Trade Union Friends Of Palestine

Mags O’Brien, from SIPTU gave a presentation on the Irish delegation that recently visited Palestine. Again she detailed stories of untold hardship being impressed on people. Mags showed pictures of deserted streets which are no go areas that contrasted greatly with the bustling activity on the streets of illegal settlements. She also spoke about the wall that Israel are building to shield itself off from the Gaza strip. This cuts through peoples gardens and rites of passage and is a massive structure being built against the wishes of the international community right around the Gaza Strip.
The BDS Campaign of Boycott, divestment and Sanctions was supported. Mags stated that Israel is an Apartheid State like South Africa once was and Sanctions and boycott have been called from Palestinian Unions in an effort to force Israel into a settlement. ICTU support this stance. There is a boycott of Israelis goods and of cultural activities. Artists, like Leonard Cohen, who have played Israel are being boycotted in a effort to stop them from going there. 150 artists from Ireland have signed up to a campaign pledging they will not travel to Israel to promote their music.

Global Solidarity is good fun

Over 50 trade union activists were in attendance from all over the island for the 2nd Global Solidarity Forum last weekend. This was a 2 day event held in the Capital in ASTI’s hq near Christchurch Cathedral. The event was wonderfully organised by Stellan Hermansson who is Global Solidarity Officer for ICTU.

There was a number of themes over the two days, all very enlightening and unfortunately feature stories that need to be shared with colleagues. Whilst we may feel this is an extremely hard time for ourselves in Ireland we mustn’t loose sight of the plight of our less fortunate brothers and sisters throughout the world. This conference helped put a focus on that.

I'm gonna break it down by topic so will post a few seperate blogs on the following

Justice For Colombia

Clean CLothes Campaign

ITUC

Trade Union Friends of Palestine

Stop Climate Chaos