Trade Union Solidarity

What Trade Unions in Finland Can Do to Support Palestinian Workers

Finnish trade unions have concrete and effective ways to show solidarity with Palestinian workers. Trade unions can:

  • adopt resolutions in support of the BDS movement within their national leaderships and local branches
  • cut ties with companies that profit from Israel’s occupation, apartheid, and war crimes
  • become an Apartheid Free Zone
  • divest from Israeli government bonds and from companies complicit in apartheid
  • build direct solidarity links with Palestinian trade unions
  • use their social and political influence to demand that the Finnish government impose sanctions on Israel and enforce an arms embargo

Trade unions around the world have already taken these steps – and achieved real impact.

Trade unions in different countries have:

  • blocked arms shipments to Israel in ports
  • demanded that their governments end military support for Israel
  • divested from Israeli state bonds and apartheid-linked investments
  • endorsed BDS in South Africa, Brazil, Norway, the UK, Canada, Sweden, and many other countries. 

Since the beginning of Israel’s Gaza genocide in 2023, dockworkers unions in Belgium, India, Catalonia, Italy, Greece, Turkey, California, and South Africa have taken action against Israeli ships or arms shipments to Israel.

In 2024, for example:

  • Swedish dockworkers voted to block the transport of military materials to Israel
  • South Africa’s largest metalworkers’ union called for sanctions against Israel
  • U.S. trade unions demanded an end to military aid to Israel

Palestinian workers bear the heaviest burden of Israel’s occupation, settler colonialism, and apartheid regime. For decades, Israel has systematically destroyed the Palestinian economy and undermined workers’ rights.

This is reflected in:

  • extremely high unemployment, especially in Gaza
  • restrictions on freedom of movement that prevent work and trade union organising
  • wage theft, unsafe working conditions, and blatant discrimination
  • arbitrary arrests, deportations, and violence against workers

Since 2023, Israel’s genocide against Gaza has dramatically worsened the situation: more than half a million Palestinians have lost their jobs, and unemployment in Gaza has risen to over 80 percent.

Since 1948, Israel has:

  • confiscated Palestinian land and natural resources
  • imposed a blockade on Gaza, preventing production and exports
  • restricted movement, access to land and water, and trade in the West Bank
  • controlled Palestinian imports and exports under the Paris Protocol

As a result, the Palestinian economy has been made dependent on foreign aid, while jobs have collapsed.

Many Palestinians are forced to:

  • work in illegal Israeli settlements with low pay and no protection
  • wait for hours at military checkpoints just to reach their workplaces
  • endure racism, extortion, and exploitation by permit brokers and authorities

Since October 7, 2023, Israel has arrested, tortured, and expelled more than 175,000 Palestinian workers. In practice, there is no social security, health care, or legal protection.

Palestinians who are citizens of Israel also face systematic discrimination:

  • many jobs are closed to them due to military service requirements
  • only 6.6% of Israeli state employees are Palestinian
  • open and structural racism is widespread in the workplace

Palestinian trade unions have been central to the struggle for liberation:

  • in 1936, they led a six-month general strike
  • during the First Intifada, they organised strikes and boycotts
  • today, they resist wage cuts and the dismantling of the public sector

All major Palestinian trade unions:

  • endorsed the 2005 call for BDS
  • are members of the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC)
  • formed the Palestinian Trade Union Coalition for BDS (PTUC-BDS) in 2011

Palestinian trade unions have been central to the struggle for liberation:

  • in 1936, they led a six-month general strike
  • during the First Intifada, they organised strikes and boycotts
  • today, they resist wage cuts and the dismantling of the public sector

All major Palestinian trade unions:

  • endorsed the 2005 call for BDS
  • are members of the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC)
  • formed the Palestinian Trade Union Coalition for BDS (PTUC-BDS) in 2011

Palestinian trade unions are directly appealing to the international labour movement for support.  Finnish trade unions have both the opportunity and the responsibility to answer this call.

Solidarity is not a symbolic gesture – it is concrete action for justice, workers’ rights, and international accountability