The Canadian Labour Congress voted to cut ties with Israel’s largest labour organization, Histadrut, at its national convention last week. While the move is largely symbolic, critics say it sends a negative message to Jewish union members.
The CLC, Canada’s largest labour organization, represents three million unionized workers across the country. The resolution to end the relationship with Histadrut, which was put forward on May 14, “condemns the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the West Bank,” as well as “the global rise of anti-Palestinian racism and antisemitism.” In addition, the resolution calls on the Canadian government to endorse a two-way arms embargo and to denounce Israeli settlement expansion.
The Canadian Jewish Labour Committee (CJLC) – an organization working to fight antisemitism within Canada’s labour movements– condemned the decision as “a disgraceful act of discrimination, ideological extremism, and a betrayal of the solidarity the labour movement claims to defend.” CJLC also stated that by ending the relationship with Histadrut “a diverse organization representing Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and Druze workers,” the CLC has chosen to go down the route of “division and hypocrisy.”
Kim Kazur, a consultant for the CJLC, says the decision is part of an ongoing push from a radical minority. “There has been a small but very loud, radicalized faction within unions across Canada for a number of years,” Kazur told The CJN. “They have their own extremist agenda and they have worked on campaigns continuously for years and years to shift the tide.”
Though Kazur says this resolution is largely symbolic, she warns it still could have negative consequences for the Jewish community. “The resolution itself is un-actionable, because the CLC does not have any ties with Histadrut to cut…But at the same time, there is harm done,” she says. “Leadership at CLC has allowed Canada’s labor movement to be hijacked by dangerous extremist ideology.”
Kazur also says the decision to cut ties with Histadrut is part of the growing tide of intolerance within Canada’s labour unions, which she says systemically ignore reports of antisemitism. “There are complaints against antisemitism within unions right across Canada,” she says. “They’re being dismissed. They’re being minimized. They’re not being investigated.”
Though the resolution calling to sever relations with Histadrut was passed in the name of anti-Zionism, Kazur says the real motivation is thinly-veiled antisemitism. “They typically try to hide behind, ‘I’m not antisemitic, I’m anti-Zionist.’ But they don’t understand that anti-Zionism is a modern type of antisemitism.”
The CJLC also has concerns that spending time on resolutions of this kind distracts from the unions’ main responsibilities. “Canadian Labor Congress and unions in Canada were formed to protect labour, labourers’ rights. That’s what unions were meant to do,” Kazur said. “I don’t know why a union is going to spend 45 minutes debating an empty resolution about a country right around the world.”
Ultimately, Kazur says the CJLC views the termination of the CLC’s relationship with Histadrut as a major step backwards. “No thought, compassion, or understanding is being given to Jewish members in these unions. That’s the biggest heartbreak.”
The CLC did not respond to inquiries from The CJN.
