the workers is the same force oppressing the global south and is the same force depriving Palestinians of their humanity on daily basis.
Moreover, the Palestinian workers are a heavily abused, dehumanized and exploited group. The occupation exploits and undermines all aspects of the Palestinian worker life. Restriction of movement is an integral part of this process.
Palestinian workers queue for hours at checkpoints, from as early as 3AM to cross into the 48’s cities where they are employed, every morning and every night. As during apartheid South Africa, workers are required to hold work permits from Israeli authorities, even in their own land. The working class of Palestine have no legal safeguards or rights, are vulnerable to abuse, labour hours and wage exploitation.
With the exception of Germany, in most countries, workers and workers’ unions stand in solidarity with Palestinian workers. In 2021, in Italy, dockworkers in Livorno refused to load weapons onto a ship that was destined for Israel.
Also in 2021, South African dockworkers refused to offload cargo from an Israeli ship. And later that year, an Israeli ZIM ship left Oakland with its cargo still on board after hundreds of union members, community members and organizations picketed the docks.
But most importantly, workers in Palestine have specifically called for support from workers around the world, to stop sales and arms funding to Israel.
In 2023, 38 Palestinian Unions called on all trade unions in relevant industries:
To refuse to build weapons destined for Israel.
To refuse to transport weapons to Israel.
To pass motions in their trade union to this effect.
To take action against complicit companies involved in implementing Israel’s brutal and illegal siege.
Pressure governments to stop all military trade with Israel, and in the case of the US, to stop funding it.