Please Click Here to find recent news, events and information from CUPE Ontario.
TORONTO, Ont. Welcoming a statement issued earlier today by the national officers of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, CUPE Ontario President Sid Ryan said his division has been saying for over a week now that the proposed international boycott will focus on Israeli academic institutions, not individuals
On the Michael Coren Show, Jan. 9, in a letter to the editor in the Toronto Star, Jan. 10, in postings on cupe.on.ca. as well as in media interviews, Ryan has stated that CUPE Ontario will not support a boycott of individuals. We also fully agree with the national union’s policy on UN resolutions 242 and 338, he said.
CUPE Ontario’s university workers committee is examining bringing forward a motion for its upcoming conference that will support a boycott of Israeli academic institutions, not individuals, as part of the international boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign.
In the process of examining academic boycott initiatives by other organizations around the world, and similar actions that helped end apartheid in South Africa, it has become clear that the position is not banning individuals. Rather an academic boycott should focus on issues of investment, partnership, fundraising and joint projects, said Ryan. That will also be our approach.
The proposal builds on existing CUPE Ontario policy supporting the BDS campaign adopted more than two years ago in response to the 40-year occupation of Palestinian territory as well as human rights violations by Israel. Our national union’s policy calling for the immediate withdrawal of Israel from the occupied territories was adopted more than five years ago and was reaffirmed in 2007.
Ryan said, We too have condemned the Hamas rocket attacks on Israel. However, these and Israel’s disproportionate response the loss of innocent lives that has horrified the entire world are only the latest developments in a decades-long conflict that will not end without sustained international pressure to end the occupation and work for a negotiated peace.
-30-
For more information, contact:
Sid Ryan, President, CUPE Ontario, 416-209-0066
Pat Daley, CUPE Communications, 416-292-3999 ext 240
