With files from Lexx Ambrose
Photos by Tania Heath
Barely 24 hours before this year’s International Workers’ Day rally in St. John’s, police and masked workers displaced unhoused people living in a tent encampment on the grounds of Colonial Building.
The camp’s dismantling came less than 48 hours ahead of the arrival of the first cruise ship of the tourist season — a move that fueled protesters’ anger at a provincial government they say is putting tourist revenue above the needs of residents.
On Saturday, local community groups spoke at the rally in Bannerman Park with deep emotion, some of their voices cracking as they described the eviction. Others were shaky, dripping with anger. All of them drew connections between the plight of Palestinians, settler-colonial genocide against Indigenous peoples, and the housing and economic crisis this province is currently experiencing.
“The Beothuk were victims of genocide and settler-colonial violence,” organizer Daniel Smith said, opening the rally. “A land acknowledgement is meant to be an explicit reminder of the historic and ongoing injustices and genocide against Indigenous peoples here and everywhere — this includes Palestine.”
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Nicolay Hristozov, an organizer with Labour For Palestine St. John’s, said Palestinian workers “have a long and underappreciated history of using organized labour to fight the occupation of their homeland.
“But when every attempt to stand up for their rights is met with Israeli bullets, when the occupation drags on into its 57th year with no end in sight, when the exile of Palestinians has been going on for over 75 years, Palestinian workers need international solidarity,” he said.
“Don’t let anyone make you apologize for caring about Palestine. Palestinians live in our communities. They are our neighbours, our co-workers, our friends, our comrades. And we’re here to show them that they are not forgotten.”
Following a loud and boisterous march around Bannerman Park and surrounding downtown streets, the rally concluded with two speakers.
Sam Crete with the Peace Council — a local affiliate of the Canadian Peace Congress — said the eviction of Tent City and the ongoing marches for Palestine are connected.
“The most radical things that come from these marches is not necessarily the marches themselves, but the community that naturally forms when we share our space and our politics.” Crete attributed the strong sense of community to having raised thousands of dollars for Gazan families.
“Where else can you go downtown where you don’t have to pay a lot of money? If you’re poor there’s just not space for you, and that is intentional,” Crete said.
“Remember the power of shared space — we need to use it.”
Alida Zedel, Campaigns Director at the Memorial University Students’ Union, denounced what they described as the ongoing exploitation of student workers through unpaid work terms, and the eviction of Tent City.
“The lack of humanity demonstrated by our government around housing is shameful,” they said, noting many students also face houselessness. “No more subsidies for landlords — we want to see solutions, not waste. We want to see housing respected as a human right.”
Zedel reiterated the student movement’s call for a ceasefire, and for Memorial University to divest from companies that do business with Israel.
Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour President Jessica McCormick told the crowd that trade unionists “condemn the use of aggressive police intervention and intimidation, whether it’s on a picket line, in an encampment, or in response to a peaceful rally.”
The theme of this year’s International Workers’ Day rally — postponed from earlier in the week due to weather — was ‘labour and peace’. McCormick said she’s inspired by the strong surge of labour organizing in support of Palestine in recent months, noting it’s “rank and file workers who are leading the organizing.”
She says she can’t recall any other example of such constant community mobilization in the 17 years she’s lived in St. John’s.
“I think that’s really powerful — that’s the way we build worker power to make big societal change,” she added. “So it’s very significant, and inspiring.”
Labour For Palestine NL emerges
In 2005, a coalition of Palestinian civil society groups launched a call for international organizations to join in a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. That was following an International Court of Justice ruling declaring Israel’s construction of a wall in Palestine illegal, calling on Israel to abandon its “de facto annexation,” and to pay reparations.
The BDS campaign tried to leverage international pressure on Israel to abide by the ICJ’s ruling and end its occupation and colonization of Arab lands. The boycott campaign was modeled on the success of anti-apartheid activists using boycotts to target the apartheid regime in South Africa.
Labour For Palestine emerged from the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, a group that organized in support of the BDS campaign in the mid-2000s. What was initially a labour sub-committee of the group took on a life of its own. Since the commencement of Israel’s bombing campaign against Palestine in October 2023, Labour For Palestine has witnessed a surge in support with branches forming across the country, from Victoria to St. John’s.
The St. John’s branch was established in March, and according to organizer Nicolay Hristozov the group has been doing outreach work with other unions and labour organizations, providing educational sessions and working to get unions to pass resolutions of support for Palestine.
