Why Labour Day Was Disturbingly Different This Year

My painful awakening as a Jewish union member in Canada

By Lindsay Gilbert, Medium, September 9, 2024

Toronto - Last week, unlike in previous years, Labour Day came with lots of baggage. In the past, I took it pretty much for granted — a day off work, an unofficial start to fall and a moment to appreciate the efforts of those who long ago brought us this day: labour unions. Not anymore.

I’m a Toronto-based Jewish member of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) in Canada’s largest province, and since October 7, 2023, my identity as a Jewish woman and Ontario worker has been shaken. This is true also for many other Jewish members of Ontario unions, prompting us to come together to launch the Canadian Jewish Labour Committee, a revival, modelled on the original.

Our grassroots initiative of Jewish union members will combat antisemitism, promote inclusion of all people and encourage engagement and solidarity in Canada’s labour movement. We will champion justice, dignity and respect for all workers and oppose all forms of hatred and discrimination.

For 19 years, I was an unengaged union member, content to pay dues and respect the achievements of the collective bargaining members to negotiate a decent contract for my work. That changed early this year when I painfully discovered how woefully naive I was about OPSEU’s activities. As I watched online a video of my union’s flags, carried next to terrorist flags and screams of “There is only one solution! Intifada revolution!” I wondered why so many people want me dead? And why is my union there?

I joined a group of fellow Jewish union members who had similar questions. As it turns out, Jewish members of other unions such as Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE Ontario) and Canadian Association of Professional Employees (CAPE) were also reaching out to each other.

Since then, OPSEU, PSAC and CUPE held workshops and “teach-ins” at which blatantly anti-Israel and anti-Jewish opinions had pride of place as Israel was falsely accused of colonialism, apartheid and genocide. Later, the facilitators of the OPSEU workshop received awards for their work.

Recently, CAPE members demanded answers from leadership about the union’s spending practices — in particular, the funding of Cape 4 Palestine. This member initiative received $5,000, exceeding the approved donation budget.

Once again failing their Jewish members, CAPE and OPSEU participated in Ottawa’s recent Capital Pride Parade, despite many organizations withdrawing due to the event’s anti-Israel stance and baseless accusations of Israeli “pinkwashing.”

Last October, soon after Hamas slaughtered 1,200 people in Israel, CUPE Ontario President Fred Hahn tweeted a message celebrating “the power of resistance,” deeply offending union members, who filed a human rights complaint. The rampant discrimination and antisemitism have continued, including Hahn’s recent post of an antisemitic video, igniting a media firestorm and CUPE National Executive Board’s call for his resignation.

OPSEU, PSAC, and CUPE all formally adopted a Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction resolution, prompting a terrorism-linked organization to congratulate OPSEU on social media.

All the unions mentioned have also shunned the widely adopted International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.

This is only a tiny fraction of what Jewish union members in Canada have experienced, with antisemitism now seemingly part of union life. Many of us are descendants of Holocaust survivors and assumed that, living in Canada, we would never have to worry about Jew-hatred. How wrong we were.

The impact of these recent months is that I and many others have felt humiliation, shame, anxiety, despair and isolation. We are unwelcome in the very unions whose equity and inclusion policies don’t apply to us. Enough is enough. Unions need to change, and we all need to raise our voices. Again.

Unions exist ostensibly to improve conditions for workers. But if they are also to adopt social justice initiatives, how can a union work properly if it alienates part of its membership, especially in the name of solidarity? How do labour unions explain their near-obsession with vilifying Israel and silence on terrorist groups whose publicly stated goals glorify the death and destruction of Israel and Jews? Why do they consistently ignore almost all other international conflicts?

Forsaking their raison d’être, unions have lost their way as members are divided by hate, fomented by leadership unwilling to be held accountable, some of whom are part of the hate themselves. All union members, Jewish and non-Jewish, need to speak out, to return labour unions to their original purpose — real solidarity.

— Lindsay Gilbert is a public service employee and union member in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), Ontario, Canada



https://medium.com/@linds.gilbert/why-labour-day-was-disturbingly-different-this-year-9f3f3ef0de5b