Friday, June 22, 2007

Boycotts against Israel - by UK Trade Unions

The academics here in the UK who worked towards the boycott of Israel academis had become somewhat quiet in the past few weeks:

The Anti Defamation League had startd an ad campaign with a sharp condemnation of the UCU boycott activities.

On 13. June the following petition by British academics was posted in the Times and in the Guardian newspapers:
Stop the Boycott.

On 14. June 2007 a letter to the Guardian against the boycott by UCU appeared.

On 15.June 2007 in the Times Higher Education Supplement a report listed some of the actions against that report.

While these activities seem to have quieted down the academic discussion at UCU, the other trade union in the UK which had considered a boycott, UNISON, seemed not to have been impressed by this and went ahead at their meeting, deciding to recommend a boycott of Israel in general.

I just found out about this news a few hours ago, two days after the event (ok, it might have been reported on the BBC news at 10, but I just came back from IKEA and missed the fist 15 minutes). Not much mentioned anywhere about this - a search on Google yielded mostly Jewish organisations who spoke out against this boycott. But the British opposition to these boycotts seemed to have lost their voice...

The Anti-Defamation League issued a press release against this. Maybe the weekend has first to pass before there will be a response from within the UK...

--- I still think that the delegates at these Union meetings do not really represent the majority of the membership. These delegates are politically charged, have their agenda for whatever reason. I believe that the silent majority in those trade unions would prefer if the unions would focus on their REAL job: that is, work towards increasing the benefits for their members in job-related situations, help in individual hardships, mitigate job loss, fight for higher income. I am sure the members would prefer this, instead of the unions trying to play on the global stage "big politics". Big politics is not the role of the unions. And if I would be a member of either UCU or UNISON, I would leave that union, and start my own one. UCU last year with their "industrial action" just achieved a measly 3% raise of the salaries of their members - that is quite pathetic.

So how about it, members of these unions, members who are dissatisfied with your union leadership? Why do you not leave the union, and start a new one? One that really takes care of your true concerns, instead of wasting your union membership fees for ambitious political games that are only intended to raise the profile of those individuals with a political agenda?

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