Organized labour has tremendous potential not just for raising awareness and amplifying protests, he told The Independent, but also for creating long-term structures to push for systemic change. The first step, he said, is to build support from the ground up — something labour organizers have a lot of experience with.
When CUPE Ontario President Fred Hahn took to social media in October 2023 to support the Palestinian cause, it provoked a fraught debate within his own national union. Some called for Hahn’s resignation, and a series of competing resolutions hit the floor at CUPE’s national convention a few weeks later. At that convention, following an emotional debate, delegates from across the country voted by two-thirds in favour of a resolution supporting Palestine and calling for an end to Canada’s arms sales to Israel. The vote was a vindication for Hahn’s outspoken stance, and an early victory for Labour For Palestine organizers within CUPE.
One of the issues raised during that debate was whether international struggles like that of the Palestinians ought to be an issue for Canadian labour.
“That’s a question we get even from union members,” acknowledged Kate MacKeigan, an organizer with Labour For Palestine’s Halifax chapter, which formed in January of this year. “We believe it is [a labour issue] because Palestinians have always fought for workers’ rights along with their struggle for national liberation. A lot of things that make it difficult to be a Palestinian also make it difficult to be a Palestinian worker. A lot of the things that we take for granted in Canada and other western nations are a struggle for Palestinian workers.”
For Hristozov, there are broader principles underscoring labour’s support for Palestine.
“I think that unions have a responsibility not just to their members, and not just to look after the bottom line for their workers,” he said. “Unions are some of the only truly democratic institutions in our society and they have a responsibility to channel the public will beyond just the workplace.
“Worker solidarity doesn’t have national boundaries. Human rights don’t have national boundaries. When workers and labour activists in Palestine tell us they need our help, and they need our solidarity, then it’s a union issue.”
For MacKeigan, fighting to end the slaughter has become personal. A member of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, she works for the federal government in information management.
“Every time I see a Palestinian who has been killed as a result of Israeli air strikes, and every time I see that one of those people is a librarian, or an archivist, or is an information manager in some way, I recognize that that could very easily have been myself or any other person that I work with.”
Navigating work, ethics and conscience
Since the commencement of Israel’s bombing campaign against Palestine in October 2023, an ever-expanding boycott list has targeted international companies that do business with Israel or are complicit in its military operations. Several major brands have reported reduced sales growth since the boycotts began, and even losses in some countries and markets.
McDonald’s was targeted after Israeli branches provided free meals to Israeli soldiers (a similar claim has also led to boycotts and losses for Domino’s, although it’s unclear whether the company in fact distributed free meals to soldiers). Starbucks was hit by boycotts after it took its workers’ union, Starbucks Workers United, to court for pro-Palestine statements on social media. A long-running boycott of Coca-Cola, which began in 1967 when the company constructed a bottling plant in Israel, has been revived as well.
Much of the boycott against these companies has been organic and spread through social media. The Palestinian National BDS Committee has adopted a more strategic approach, encouraging a smaller number of carefully selected target boycotts, including companies like HP, which provides technical services to the Israeli government, and Chevron, which extracts gas for Israel from Palestinian territory.
The National BDS Committee also distinguishes between consumer boycotts and divestment boycotts — the latter a key priority for many activists occupying North American university campuses in recent weeks and calling on their institutions to stop investing in companies that produce technology or weapons used by the Israeli military and government.
Canadian companies have been targeted by boycotts as well. An ongoing boycott campaign against Chapters Indigo targets CEO Heather Reisman, who in 2005 co-founded the HESIG Foundation, which provides scholarships and financial support for foreigners who join the Israeli military. That boycott call has been around since 2006, but was refueled in 2023 when 11 protesters were arrested and criminally charged after postering a Chapters Indigo outlet and splashing red paint on a door.
In Newfoundland and Labrador, protests have taken place against Kraken Robotics, a local company that provides technology to Elbit Systems, an Israeli arms manufacturer.
From Starbucks and McDonald’s, to Chapters and Kraken, employees of companies facing a boycott find themselves in a complicated situation. Hristozov emphasizes that Labour For Palestine is not against workers employed by companies targeted for their role in genocide, but wants to work with them to fight for their right to labour with a clean conscience.
“We believe that workers have the right to dignified work, have the right to earn a good living, and we also believe that part of labour rights is the right to have a clean conscience,” he said. “It’s about the right to know that your labour is not contributing to someone else’s suffering, or to someone else’s having their rights taken away.”
