How US Federal Workers Without a Union Can Still Act Like a Union

By Colin Smalley

May 10, 2025

Source: Labor Notes

Federal workers march on May Day in New York City. Their signs single out Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, for attempting to shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. (Photo: Jenny Brown, Labor Notes)

The reality for over 1.3 million federal government workers leading up to the second Trump Administration has been collective bargaining through unions recognized by the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA).

This recognition comes with the right to bargain over working conditions and conditions of employment. It also includes an individual right to representation when the boss is asking questions that could lead to discipline.

EXECUTIVE ORDER CHANGES

However, for a majority of these workers, Trump’s Executive Order 14251 strips those rights in the name of “national security.” These workers, myself and my union included, are now faced with a scenario that’s been all too common: There’s no real path to recognition or formal bargaining rights in the near future. In fact, this was the state of organizing in the federal sector before 1962.

Whether it’s well-established local unions or newly formed organizing committees, many workers are asking, “What’s the point in a union?” or “What can our union do at this point?”

UNILATERAL UNIONISM

This scenario puts us in the same situation as workers who are forming a union and haven’t yet built the majority they would need to win formal union recognition—sometimes called “pre-majority unionism”. In my shop we’ve been calling our situation “unilateral unionism,” since we do have majority membership. Either way, if recognition from the employer is off the table, we have to be able to build power through collective action instead. The reality is: There’s still so much workers can do!

Federal workers still have legal protections from retaliation and reprisal for collectively using their workplace rights. Need to appeal a bad decision by overworked HR? Need to challenge a power-hungry boss? Need to improve the working conditions for you and your co-workers? It’s all still possible.

HOW FEDERAL WORKERS CAN FIGHT BACK

At the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee—a grassroots group that provides support and how-to resources to workers organizing on the job—we’ve assembled the following list of ways that we as federal workers can fight back with protection from reprisal or retaliation and regardless of our status with the FLRA.

• Fight discrimination: Oppose discrimination (as an individual or collectively) in the moment and challenge discrimination through the Equal Employment Opportunity statutes, with a representative on official time.
• Work safe and healthy: Ensure healthy and safe workplaces through union representation on safety inspections and safety committees with the representatives on official time, make reports of unsafe or unhealthful conditions and refuse to perform unsafe work.
• File grievances: File administrative grievances according to agency guidance. Where possible, utilize agency alternate dispute resolution processes to insert mediation, arbitration, and third-party fact-finding into the mix. Most agencies will have such a process, and many provide a right to a representative on official time. (See for example, the DOD, VA, and USDA policies.)
• Defend targeted co-workers: Respond to discipline and adverse actions and then appeal them as necessary. The regulations allow for the “release” of the employee’s representative, so this should be official time or worst case, an entitlement of the representative to take leave.
• Get that money: File claims when a worker has been misclassified or denied overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Representatives must be “released” from their normal duties.
• Help workers who get hurt: File appeals when a workers’ compensation claim is improperly denied. Union representatives are explicitly allowed, and the regulations do not rely on the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute or its defined terms.
• Stay informed: File requests for documents or other records under the Freedom of Information Act but not during duty time. Cite non-commercial use to request a fee waiver and cite public interest in legally and fairly administered public service to overcome Privacy Act objections.
• Agitate for change: Advocate for members’ views in Congress, including lobbying, but not during duty time. Cite the Lloyd-LaFollette Act of 1912, and if there’s any reprisal for off-duty permitted political activity, cite the Hatch Act.
• Speak out: Get creative with whistle-blowing. A well-scripted “march on the boss” or a petition are great ways to take collective action that are protected by the Whistleblower Protection Act, so long as they disclose any violation of any law, regulation, rule, or policy, or an abuse of authority.
• Keep learning: Pool resources through union dues to ensure access to expert training for representatives, congressional advocacy, and organizing.

Regardless of what the White House says, a union is a group of workers making decisions together and taking collective action to improve their lives. The law doesn’t give us the right to organize—we always have that power.

 

How Unions Can Protect Immigrants

An interview with Faye Guenther, president of UFCW Local 3000.

