Which side are you on?

Editorial

Air Canada sales and customer service personnel, who are members of the Canadian Autoworkers Union (CAW), went on strike Tuesday morning. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) continued their rotating job actions against Canada Post this week.

One may agree or disagree with unions on principle. One could look at the issues causing the current labor conflicts and side with either CUPW or Canada Post, with Air Canada or with CAW, or somewhere in between. But there is another variable that should be considered and now is a perfect time to address it.

As erstwhile union issues like safe working conditions and matters like overtime have come to be addressed, to a large extent, at the legislative level, unions have expanded from their original mandates, in order to maintain their relevance. Notable among the expanded mandates is an increased attention to foreign policy. There is an irony here, as Canadian unions will espouse a philosophy of global solidarity when it suits them, even as, in many cases, they remain as stridently nationalistic and economically protectionist as ever, workers of the world be damned.

Ridiculous as it may seem to some, CUPW has a foreign policy, as does CAW and many other unions and nonprofit organizations. In the case of CUPW, this foreign policy has been commandeered by the most extreme of the membership. After all, who but the most dedicated fanatics would dedicate their evenings and weekends to seizing the foreign policy of the Canadian postal union? And the foreign policy topic that heads the priority list of CUPW is, of course, the delegitimization of the only Middle Eastern country with genuinely free trade unions and collective bargaining. CAW, the country’s largest private sector union, is slightly less strident in its condemnation of the Jewish state.

On the one hand, this situation is a result of the proverbial silence of the good people, who have permitted a small group to control their union’s voice on foreign affairs and destroy their union’s reputation for fairness and balance. On the other hand, this silence of the good people is understandable if you are familiar with the tactics of the anti-Israel movement and the courage it takes to stand up to their at-times thuggish behavior.

Defend Israel at the meeting of a union or “social justice” group in Canada these days and expect to be labeled an imperialist, a racist, an apartheidist, a fascist and/or a Nazi. Do so on campus and expect worse, including physical intimidation and even violence. Intolerance is an understatement for the actions of some of the anti-Israel activists on campus, in the union movement and in the New Democratic party toward anyone who supports Israel, or even seeks anything like a balanced perspective.

Just as CUPW has been taken over by Israel-bashers, the NDP has been hijacked by a very biased narrative promoted by many of the same individuals and groups. Judy Wasylycia-Leis, then an outspoken NDP MP who was certainly not easily intimidated, was shouted down and harassed by fellow delegates at the 2006 NDP convention when she spoke against a pro-Hezbollah resolution that eventually gained the support of about nine out of 10 delegates.

In this context, the silence of the good people is comprehensible, though certainly not justifiable, from people whose conceit is to seek justice.

It may bear pointing out that the tail wagging the unions’ foreign-policy dog is not merely anti-Israel, but that it includes extreme left, anti-Israel and/or anti-American ideologues, who made what amounts to a non-aggression pact some years ago. Indeed, many of the anti-Israel activists in the union movement are communists, as easily verified by the most cursory Google search. In a democracy like Canada’s, of course, one is free to be a communist. But it is not fair game to shout “McCarthyism” when someone factually points out this ideological position. This is equally true for people who use the term Zionist as though the very word is toxic.

If we are to take a position on these labor conflicts, we should review the demands of the unions and the positions of the employers. But it is also fair to review the broader agenda of these unions when considering which side one is on, and remind them, when they seek public support, that we are not short of attention – we remember what they’ve been doing between the strikes.

Now would be a good time to tell the rank-and-file majority of decent, but silent, card-carrying union members who are seeking public support for their strike actions that the extremists in their ranks are not doing them any favors.

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