UNISON condemns the end of the humanitarian pause between the Israeli government and Hamas and the resumption of ground operations and bombardment of Gaza by the Israeli state.

For ten days the artillery and missiles largely fell silent, allowing just a fraction of the humanitarian assistance that is so desperately needed into the strip. Since then, hundreds more Palestinian civilians have been killed and homes destroyed.

Gaza’s healthcare system is only partially functioning, due to bomb damage, the killing of health workers, and a shortage of medical supplies, electricity and clean water.

Health workers continue to risk their lives as they attempt to respond to the huge increase of those requiring treatment. The displacement  of the population of Gaza has created a public health crisis, with overcrowding and the lack of sanitation resulting in an increase in outbreaks of communicable diseases.

UNISON calls for an end to the targeting of civilians, refugee camps and critical public services, including healthcare, and calls on the Israeli government and Hamas to respect international law. The union reaffirms the right to public services, including clean water and sanitation.

UNISON condemns the indiscriminate bombing of Gaza and reaffirms its call for a ceasefire and full access to humanitarian assistance.

UNISON also condemns any victimisation and harassment of Jewish and Arab anti-war protestors in Israel.

UNISON call on the British Government to recognise Palestine as an independent state.

Before the latest conflict, Gaza had one of the highest rates of unemployment in the world. Since then, a further 182,000 jobs have been lost, according to estimates from the International Labour Organisation. In the West Bank, at least 152,000 Palestinians have lost their jobs in Israel and the illegal settlements due to the closure of crossings and other restrictions on Palestinian workers. Increased restrictions on freedom of movement have also limited the ability of Palestinians to access work within the West Bank.

UNISON calls for an end to the punitive measures that undermine the Palestinian economy and the right to decent work, including the 17-year blockade of Gaza and restrictions on Palestinian freedom of movement in the occupied West Bank.

UNISON continues to encourage branches and members organising around Palestine in their workplaces and encourages them to mobilise for both national and local protests.

This post is the first relating to a new page on our website entitled ‘members reviews’.

Camden UNISON members are invited to submit reviews to the editors of this v/blog at unison@camden.gov.uk relating to any movie, documentary, tv show and musical release of relevance to history of the workers movement, connected union activities and politics.

The editors have the right to censor any submission likely to render this site liable for prosecution under current publishing or copyright legislation.

This site does not advocates, subscribes or promotes any content reviewed but simply describes items of interest to Camden UNISON members for further discussion or research.

Books:

Nicholas De Genova

The Borders of “Europe”:

Autonomy of Migration, Tactics of Bordering

(Duke University Press,  2017)

Nicholas De Genova is a Professor in the Department of Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Houston.  His research centers primarily on migration, borders, citizenship, and race.

The Borders of Europe puts migration and borders at the center of debates on race and the colonial-like relations that scar the contemporary world. It casts a critically look on the political and cultural artificiality of national borders as well as on the challenge posed to them by the evasive autonomy of migration. The book does provides convenient answers to the challenging questions of the time; instead, it demonstrates how ‘fractured’‘Europe’ and ‘European- ness’ are.

The book constitutes an excellent introduction to De Genova other publications some of which are freely available on the net.

Movie

The trial of the Chicago 7

The movie is a classic of the ‘Vietnam years’ genre.

Since the beginning of the trial in 1969, the defendants and their attorneys have been depicted in a variety of art forms, including film, music, and theater.

The historical background must include both assassinations of Martin Luther King jnr and Robert Kennedy in early 1968.

The 1968 Democratic National Convention protests were a series of protests against the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War that took place prior to and during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.A variety of groups convened in Chicago to protest during the convention week, including the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (the Mobe) and the Yippies. The Black Panther Party.

In August 1968, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, David Dellinger, Lee Weiner, John Froines, and Bobby Seale make preparations to protest at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Five months later, they are arrested and charged with “crossing state lines” to incite a riot.

The film covers the notorious trial (all of the defendants were charged with and acquitted of conspiracy; Davis, Dellinger, Hayden, Hoffman, and Rubin were charged with and convicted of crossing state lines with intent to incite a riot; Froines and Weiner were charged with teaching demonstrators how to construct incendiary devices and acquitted of those charges. All of the convictions were later reversed on appeal, and the government declined to retry the case. While the jury deliberated, Judge Julius Hoffman convicted the defendants and their attorneys of  contempt of court and sentenced them to jail sentences ranging from less than three months to more than four years. The contempt convictions were also appealed, and some were retried before a different judge).

In addition, the movie provides an insight and a flavor of the reactionary political atmosphere of the time with interesting reverberations on current times.

The government has announced it will repeal anti-strike laws that mandate ‘minimum service levels’ during industrial action.

The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act will be repealed when the government passes its forthcoming Employment Rights Bill, expected to begin the parliamentary process in October 2024.

The policy of this government is that minimum service levels (MSLs) unduly restrict the right to strike and undermine good industrial relations.

The controversial legislation, impacting all of Great Britain, was passed in July 2023 by the former Conservative government. It gave employers in ambulance, fire and rescue and border services new powers to force people to work on strike days by issuing controversial ‘work notices’.

Since its introduction, UNISON has criticised MSLs for ‘putting politics above public services’. Over the past year, UNISON has fought, alongside the TUC and other unions, to oppose this anti-strike, anti-union law.

In January this year, UNISON joined thousands of other trade union members in Cheltenham at a ‘protect the right to strike’ rally that protested MSLs.

Thanks to the efforts of UNISON and other unions, no work notices have been issued since the MSLs legislation was passed last summer.

The government has since indicated that, although the legislation will remain in place until it is formally repealed, employers should ‘seek alternative mechanisms for dispute resolution, including voluntary agreements, rather than imposing minimum service levels’.

The government has also made clear that, following UNISON’s successful judicial review in August 2023, employers are also prohibited from recruiting agency staff to cover striking workers on industrial action days.

Commenting on the new government’s decision to repeal MSLs, UNISON general secretary Christina McAnea said: “This was a terrible law. It’s great the government is ditching it so early on. Good riddance to a bad law.

“This legislation should have never reached the statute book. No one wanted minimum service levels, only a spiteful government watching power drain away and desperate to shore up its rapidly disappearing support.​

“No employer used the law because doing so would have ramped up tensions, prolonged strikes and risked the wrath of the public.”