By Faye Guenther, Patrick Iber , Natasha Lewis 

May 12, 2025

Source: Dissent Magazine

Threats and raids against immigrants help the boss control all workers. “Our strength lies in unity,” reads a sign at the September 11, 2017, march for immigrant rights in Los Angeles, California. Photo: Molly Adams, CC BY 2.0

In February, the labor reporter Luis Feliz Leon published an essay on the n+1 website on unions’ varying responses to Trump. We were intrigued by his mention of a members’ meeting organized by Faye Guenther, president of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 3000, to discuss immigration and how the union could prepare for the new administration’s deportation plans. We spoke to Faye on February 28 about how she confronts divisions within her membership, and how unions can protect their immigrant members. Since then several union members have been detained—including former UAW member Mahmoud Khalil, Lewelyn Dixon and Rümeysa Öztürk of SEIU, and Alfredo Juárez of Familias Unidas por la Justicia—which only underscores the importance of this discussion.

Patrick Iber: You’re in daily contact with people whose experiences are shaped by changes in the immigration regime, whether they’re immigrants or not. Luis Feliz Leon reported that you had a meeting about immigration with United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) members. What did you hear from workers?

Faye Guenther: We’ve been doing scenario planning since April of last year, when we thought Donald Trump was going to win. We focused on the most likely threat, which was deportations.

We’ve been talking with our members for a long time about why unity has to be maintained when we’re protecting everybody at work. And we’ve been doing a ton of know your rights work: “Employers do not have to let ICE agents in without a warrant; here’s how to check a warrant.” And we were trying to negotiate that training into all of our contracts prior to Trump taking office. Because people have more rights than they think.

Employers have rights also. Employers do not have to scare the shit out of workers. They do not have to tell people that they could be fired. They don’t have to do anything. And employers do not want to lose their workforce. Kids do not want to lose their family members. I’ve seen kids who haven’t been picked up from day care. You need to have a plan for the worst-case scenario.

Iber: How has the membership responded?

Guenther: We’ve been talking and trying to build unity and solidarity between workers for a long time. For example, we took a strong stance on wearing masks and being vaccinated; if coworkers felt safer with people wearing masks, people needed to wear masks. That’s our duty to each other. There are some folks who don’t agree. But we work hard to build consensus, and if we can’t build consensus, we vote using majority rule.

Iber: There are big debates about whether a more homogeneous working class is easier to organize. And it seems to me that whatever debate they’re having about this in Denmark doesn’t apply to the United States. Our working class is diverse, and it always will be. Even if the Trump administration creates a terrible environment for recent immigrants, that’s not going to change. What message do you have to union leaders who might not be taking the same approach that you’re taking?

Guenther: Right now, there’s so much isolation in our society that the only place you’re interacting with people is at work. The workplace is where people care about each other, talk to each other, and of course disagree with each other. I think it’s a bunch of bullshit that people can’t, or think that they can’t, build unity among workers. Workers already care about each other. That’s just the natural way humans behave. White workers will stand with a worker who they know and who is going to get picked up by ICE and ripped away from their family. I’ve watched people stand together.

UFCW has the youngest membership of any union in the country. It’s majority women, because we work in grocery stores and healthcare facilities. And a big chunk of our workforce is people of color. When you have a predominantly white male workforce, then maybe you’re not getting exposed to the true stories of other people’s lives, and it might be harder to understand what somebody else is going through. But I think workplaces that are integrated, where you meet people from all walks of life, are super vibrant and a place where learning happens. I represent workers all across Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, and I’ve found rural and urban workers face the same things: the housing crisis, low wages, and shitty bosses.

Natasha Lewis: When there is disagreement, how does that process work? What questions are you asking?

Guenther: I’m a certified mediator, which I think has been helpful. We try to get to the heart of the matter and put how people really feel on the table. Then—even if there are emotions—we take a caucus. We go for a walk. We have people talk it through one-on-one or in groups. Sometimes people get really pissed off and decide they don’t want to be on the bargaining team anymore. But we have guidelines when we’re trying to reach consensus that we all sign off on, so there are expectations about how we treat each other. It sounds a little corporate, and it is, but we’ve put our staff through something called Radical Candor, which is about trying to talk to people directly. We do a lot of education with our staff around communicating, listening, and being okay with disagreement. If we’re winning, it’s going to feel very chaotic, but our member-leaders have the tools they need to fight fair.