“We have no quarrel with workers in those sectors, we have nothing but solidarity for them and with them,” Hristozov continued. “We want to hear what their priorities and interests are, and empower them to pressure the owners and managers of their companies to stop doing business with Israel — so that when they go in and put in a hard day’s work, they don’t have to come home and look at images of what’s happening in Gaza and feel like they’re complicit.
“To me that’s part of labour rights as well — to know that your work has helped to make the world a better place, not a worse place.”
‘Courage is contagious‘
Not all unions have been as outspoken.
Samantha Tiller is a teacher at Stephenville Middle School on the island’s west coast. When Israel’s bombing of Gaza began, the images she witnessed struck a personal chord.
“What I was seeing was those visceral images of children,” she explained. “Those images of children really caught my attention and I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing. As a mother and a teacher I feel like we have a social responsibility to advocate for children.”
She began reaching out to other teachers, looking to organize in support of the Palestinian children and families being bombed. But when she reached out to her union, the Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers’ Association (NLTA) told her they rely on their international affiliate, Education International, to spearhead advocacy around international issues. And when she posted on NLTA message boards, she says other members called her a “terrorist” and “anti-Semite.”
“It’s been really heavy for me, and I told the association that I feel I’ve been left to advocate in a vacuum,” she said.
So Tiller decided to take action on her own and formed NL Teachers For Palestine. She’s followed the lead of other branches of the very grassroots Teachers For Palestine movement in other parts of the country and world, and has taken to social media to bring the energies and perspectives of Newfoundland and Labrador teachers to the struggle.
“I was desperately looking for community – wondering where is this community of like-minded educators to collaborate with? And it finally dawned on me: why am I looking for community? Why don’t I create it? Then maybe the community will come to me.”
Tiller sees her students struggling to understand and cope with what they’re witnessing on television and social media in Gaza, and she’s concerned about the lack of teaching content to address it. Some students have family in Palestine or Lebanon, and some have already lost family members to Israel’s bombing. She’d like to see a working group of teachers come together to produce content to help students understand what’s happening.
“I’ve had parents reach out to me saying, ‘My kid is wondering about this, my kid hears stuff or sees stuff on their phone through Tiktok and Instagram, and I don’t know how to explain it to them. Do you have anything I can use that’s age-appropriate for my child?’ We’re creating students to be global citizens who should be able to connect our curriculum with the world we’re living in.”
Tiller finds it ironic that the NLTA recently launched an anti-violence campaign, yet has been relatively silent on the violence occurring in Gaza.
“How can you address one without addressing the other? We’re trying to [teach students] that we don’t accept violence, we don’t accept teachers and students being subjected to violence. But then we’re not making any comment about genocide. That doesn’t add up,” she said.
“If kids are seeing violence on their phones and they’re seeing that our country and the people who represent us aren’t saying that it’s wrong, but then they go to school and are told that violence is wrong in school — you know, kids are not dumb. They’re like, ‘Well, you’re not saying anything about genocide, so…”
The NLTA declined a request from The Independent for an interview, but responded with an emailed statement, saying that “as a small, provincial organization with limited staff, the NLTA relies on its connection with Education International, through membership in the Canadian Teachers Federation (CTF), for advocacy and intervention on global/international matters.”
The email also stated that the NLTA executive had approved a donation to the CTF Solidarity Fund to support relief operations in Gaza.
The growing BDS campaign — with its emphasis on divesting pension plan investments from companies complicit in genocide — has also led Tiller to ask questions about her own pension plan. It’s run by a separate corporation: the Teachers’ Pension Plan Corporation NL.
The plan has nearly 6,000 members across the province and had $4.4 billion invested at the time of its 2022 annual report. Members like Tiller collectively contribute $60.5 million annually, and employers another $57.7 million.
Tiller wants to know where all the money is going, but says she’s been given the runaround. The corporation’s reports provide an overview of the broad types of assets invested, but they don’t list specific companies. When Tiller approached the NLTA she was told to contact the TPPC directly. She says she and others have sent emails to TPPC and left voice messages with their inquiries, but have received no reply.
Tiller acknowledges it can be intimidating for workers to speak up without the backing of their union, but feels it’s something she has a responsibility to do.
“I might be burying myself in a hole, but I just feel that in the grand scheme of history and what people give up or stand to lose, anything that we might experience or any kind of backlash is only minute compared to what the true victims are facing.
“When I’m 80 I want to be able to look back at my life and be able to say that the decisions I made and the waves that I caused were because I believed in the goodness of humanity. We all have a part to play, and I really believe that if one person stands up, the next person will stand up. And the next. And the next. Courage is contagious.”
