More union nonsense

Editorial

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers, which over the years has demonstrated an extraordinary obsession with Israel, is back at it. The March edition of the union newsletter features a story from a New Brunswick union member who traveled to the Palestinian territories on a trip paid for by the union.

She returned with three short profiles of women. One story speaks of a family matriarch whose home, which apparently housed 100 members of her family, was demolished. Another tells the story of a woman’s “fearless determination” to successfully resist the demolition of her home. A third profile describes “the Crying Plant,” which monitors the moisture in fields owned by farmers who have been separated by Israel’s security barrier from their land. When the plants need watering, the technology triggers a phone call to the farmer’s home “and when answered makes a crying sound.”

Canadian Jewish organizations have expressed outrage that the CUPW newsletter accuses Canada of playing “a key part in perpetuating war crimes” and “allowing Israel to terrorize occupied people, breach international law, normalize home demolitions, build prison-style walls and checkpoints, and steal resources.”

There is no discussion in the newsletter of the context/history of the situation or recognition that there might be another side to the narrative. While the union’s Atlantic Region “Solidarity Fund” paid for the trip of this particular activist-reporter, CUPW is not sending funds to support civil society or trade union organizations in the territories.

Meanwhile, Canada Post is in a financial state that threatens the continuation of postal service in Canada. As a result, postal workers have been put upon to carry more weight further distances every year. Yet, their union continues to obsess about a situation half a world away, not helping the workers there or their own workers here. This is a labor union?

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