Lewis: How has the debate about immigration changed among workers since you joined the labor movement? Is there an example you can think of when you’ve seen a worker change their mind?

Guenther: There’s always been a problem with racism and anti-immigrant rhetoric, but I felt like we were making advances in building a multiracial, multi-generational, multi-gendered front. Now we have slipped back quite a bit. And many labor leaders are afraid. I went to the People’s March in D.C. [on January 18], and I thought I was going to see all my labor friends, but nobody was there. We’re headed toward a fascist or conservative period of time, and I’m hoping that we can at least stop the fascist part.

When I meet Republican members—and all my family are Republican—I keep listening and I keep talking and I keep having conversations. And people do sometimes say: “You know what? You changed my mind.” Or, “I hear what you’re saying.” Or, “You treated me with respect, even though I completely disagree with you and you disagree with me.” I think it requires constant listening to see if there’s something that can bind us together. I try to appeal to people’s humanity. I think it’s the only way forward.

Iber: What do you make of the Republican Party’s attempt to brand itself as a more working-class party?

Guenther: I grew up in very rural eastern Oregon. I didn’t have access to a television, so I didn’t see the news very much, but there was radio. And Rush Limbaugh was on it, poisoning everybody’s minds. I remember thinking, “My community is getting rotted out by this.” The floor was falling out on logging, but they spun it and blamed it on [efforts to protect] the spotted owl, which was so bizarre to me.

I am so sick of billionaires having two parties and workers having none. People say Biden was the most pro-labor president. Oh, really? He’s the most pro-labor president, who chose to not step down so that we could have a real primary—and now Trump is the president? No thank you. I know there are good Democrats. And I think there are some good Republicans. But overall, both parties are too owned by money to be good advocates for working people.

In Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond, you can see the rates of poverty don’t change whether the president is a Republican or a Democrat. They just hold steady. And if there’s poverty, that pulls down workers’ wages. There are dips, like during COVID-19, but the parties are not solving problems that workers care about. So I am not satisfied with either party.

Lewis: Do you have advice for other people in the labor movement about how to conquer some of the information that’s coming from the Rush Limbaugh types?

Guenther: No matter how white a workforce is, there are people who are affected or who are married to somebody who is affected. Stories change hearts. One-on-one conversations change minds. You’re not going to do a big town hall and get screamed at; that’s not going to help you. Go and find your people who are empathetic to the position and center them. Center their stories, and keep building out. You can start with five people who will come with you to meetings and who will push back and say, “Hey, well, that’s not how I experienced that,” or, “My grandfather and my grandmother immigrated here.” Every single person, whether they’re white or a person of color, has a story about how their family immigrated here, and a lot of it was through war and starvation. Our histories are actually quite similar.

We have a stagnant labor leadership who are afraid to talk to their own members, who got their unions from their daddies, who are getting their pension and their healthcare. They’re not movement builders. We need to clean up the labor movement, just as much as we need to clean up our political parties. We’re trying to reform the UFCW. If you’ve been in office for more than ten years and you can’t figure out how to talk to your members, it’s time to step aside. Let somebody else lead.

Lewis: How is the reform effort going?

Guenther: UFCW really doesn’t want to be the union that advocates for low-wage workers and takes on corporate America, but someday that will change. It’s either going to change soon or it’s going to change later, but it’s going to change. Because low-wage workers, grocery store workers, healthcare workers, frontline workers—they know that they kept this country going during the pandemic, and they are coming for what they deserve. They are going to expect more from their unions.

Faye Guenther is president of UFCW Local 3000.

Patrick Iber and Natasha Lewis are co-editors of Dissent.

 

The Oilworkers’ Plan

By Progressive International

May 11, 2025

Source: Progressive International

“Energy is the principal geopolitical dispute of our time.” So began the Progressive International’s workshop this weekend in Bogotá, convened by the Unión Sindical Obrera de la Industria del Petróleo (Petroleum Industry Workers’ Union, USO) to chart a course to “Colombia’s Energy Sovereignty.”

The opening speech was delivered by Andrés Camacho, until recently the country’s Minister for Energy and Mining, who offered a world tour of the geopolitics of energy — from oil traffic through the Black Sea to the LNG terminals in Rotterdam, from power blackouts in Gaza to the extraction of critical minerals in the Congo.

