“We must support workers to organise to disrupt the mechanisms which allow the genocide to continue, like the Italian dock workers who refused to load weapons destined for Israel in 2021.”
By Jess Barnard, Palestine Solidarity Campaign Trade Union Organiser
From the fight against apartheid South Africa, to resisting far-right racism on our own doorstep, the trade union movement has always organised on the principle that we should never be neutral in the face of injustice. Today, as Israel wages a genocidal war on the Palestinian people, that principle is more urgent than ever.
The Current Situation in Palestine
Recently the UN-backed hunger monitor declared famine to be widespread in Gaza, reporting that “over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death.”
This is an entirely man-made famine, which is the direct and deliberate policy of Israel’s assault on Gaza. Forced starvation, relentless bombardment, the targeting of hospitals, schools and the murder of journalists are all part of a campaign of collective punishment against the Palestinian people.
In the West Bank, as many trade union delegations have seen first hand, the occupation touches every aspect of daily life. Palestinian workers face humiliation and exploitation at military checkpoints that cut them off from jobs, healthcare, and even their own land. Palestinian workers are paid less, denied contracts, and subjected to unsafe, degrading conditions. Meanwhile, illegal settlements continue to expand into Palestinian territory. This violent practice is defended by the Israeli military and strips Palestinians of their land and often their livelihood.
For trade unionists, defending these workers is a recognition of international solidarity and the principle that all workers deserve dignity.
Why This Is a Trade Union Issue in the UK
Responsibility for these crimes does not lie with Israel alone. The British government continues to arm and support Israel despite its ongoing violations of international law. Corporate enablers such as Barclays also play a crucial role, helping Israel raise money through facilitating the sale of its bonds and investing billions in the arms companies that supply its military.
This directly connects workers in the UK to the machinery of occupation and genocide. Trade unionists need to organise not only in solidarity with Palestine, but to end our government’s complicity.
This means, nationally, putting pressure on the UK government to end all diplomatic and military support to Israel, including an immediate and total ban on arms sales. We must support workers to organise to disrupt the mechanisms which allow the genocide to continue, like the Italian dock workers who refused to load weapons destined for Israel in 2021, and this summer France’s CGT dockworkers also refused to load arms components bound for Israel at the country’s largest port in Fos-Marseille.
This builds on the proud history in our movement of standing against oppression abroad, as organised workers helped bring down apartheid in South Africa through a campaign of boycotts, divestment, and sanctions. Governments and corporations ended their support for apartheid South Africa because workers worldwide refused to let them profit from racism and oppression.
Palestinian civil society and trade unions are now making the same call, to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement against Israel, as without financial and diplomatic consequences, Israel will continue to act with impunity. Where the UK government has failed Palestine and its workers, the labour movement must act in solidarity.
LGPS Divest
One of the most powerful arenas for action is within the Local Government Pension Scheme, the largest pension scheme in the UK, which collectively invests over £12 billion of workers’ deferred wages in companies complicit in Israel’s system of apartheid.
These investments include:
- Weapons manufacturers supplying Israel with arms and technology used in Gaza.
- Corporations building and maintaining Israel’s apartheid wall and settlement infrastructure.
- Companies providing IT systems for military checkpoints across occupied Palestinian territories.
What makes LGPS unique is its democratic component: local councils, through their pension committees, decide where this money is invested. That means union members and communities have the power to demand divestment and end this complicity, starting with lobbying local councils and pension committees to make sure they commit to divesting.
Don’t Buy Apartheid
Unionised workplaces and individuals can also back the Don’t Buy Apartheid campaign, which calls for boycotts of Israeli produce, such as avocados, oranges, herbs, and dates, much of it grown in illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land, and Coca Cola and its brands (Schweppes, Sprite, Fanta, Innocent, Costa Coffee), whose Israeli franchise operates in an illegal settlement in occupied Jerusalem. Here, Palestinian factory workers in the illegal Israeli settlement have to pass through heavily armed checkpoints and are made to acquire permits to be allowed to reach their work places.
Since October 2023 Israel has introduced yet more punitive measures against Palestinian workers, revoking hundreds of thousands of work permits, resulting in 390,000 Palestinian job losses. By increasing the number of checkpoints, arbitrary arrests and targeting of Palestinians, workers are forced to take greater, life threatening risks to be able to reach their place of work.
By collectively boycotting these goods and organising boycotts within workplaces, we send a clear message that we will not tolerate companies profiting off of apartheid or permitting the oppression of workers.
Building Union Solidarity
While we collectively campaign and organise in our own workplaces, including through workplace days of action, joining the wider movement for Palestine is more important than ever.
We can continue to demonstrate mass public opposition to government complicity by demonstrating for Palestine, with strong trade union blocs on the streets, while growing our network of pro-palestinian trade unionists, ensuring our unions and local branches are affiliated to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and joining PSC as individuals.
To hear more about the struggle for Palestinian liberation and the Trade Union movement, come to the PSC TUC Rally, Solidarity with Palestine: Confronting Genocide and Ending Apartheid, Monday 8th September, 12:45 – Meeting Room 1AB, Brighton Centre.
- Jess Barnard is the Trade Union Organiser for the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and a members’ representative on Labour’s NEC.
- You can follow Jess on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram; and follow the Palestine Solidarity Campaign on Facebook, Twitter/X and Instagram.
- The Palestine Solidarity Campaign are holding a rally during TUC Congress 2025: ‘Solidarity with Palestine: Confronting Genocide and Ending Apartheid’ at 12.45pm Monday, 8th September – Meeting Room 1AB, Brighton Centre.
