CUPE Paints Big Target on Back, Utters Schoolyard Chant to Middle East

Here's one for the "Uh...WHAT?!?!?" file.

The Ontario wing of CUPE--Canada's largest union, by the way--voted unanimously at its annual meeting to boycott Israel.

Yes.

Israel.

As in, the country.

You know the one. It crops up in the news occasionally.

Sid Ryan was quoted in the Montreal Gazette as saying that the resolution was not an attack on Jewish people, but rather on Israel's "apartheid state", referring to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

This is ... fine, I suppose. But, WHY? To what purpose? Was it quiet in Ontario last week? Was there no other issue with a little more relevance to their members that CUPE thought deserved a resolution? Once again, the Montreal Gazette asked the same question, and their editorial piece is worth a read here. I'm flummoxed, and so are a number of others.

As a result of the move, CUPE has found some new friends in high places, however. Al Jazeera, the arabic language news network and no small friend of controversy, has featured CUPE's move, including publishing every resolution. (Ed: Careful of that link; if you're at work make sure your employer isn't going to be concerned about you viewing al Jazeera material.) I don't know about you, but this is the kind of attention I prefer to avoid.

This, of course, goes to the heart of another debate, one that is thankfully a little more familiar to me: the role of unions as agents of workers vs. agents of social change. Obviously, some things like weekends and health care have clear links to unions' legally recognized role as an advocate for workers. To the Montreal Gazette's point, even Kyoto is a good international issue that likely affects a number of workers and could be worthy of debate. Kyoto wasn't discussed at the convention.

But this? THIS?? What exactly is it supposed to accomplish? What will CUPE do to make this resolution active, and when they do whatever it is they plan to do will their members think that those actions are a good way to spend dues?

All of these are good questions, and I'm not hearing anything from CUPE that even closely resembles answers. This isn't just an Ontario thing by the way: the national web site for CUPE has a link on the front page.

If nothing else, the fallout will be interesting.