These resource flows reveal energy not merely as a commodity — but as a strategic instrument frequently weaponized in the asymmetrical struggles between nations, with control over production, distribution, and consumption determining which countries prosper and which ones remain trapped in poverty.

Few countries understand the stakes of that struggle like Colombia: rich in oil reserves, precious biodiversity, and worker militancy to secure the country’s independence after centuries of colonial intervention. In 1948, the USO led the historic “huelga patriótica” against the Tropical Oil Company, mobilizing tens of thousands under the rallying cry: “The oil belongs to Colombians and is for Colombians.” This powerful movement eventually birthed Ecopetrol, the state oil company that has since been called Colombia’s “crown jewel” – a rare example of successful resource nationalization in Latin America that has survived decades of structural adjustments and their attendant pressures of privatization.

A century after USO’s formation, though, Ecopetrol faces existential threats from multiple directions that endanger both workers’ livelihoods and national sovereignty. Beyond relentless efforts to strip the company of its assets and income, the international political economy of fossil extraction — the model on which Ecopetrol formed and flourished — is today undergoing a rapid transformation. With fossil fuels representing more than 50% of Colombia’s export revenue and one-third of its foreign income, the nation stands at a critical crossroads where climate imperatives collide with economic dependency – a contradiction facing many global South nations rich in fossil resources.

USO has shown remarkable foresight in recognizing these challenges, positioning itself not as a defender of the status quo but as a vanguard for transformation. As early as 2020, the union’s national assembly adopted resolutions endorsing a just transition and articulating the need for “efficient goals and deadlines for abandoning fossil fuels and adopting new technologies.” Their early rejection of fracking and commitment to energy transition planning has established them as one of the world’s most advanced fossil fuel unions – proving that workers themselves, not corporate executives or technocrats, can be the most far-sighted actors in energy politics.

These visionary workers now form a critical pillar of President Gustavo Petro’s government of change, which has prioritized transforming Colombia into “a world power of life” through ecological transition. In his address to the United Nations General Assembly, Petro argued passionately that humanity faces “a crisis of life” as climate catastrophe accelerates, requiring not merely technical adjustments but systemic transformation. The alignment between organized labor and a progressive government creates a historic opportunity to reimagine energy systems – not as extractive operations that deplete resources and exploit workers but as public utilities serving collective needs within planetary boundaries.

During his own tenure as Minister, Andrés Camacho led pioneering innovations such as the “comunidades eléctricas”, which sought to democratize energy production and distribution in previously marginalized regions. His initiatives connected renewable energy development with community empowerment, particularly in areas historically neglected by centralized infrastructure planning. Yet despite these important advances, Colombia requires a more comprehensive transformation of its energy matrix – one that must be meticulously planned and worker-led to succeed in both economic and ecological terms.

That is why the Progressive International convened in Bogotá with USO this weekend, bringing together an international delegation of trade unionists, energy policy experts, and climate researchers to collaborate on an actionable transition blueprint. Together, we are developing the Oilworkers’ Plan for Popular Energy Sovereignty and Colombia’s Just Transition — written by and for the union and its workers. This plan charts a course for an emboldened Ecopetrol in its transition from a petroleum company to an integrated energy company, the defense of a ‘public pathway’ for the energy transition, and calls for the massive expansion of union jobs and green industrialization in Colombia.

“The Oilworkers’ Plan reflects the belief that organized workers play a decisive role in elevating the class struggle inherent in the climate crisis,” the draft plan reads. “The public pathway to a just transition for Colombia is inconceivable without a strong class analysis that exposes and resists the capitalist imperatives fueling both ecological destruction and labor exploitation. Workers, through their unions, have the power to lead this transition—fusing ecological goals with territorial justice and demands for fair wages, secure jobs, and the collective good. Green industrial development is not merely an environmental imperative; it is a means to challenge decades of neoliberalism’s consequences in Colombia and build a future in which workers and communities across the country hold power over how energy and resources are produced, shared, safeguarded, and used.”

This initiative arrives at a decisive moment in global climate politics as the window for effective action rapidly narrows while fossil capital continues its reckless expansion. Despite overwhelming evidence of climate emergency, upstream oil and gas investments reached $528 billion in 2023, an 11% year-on-year increase that threatens to lock in catastrophic emissions for decades. The democratic control of energy systems has therefore become essential for both planetary survival and social justice – requiring organized workers to lead the conversion of fossil infrastructure as rapidly as possible.

