Assaf Adiv, the executive director of MAAN, and Othman Gharabat, MAAN’s trade union representative in the West Bank, participated in the international Labourstart conference in Tbilisi, Georgia, at the end of April. MAAN’s representatives expressed the organization’s vision that is committed to the global struggle for democracy, the freedom of peoples, workers’ rights and the struggle for solving the climate crisis.
Labourstart’s conference www.labourstart.org was held with the participation of about 200 union leaders and activists from thirty countries. It took place at the National University of Georgia under the auspices and support of the Federation of Trade Unions of Georgia GTUC https://gtuc.ge/
The conference was held in the background of unprecedented international support to Ukraine in its heroic fight against Putin’s aggression. Key activists from Ukraine’s trade unions appeared at the conference and emphasized the importance of mobilizing the workers’ movement around the world in support of Ukraine and for democracy. There were also featured representatives of trade unions in Belarus and Kazakhstan – countries where there is severe repression of democratic rights and leaders of the trade unions are in prison.
MAAN’s delegates described its work and emphasized the fact that the union is the only workers’ organization in Israel that also organizes Palestinian workers in workplaces that are under Israeli jurisdiction in the West Bank and possible, helps them reach collective agreements. They elaborated on MAAN’s current campaign against the system of bondage of Palestinian workers to employers in Israel, which gives rise to an abusive rampant “trade” in work permits. MAAN calls for the issuance of a Green Card to Palestinians wishing to work in Israel which will end this trade in permits and the bondage system.
Assaf Adiv said that as a Jewish Arab trade union MAAN fully supports the resilient protest movement for democracy in Israel, and is part of it. Week after week we shall stand with our banner: No Democracy – No Workers Rights until democracy is safe.
