Palestinian Trade Unions’ May Day Statement – No complicity with Apartheid

Hussein Ezzedine

1 year ago

The Palestinian Trade Unions have issued the following 2025 May Day Statement

Israel is only able to continue its livestreamed genocide against Palestinians, including daily massacres, burning our children, men and women alive, or starving and thirsting them to death, due to the ongoing complicity of states, companies and institutions around the world. On this May Day, a historic day for the international labour movement that commemorates the struggles of workers for dignity and justice, as Palestinian trade and professional unions, we urgently renew our call to unions around the world to escalate all effort to end this shameful complicity in Israel’s illegal occupation, colonial apartheid and genocide.

Our 2.3 million sisters and brothers in Gaza who have survived this genocide and who continue to resist it, and the entire Palestinian people resisting brutal military aggression, land theft, the destruction of entire communities, settler-colonial apartheid and occupation everywhere are counting on your meaningful solidarity actions, not just rhetorical support.

May 1st is a day of internationalist solidarity, where we remind ourselves that an injury to one is an injury to all. The US-Israeli genocide and global complicity have not only exterminated tens of thousands of Palestinians and continue to kill Palestinian workers merely for continuing to do their jobs as medical personnel, journalists, rescue workers, and humanitarian workers. They have also hastened the onslaught of a “might makes right” era. This has manifested itself in the collapse of respect for international law, human rights and workers’ rights. This affects us all and therefore should unite us all. Our struggle for justice in Palestine is inseparable from the global struggle against systemic racism, exploitation and oppression.

The 2024 decisions of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – that Israel is plausibly committing genocide, that its occupation is illegal, and its policies amount to apartheid – make ending all complicity in Israel’s crimes and imposing targeted, lawful sanctions, including a two-way military embargo, not only a moral but also a legal obligation for states and corporations. The same applies to all unions.

It is the duty of unions to ensure that the workers they represent—whether in ports, on ships, in businesses, or in government offices—are not involved, often without their knowledge and/or consent, in actions that involve complicity in genocide, apartheid, and Israel’s illegal occupation.

We urge unions and workers worldwide to translate solidarity into serious pressure campaigns on governments, corporations, and institutions to comply with their obligations under international law by ending all complicity in Israel’s colonial oppression. Here are some of the many inspiring expressions of meaningful solidarity by workers and unions from around the world:

IndustriALL Global Union, a global union federation that represents 50 million workers in 140 countries in the mining, energy and manufacturing sectors, has endorsed BDS.
Norwegian trade unions, led by LO (representing a million workers) have been pressuring the Norwegian sovereign fund, the largest in the world, to exclude Israel from the list of states in which it can invest. In 2024, the fund announced its divestment of its entire holding of approximately $500 million of Israel Bonds.
Major Indian trade unions representing tens of millions of workers have pressured the Indian government to cancel an agreement to “export” workers to Israel to replace Palestinian workers, urging workers to boycott Israeli products and to not handle Israeli cargo.
Dockworkers unions in Belgium, India, Catalonia, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Morocco, California, and South Africa have stood against and/or tried to block Israeli ships or arms shipments to Israel.
IAATW, an international alliance of app-based transport workers unions with 100k members from over 27 countries and 6 continents, has decided to boycott Chevron branded gas stations.
In the Netherlands, FNV, the union representing many University of Amsterdam (UvA) staff, waged a historic 4-day strike in December 2024 demanding, among others, cutting ties with complicit Israeli universities and complicit corporations.

We, the undersigned Palestinian trade unions, call on workers and unions around the world to escalate their support for our struggle to end the genocide and dismantle Israel’s colonial apartheid regime by:

Pressuring corporations and institutions they work in to end any complicity through ending contracts that directly or indirectly support Israel’s atrocity crimes and illegal occupation, and adopting ethical procurement and investment policies that exclude dealing with corporations that are implicated in grave human rights violations anywhere, including in Palestine. Divesting from such companies is an ethical and legal duty.
Trade unions adopting the same ethical procurement and investment policies that exclude dealing with corporations that are implicated in grave human rights violations anywhere, including in Palestine.
Peacefully disrupting business as usual at their workplace, among others, through:
- Developing more #BlocktheBoat campaigns, stopping the #GenocideFleet of vessels involved in illegal transfers of military supplies, energy or other dual use items to Israel and pressuring complicit companies.
- Refusing to handle Israeli or Israeli-bound military, energy and dual-use cargo.
Rejecting any racist agreement with Israel that facilitates the substitution and further oppression of Palestinian workers.
Escalating economic, academic, cultural, and sports BDS campaigns.
Pressuring your governments to uphold their legal obligations following the ICJ rulings of 2024, as stated by UN human rights experts, by, at a minimum, imposing “a full arms embargo on Israel, halting all arms agreements, imports, exports and transfers, including of dual-use items that could be used against the Palestinian population under occupation,” as well as canceling or suspending “economic relationships, trade agreements and academic relations with Israel that may contribute to its unlawful presence and apartheid regime in the occupied Palestinian territory.”
Cutting all ties with the Histadrut and expelling it from all international fora.
Declaring your union an Apartheid-Free Zone to end corporate and institutional complicity with Israel’s apartheid regime and the genocide of the Palestinian people.
Amplifying our Global Day of Action on May 15th, the 77th anniversary of the Nakba. On this date we are calling on supporters worldwide to escalate the pressure for immediate lawful and targeted sanctions on Israel, including a comprehensive military embargo.