The fruits of our Bogotá workshop thus extend far beyond Colombia’s borders. As workers across the global South confront similar challenges of economic dependency, climate imperatives, and corporate power, USO’s leadership provides a critical model of how labor can seize the initiative in energy transition planning. Working with member organizations like Brazil’s Federação Única dos Petroleiros (FUP) and through processes like South Africa’s G20 Presidency, the Progressive seeks to share the lessons of USO’s leadership to forge solidarities among energy workers worldwide – turning the principal geopolitical dispute of our time into the principal opportunity to secure shared and sustainable prosperity.

Peace for Minerals: DRC Activists Refuse American Blackmail

Congolese civil society rejects U.S.-brokered peace with Rwanda: ‘any agreement that strips the nation of its natural wealth would constitute the crime of pillage.’

By Marinella Correggia

May 11, 2025

Source: Il Manifesto Global

The negotiation process toward a peace deal between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda – mediated by the United States – is still shrouded in secrecy. 

On Friday, May 2, exactly one week after Kinshasa and Kigali had signed a “declaration of principles” in Washington, each capital was supposed to deliver the elements of a draft framework built around six pillars: territorial sovereignty, the fight against armed groups, the mineral trade, the return of displaced people and refugees, regional cooperation and the role of international forces.

The draft, however, is yet to materialize. The package under discussion – with a final peace treaty projected for June – also contains two bilateral economic deals with the U.S. One would channel multi-billion-dollar American investments into Congolese mines and related infrastructure. The other would reward Rwanda – long the sponsor of the AFC/M23 militia now lording it over eastern Congo – with development of its facilities to process, refine, and market minerals extracted in the DRC, legally funnelled through Rwanda and then exported to the United States. In short, Washington is giving its blessing to Kigali’s well-known triangulation approach.

However, Congolese civil society is refusing to stay silent. In a series of open letters addressed to international actors, it warns that, after 30 years of war, it will not accept that the crimes committed against the population should be forgotten, nor agree to the fire-sale of the DRC’s national resources as the price of a Kinshasa-Kigali accord.

Dozens of activists, scholars, jurists, researchers and doctors – among them Nobel Peace laureate Denis Mukwege – have written to President Félix Tshisekedi: “Ten million of our compatriots survive today in the grip of armed violence and the terror of famine under the yoke of the occupying Rwandan army and its allies, the AFC/M23,” a tragedy “for which neighbouring states’ expansionist ambitions and Congo’s own failures of governance bear joint responsibility.”

Hence their plea that the head of state “must not sell off the country’s natural resources to the Kigali regime within the framework of regional economic integration promoted under the aegis of its U.S. patron.” They stress that “any agreement that strips the nation of its natural wealth would constitute the crime of pillage.” While they agree that “peace is the only perspective”, underground riches and natural resources can contribute to that goal only in a context of fairness. Under the Congolese Constitution, sovereignty rests with the people: before signing anything, Tshisekedi must consult the country’s “living forces,” parliament and civil society.

For its part, the South Kivu Civil Society Coordination Office has also written to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk demanding “truth and justice” as the path to peace and reconciliation under the rule of law. Since the AFC/M23 seized Bukavu and other areas “under the powerless gaze of the Congolese government,” murders, kidnappings, rapes and thefts have multiplied, all with impunity. Jobs have vanished, along with even the bare minimum of security. Backed by the Italian network Insieme per la Pace in Congo, the activists ask Türk to “send investigators from other countries to Bukavu to work with us, the protagonists of civil society” to tamp down abuses, and to set in motion a path toward an international criminal tribunal for the DRC, along with specialized mixed chambers within Congolese courts.

A coalition of NGOs from eastern Congo has also written to Donald Trump: “The Congolese people will be legitimately entitled to oppose – by every lawful and factual means – any mineral deal that fails to involve them directly and through their representatives in parliament and civil society.”

Meanwhile, business-first diplomacy continues in Qatar, where Kinshasa is negotiating both with the M23 and with Kigali. So much for the mantra of “African solutions to African problems.”

