Persuading Unite to stand with Palestine

What challenges do we face as we try to persuade Unite and other unions to stand in solidarity with Palestinian workers?

Gary Ostrolenk introduced a discussion at a Unite4Palestine Activists’ Meeting on 24th September 2024 on this theme. His introduction is published below.

Gary assesses the response within Unite to the last year of genocide in Palestine. He discusses the significance of the motions passed at TUC conference this year on Palestine and the Middle East. Finally, Gary explores the dangers of wider labour movement support for a “two state solution”.

The situation in Unite  

Our union’s policies, democratically decided by delegates at conference, show strong support for Palestine. They all pre-date October 7th. Unite has agreed:

• To characterise Israeli policy as ethnic cleansing and apartheid;
• To support ‘Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions’ (BDS), and to demand an arms embargo and sanctions on Israel;
• To support the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC);
• To commit to intervene in the Labour Party.

Since October 7th, members of Unite have mobilised in our tens of thousands on marches across the UK. Unite London & Eastern Region have been a visible presence at national marches, with banners, and Jim Kelly (the Chair of London & Eastern Region) has spoken out at rallies.

However, our union’s national leadership (notably, General Secretary Sharon Graham and Chair Andy Green) have been at best silent, and at worst have attacked the solidarity and BDS movement. They were quick to condemn the prison break-out from Gaza on October 7th, but have at no point called Israel’s horrendous onslaught on Palestine a genocide. They have never been seen at PSC national marches and rallies, & are said to have tried to bully London & Easter Region Secretary (Pete Kavanagh) from speaking. They have never mentioned BDS nor sanctions. They have been silent about Palestine in the Labour Party. They have not attempted to have a conversation with defence workers about how they feel supplying a genocide, and what actions they might like to take with union support. Instead, they have threatened action against campaigners engaging with workers in the defence sector to block arms manufacture and export to Israel (see their letter  and our response). As Sharon Graham is rumoured to have said, “Palestine is not a service offered by Unite to members.”

Unite’s National Executive Council (NEC) seems to be politically impotent in challenging the national leadership, if indeed they have any desire to do so. It is difficult to ascertain the political composition of NEC, but it has made no explicit statements on Palestine over the last year. Unite4Palestine lobbied the NEC in March when two motions on Palestine were on the agenda, but both motions disappeared mysteriously without being discussed. We have also been advised that a motion from a Nottingham branch of Unite was referred back to the branch by an East Midlands regional officer on the basis that it would not have been taken by the NEC. A motion from a North West health sector branch was referred back without discussion at NEC because it called on the General Secretary and Chair to attend national PSC rallies, a call that was seen to encroach on their employment contract by asking them to “work” at the weekend! A motion from a Brighton branch has not been progressed up the union’s structures. No doubt there are many more similar cases.

There are two main left organisations in Unite:

The Unite Broad Left, which brings together left currents that supported Sharon Graham’s campaign to become General Secretary. They have largely gone along with her narrow and reactionary definition of what a trade union should be, though they have shown  some signs of discomfort recently in relation to Palestine. Unfortunately, it would seem that they have very influence over the woman that they helped to get elected.

The United Left has traditionally been the main left caucus in the union. They have mobilised for and been visible on national Palestine solidarity marches, and their website has consistently made clear  their opposition to Israel’s genocide, and their support for BDS6. Nonetheless, and even though at one point the United Left were said to have a majority on the NEC, there is little or no evidence of them having any impact re Palestine on the NEC. None of the well-known United Left officers and activists we’ve approached have agreed to be visibly associated with Unite4Palestine and to speak at our meetings (except for Howard Beckett, who sent a written statement  to our fringe meeting at TUC conference this year). There seems to be a nervousness within the United Left about our campaign, of which we have to be conscious and which we need to take into account.

TUC Conference 2024  

The NEU proposed a motion on Palestine calling for a straightforward embargo on export of arms to Israel. The motion was seconded by Unison.

Unite had prepared a “wrecking” amendment, prepared by national officials and seeking to allow exports through the addition of some weasel words. The proposed amendment reflected the General Secretary’s absolute hostility to anything that might be seen as a risk to members’ jobs in the defence sector, whatever the consequences to Palestinians.

After discussion, the Unite delegation decided to withdraw the amendment and to support the motion. This was a significant break from the national leadership’s position. The motion was carried  , and the TUC record noted the support of Unite.

The UCU also proposed a motion on the risk of war in the Middle East. It was seconded by the RMT. The motion was explicitly anti-imperialist, characterised Israeli policy as genocide, and called for trade unions to hold ‘workplace days of action’. This motion too was supported by the Unite delegation, and carried by conference  .

A subsequent statement from the United Left  confirmed that the original source of the wrecking amendment was Unite’s national leadership, and that the delegation had rejected the amendment and voted for the two motions in order to support union policy on BDS and an arms embargo, and to stand in solidarity with Palestine.

How much difference will this make?

