The Labour Push to Declare Israeli Goods Untouchable. 'Answering the call' from Palestinian trade unions, Labour For Palestine is gearing up for a Canadian Labour Congress vote
Sid Shniad
Press Progress March 18, 2026
The Labour Push to Declare Israeli Goods Untouchable
'Answering the call' from Palestinian trade unions, Labour For Palestine is gearing up for a vote by the Canadian Labour Congress
For years, Palestinian trade unions have been calling on their counterparts around the world to help pressure the Israeli government to abide by international law. Now, activists are pushing Canada’s largest labour body to do just that.
“We’re answering the call of solidarity from them,” said Hassan Husseini, a member of the national steering committee of Labour For Palestine (L4P), a volunteer-run effort made up of workers from across Canada.
The group is organizing around a resolution that will be presented at the upcoming Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) constitutional convention, which would commit the organization to “declare trade, services and relationships with Israel to be ‘hot cargo’” and to cut ties with the country’s labour federation.
The convention, which will see delegates from unions across Canada voting on that and other resolutions submitted by unions and labour councils, will be held from May 11-15 in Winnipeg.
In April 2024, a coalition of Palestinian trade unions appealed to unions around the world to end “institutional complicity in Israel’s apartheid regime,” which included a call for port workers to refuse to handle Israeli or Israel-bound weapons and cargo.
That’s where the “hot cargo” clause of Labour For Palestine’s resolution comes in. A hot-cargo declaration instructs workers to refrain from handling the goods produced by a particular company or entity.
The group is hoping to build on the momentum they gained from passing resolutions at four provincial labour federation conventions last year.
These include successful resolutions committing the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) to condemn anti-Palestinian racism, develop tools for pension divestment from Israeli companies and “declare trade, services and relationships with Israel to be ‘hot cargo.’”
Hot-cargo resolutions were also passed at the conventions of the Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador labour federations.
Husseini said members of L4P were organizing at every provincial labour federation across the country, but those in Atlantic Canada were seen as strategically important for the movement because of their role in the shipping industry.
“Those federations are small, if you compare them to the OFL or the BC Fed, but they’re significant in terms of their place in the country and geographically speaking,” explained Husseini, who works as a national negotiator for the Public Service Alliance of Canada.
Kevin Levangie, a letter carrier in Halifax and representative with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, became involved with Labour For Palestine after the group presented a “Palestine 101” educational session to his local.
Levangie pointed to past political actions by port workers in Saint John, New Brunswick, who he said had “led the way” on hot cargo.
In 1979, members of the International Longshoremen’s Association Local 273 set up a picket line in order to block a shipment of nuclear materials bound for Argentina during the country’s military dictatorship. The action resulted in the release of 11 political prisoners.
Four decades later, the Argentine government awarded the Orden de Mayo, the highest award given by Argentina to citizens of another country, to the union for its solidarity with Argentine workers and political prisoners during the dictatorship.
In 2003, members of the same local refused to ship military equipment destined for the Iraq War. In 2018, the union respected a picket line set up by protestors against the sale of armed vehicles to Saudi Arabia.
“There are real opportunities to work here,” said Levangie. “It’s just a question of where exactly cargo is moving from.”
Levangie explained that it’s not always easy to understand where the flow of weapons and ammunition starts and ends.
In September, NDP MP Jenny Kwan tabled Bill C-233, which would have imposed export controls on arms and munitions sent to the US, which sometimes end up being exported to other countries. Kwan named Israel and Sudan as examples.
The bill failed to pass last week, but it marked the first time some Liberal MPs voted against the government under Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Levangie said that in response to the arms industry’s lack of transparency, volunteers for groups like Labour For Palestine, World Against War and Arms Embargo Now map the flow of weapons around the world to inform their activism.
While the hot-cargo resolution passed by New Brunswick’s labour federation was focused on weapons, others, like the one submitted to the CLC convention, would allow workers to declare any goods or services traded with Israel to be hot cargo that they refuse to handle.
The resolution also calls for the CLC to cut ties with Israel’s Histadrut, also known as the New General Workers’ Federation.
The Histadrut was founded in 1920, in what was then British-controlled Mandatory Palestine, to represent Jewish workers. Palestinian citizens of Israel were allowed to join the organization in 1959 and to vote in Histadrut elections in 1965, and migrant workers could join starting in 2010, but Palestinian workers employed in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are still not allowed membership in the Histadrut.
In November 2023, the chair of the Histadrut, Arnon Bar-David, posed for a photo with a missile bound for Gaza. Bar-David wrote on the missile, “Greetings from the Histadrut and the workers of Israel.”
CLC president Bea Bruske met with representatives from the Palestinian Workers’ Union and the Histadrut separately in December 2023, two weeks after Bar-David was photographed signing the missile.
“The Histadrut continues to use such meetings with Canadian and other unions around the world to protect the State of Israel from legitimate criticism and to whitewash its ongoing crimes,” wrote L4P researcher Kevin Skerrett in the group’s backgrounder on Israel’s labour federation.
Labour For Palestine supporters took part in a November 2024 protest at the Ottawa offices of a company that produces parts used in F-35 bombers. (Photo via Labour For Palestine on X)
Levangie said cutting ties with the Histadrut is a relatively easy action that the CLC can take to show solidarity with workers in Palestine.
“It’s something that we can do without relying on the bosses or the government to give in to a demand,” said Levangie.
Sean McNeill, a union staff worker and member of the Canadian Office and Professional Employees Union, told PressProgress that the momentum behind these resolutions, as well as efforts to pressure universities and hospitals to cut ties with Israeli institutions, shows many Canadian workers support the growing isolation of Israel.
“This is a sign that trade unions, civil society organizations, are getting together and saying that this is a relationship that we don’t want to see continue,” said McNeill. “That is significant at the end of the day.”
While Levangie and McNeill are enthusiastic about organizing around the CLC resolution, both noted the limitations of the Canadian Labour Congress. Levangie pointed out that a lot of workers in weapons manufacturing and shipping are represented by labour unions that aren’t affiliated with the CLC, like Unifor and the Teamsters.
(Unifor passed a resolution at its constitutional convention in August that endorsed “the call by Palestinian trade unions for an arms embargo on Israel.”)
Another potential roadblock to labour action in support of Palestine is the legal limitation on strike action in Canada. While workers in Italy staged a one-day general strike in October after Israel’s navy intercepted the Global Sumud Flotilla on its way to deliver aid to Gaza, McNeill noted that Canadian unions are only permitted to strike in the context of bargaining.
“There is no solidarity striking allowed, there’s no striking of non-contract issues,” explained McNeill. “You can’t just decide that you’re going to strike about Palestine, because a labour board would say that’s beyond the scope of bargaining.”
Leading up to the CLC convention in May, Husseini said L4P chapters across the country will be holding town hall meetings to promote the hot-cargo campaign. While he observed that the resolutions at the OFL convention had been adopted with overwhelming support, “you never know” about a resolution’s prospects “until you see who’s there. It’s a huge convention, and you don’t know who may take a contrary position and we end up losing the vote on the floor.”
Levangie said one thing that’s come up repeatedly in his conversations with other workers about L4P is that people are horrified by the images they have seen from Gaza, but are unsure of what they can do.
“Here’s a concrete way that you can move to action, and a way in which you as a worker can kind of stand up and say that you don’t want any part of this,” said Levangie.