Swedish Dockworkers’ Union leader Sacked For Gaza Solidarity Action Asks “Whose ‘National Security’ Is Swedish Law Really Protecting”?

By Arthur Neslen

May 11, 2025

Source: Equal Times

Erik Helgeson, vice-chair of the Swedish Dockworkers’ Union, during a Labour Day gathering in Gothenburg (Sweden), May 1, 2025. (Photo: Daniel Bernman)

Security is a funny elixir. The more of it that you have, the less there is for someone else… or that’s the conventional wisdom anyway. Erik Helgeson’s experience, however, proves otherwise.

Erik, 42, is the vice-chair of the Swedish Dockworkers’ Union and he cared deeply for the security of his members – and also for the safety of Gazan civilians, some of whom have been killed by weapons which may have passed through the port of Gothenburg, where he has worked for 20 years.

Erik cared so much in fact that in February of this year, he led a symbolic six-day blockade of 20 Swedish ports against military cargos destined for Israel. His employer – DFDS – responded by sacking him, claiming that he had broken Sweden’s Security Protection Act.

The law, passed in 2018, is meant to protect “security-sensitive activities against espionage, sabotage [and] terrorist offences,” but, Erik says, its use against union activists raises the question of whose security the company – and the law – are really protecting?

“Some employers seem to see this law as a tool not only to protect the ports and other companies from criminal infiltration, but to give them carte blanche to do whatever they want, to people who they want to get rid of for other reasons,” he tells Equal Times. “I’m worried that a lot of other employers are looking at this – seeing that the case against me is so thin – and drawing up their own plans to take out union leaders.”

Erik’s union had a tradition of international solidarity going back to the Vietnam War and 1973 Chilean coup, in which a generation of trade union activists were murdered.

In 2010, he helped to load cargo onto the ill-fated freedom flotilla which tried to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. Israeli soldiers boarded the humanitarian mission and killed nine of the activists on board. According to evidence presented to the International Court of Justice some “were shot multiple times, in the face while trying to cover their heads, or from behind, or after they surrendered and pleaded with the Israeli Defence Forces to stop firing at civilians”.

Outraged, Erik tried to sail on the next flotilla but the lead vessel was sabotaged in Greece. Finally, he visited the Strip in November 2011.

“It was a calm period, but they bombed the police station while I was there,” he says. “There was still a low-level brutality about everything. People were struggling in their own way – some union activists were also struggling with the Hamas authorities – but the main issue was the blockade of course, the record unemployment levels, the isolation, the blatant poverty in refugee camps – and also young children drinking unfit water and suffering diseases. It really made a mark on me.”

Israeli leaders at that time justified the blockade of Gaza as a national security issue. But the denial of any common security to Gazans would ultimately spur an attack that eviscerated Israel’s own sense of security.

Back in Sweden, Erik threw himself into union activity at the port, leading an industrial dispute with Maersk between 2015 and 2017 which turned into a six-week lock out, and then a national dispute. “We responded with the threat of an indefinite strike and eventually, the employers caved,” Erik remembers. Eventually, the union won a national collective bargaining agreement (CBA).

This, he believes, is the real reason why DFDS wanted him out of the docks and, also, why they have been unable to provide details to the union, journalists or the legal authorities of how national security had been threatened by the dockworkers’ action.

When asked for specifics of how the union had threatened security, “management was very vague,” Erik says. “Their line of argument was to say: ‘We’ve had all these calls from different actors’ – they implied the military had been in contact with them – but they wouldn’t provide any specifics, details or evidence. Our view, then and now, is that this was a smokescreen.”

The employers claim against Erik – that he was responsible for dockworkers examining cargo trailers and containers – are disputed by Erik and the union, on the grounds that the dockers had neither the capacity nor intent to do so. The action was largely a symbolic bid to kickstart debate about Israel’s conduct in Gaza, they say.

The police authority and Sweden’s Chancellor of Justice rejected the company’s request to investigate Erik’s behaviour, as they found no suspicion of criminal activity. But that did not stop the menacing messages addressed to Helgeson, which had begun arriving after DFDS put out a press release saying he had been sacked for reasons of national security.