Of course, TUC-affiliated unions have a habit of disregarding motions that have been carried at Conference. Unite’s national leadership are not going to suddenly start appearing at national PSC rallies, denouncing apartheid Israel’s genocidal policies, encouraging BDS amongst defence workers and demanding an arms embargo simply because the TUC passed these motions.

But it would be foolish to write-off the significance of what happened at TUC conference. We fight to defend our democratic processes within our unions precisely because they do matter. Unite’s TUC delegation used the process to challenge the national leadership’s rejection of our democratically-decided policies. And in Unite4Palestine, we should look to use the internal structures and processes of Unite to challenge the leadership’s line over Palestine. We have to recognise our weakness as a campaign in the union – we are not well embedded in the industrial sectors – and find ways to work with the United Left. This may mean pitching our statements in ways that don’t “scare the horses”, and of course we should adhere to basic standards of comradely respect in how we communicate and engage.

At the same time as building practical solidarity in the campaigns and on the marches, we should look to leverage the traditional internal tools of union organisation, raising motions at our branch meetings, seeking branch donations to local and national Palestine solidarity initiatives, handing out leaflets to members, and organising local and regional meetings. This is the “housekeeping” of trade union activism.

We should take some confidence and hope from what was achieved at the TUC conference. The voice of Palestinian solidarity, and of democracy, appears to be stirring in our union, after a year of near-silence during the genocide. This is something on which we can build.

The “Two State Solution”  

The so-called “two state solution” defends the right of a Jewish Israeli state to exist in Palestine, alongside a Palestinian state. It is remarkable how widely accepted the “two state solution” has become across our labour movement. It is part of the otherwise very good Unite policies on Palestine. It is part of the policies of most if not all other UK trade unions. It is also part of the motion carried at this year’s TUC conference. Yet it flies in the face of the reality that any Jewish Israeli state in Palestine is by definition a colonial-settler apartheid state. A state that will always, by its own logic and necessity, pursue economic, territorial and military aggression against Palestine and the surrounding region, deny democratic rights to non-Jewish “citizens”, oppose the “right to return” of displaced and exiled Palestinians, and of course leave Palestinians occupying an unsustainable rump of the least productive land in Palestine. The “two state solution” offers no end to Zionism, to ethnic cleansing and (as we have seen over the last year) to genocide.

The grass roots of the Palestine solidarity movement over the last year has quickly grasped this reality, and holds no illusions, neither in the likelihood of Israel agreeing to a Palestinian state nor in the possibility that it would peacefully co-exist with such a state. Our trade unions have not made this shift, yet.

Of course, the Palestinian liberation movement itself has been highly contradictory over the decades on this very issue, and this is partly why the UK trade unions have been able to hold the “two state” line. It was at the very point that the PLO and Fatah were negotiating to recognise the state of Israel, and to accept permanent Israeli occupation of most of Palestine, that the Palestinian people turned to Hamas. Even Hamas, initially resolute in refusing to recognise the state of Israel, has at times looked to compromise in order to achieve a Palestinian rump state. Indeed, the Saudi prince serving as diplomat to the UK recently said in a TV interview that the way to undermine Hamas was to demand to know whether they would recognise the state of Israel. If they do, they render themselves and their political project pointless, and become no different from Fatah. If they don’t, then they are clearly anti-democratic terrorists and fundamentalists and the enemy of all civilisation! He knew the power of asking the question, precisely because Hamas is unsure which way to go.

The other reason why UK trade unions have held onto the “two state” line comes out of their persistent cosy relationship with imperialism over the last two centuries. Just as UK workers have benefited from the spoils of empire, so since the inception of trade unions have their bureaucrats been wed to the imperialist project, seeing their role as to protect those benefits rather than to build international working class solidarity.

The “two state solution” is Western Imperialism’s insurance policy for Israeli failure to establish their control not just of Palestine but of the Middle East, and it is a policy that they are seriously looking to fall back on right now. The depth and longevity of the international outcry over the genocide, and the massive sustained mobilisations on streets around the world, alongside the stubborn and heroic resistance of Palestinians, is forcing America and Europe to look anew to the creation of a rump Palestinian state. They will seek to use the solution to undermine the Palestinian struggle, to restore control across the Middle East and to suppress the defiance of solidarity activists in their own countries.

This is a serious and very present danger, and it is one that our trade union bureaucracies are only too happy to support and facilitate. One of our tasks, as activists in Unite trying to build solidarity with Palestine, is to challenge the “two state solution” and to argue instead for a secular democratic and equal state across the whole of Palestine. We need to take the clarity gained by activists within the general solidarity movement into the trade unions.

Unfortunately, the major organisations involved – including the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Stop The War – have at best stayed silent on the issue, and at worst have repressed discussion of the need for a democratic secular state. This is a case where it is not good enough to settle on the “lowest common denominator” across our movement. We need to sound the alarm and organise urgently against what would be a massive defeat of the Palestinian national liberation struggle.