“We had threats – including one death threat – and then harassment from anonymous people with apparently far right views, mainly on voicemail,” Erik says. “It scared the hell out of me because there might be ‘lone wolf’ types in these groupings on a crusade for national security. I was really scared that I would be tarred and feathered in the press and that that might attract the worst lunatics out there, which would be a threat to my family and kids.”

A ‘moral obligation’ to strike

Death threats against peace advocates have been widespread since October 7 2023, and the UN’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese has also been a victim. While she was not familiar with the details of Erik’s case, she told Equal Times that workers’ solidarity protests such as recent dockers actions in Morocco were sorely needed.

“In a time of crisis, when crimes against humanity are being committed, it is absolutely necessary for workers to go on strike,” she said. “This is a moral obligation on all of us. It is also our system that is complicit in what Israel is doing.”

“History will judge us and those who are silent today – it is also on them. We need to use our power and our capacity to provoke a change. If we are united, we are much more powerful than the establishment itself.”

She added that if she were a dockworker “contributing to the slaughter of children, mothers and grandparents in Gaza… my mental health would have been much more damaged than it is now, as a chronicler of genocide.”

The wealth of information on how participating in oppression degrades the quality of life for oppressor and victim alike is an under-represented aspect of the security issue.

In 1974, British workers threatened by redundancy in an arms factory run by Lucas Aerospace tacitly acknowledged this when they set up an unofficial trade union ‘Combine’ to draft alternative plans for socially useful production.

Their idea is currently enjoying a renaissance among public intellectuals in the UK such as Grace Blakeley.

More broadly, the concept that there can be no long-term security for only one side in a dispute was reinforced at a conference organised by the International Peace Bureau (IPB), the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and the Olof Palme International Centre in April titled Common Security Conference 2025: Redefining Security for the 21st Century. As Omar Faruk Osman, the general secretary of the Federation of Somali Trade Unions (FESTU) said speaking at the conference: “No country, community or individual can be truly safe unless we all are.”

“When workers are hungry and unemployed and excluded from decision-making, they’re vulnerable to being used in conflicts,” he added. “Promoting decent work is promoting peace.”

The ‘presence of justice’

Far from being a zero-sum game, security within the IPB’s worldview must be enjoyed commonly by all parties to a dispute. Otherwise, the imbalance will sooner or later swing the protagonists back into conflict, with destructive impacts for all.

“The peace we seek is not just an absence of guns but the presence of justice,” Osman said. ‘Common security’ speaks our language and reflects our aspirations.”

In its absence, unilateral security manoeuvres are always liable to boomerang back against their initiators, as Erik’s case shows all too well. As we go to press, Sweden’s dockworkers are preparing for a potential strike over a contractual issue that may prevent Erik from getting his job back.

Sweden’s unique labour laws only allow workers to strike to obtain a collective bargaining agreement (CBA), which then settles subsequent disputes without recourse to industrial action. But the Swedish dockers’ national CBA ran out at the end of April and industrial action is now very much on the agenda.

Under Swedish labour law, even if Erik wins his case for unfair dismissal in a labour court, his employer can ‘buy out’ his contract with a monthly stipend for each year worked, while maintaining his dismissal. The sum involved would be “peanuts” to a multinational like DFDS, according to Erik.

However, Martin Berg, the chair of the Swedish Dockworkers’ Union tells Equal Times that in discussions over the next CBA: “One of our primary demands will be a regulation to protect our union’s trustees – if they win in the labour court – so they can’t be subjected to cheap buy outs. Everyone who does work for the union should be protected so that if an employer chooses to buy you out, they also have to pay the union a hefty fine related to company turnover in the previous year. If we go into an industrial conflict for our CBA, we will strike for it and then under Swedish law, every union is entitled to support us with sympathy actions. We will also request solidarity action from dockworkers in other countries.”

As it turns out the less security that Sweden’s dockworkers have, the less security their employers will enjoy too. Any Swedish boss who thought that sacking their union activists would solidify their profit expectations may be about to get a rude wake up call.

Norway’s Largest Trade Union Votes for Boycott of Israel

By Palestine Chronicle Staff

May 10, 2025

Source: Palestine Chronicle

The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions, the country’s largest labor federation, has voted in favor of a comprehensive boycott of Israel. (Design: Palestine Chronicle)

The decision was passed with an overwhelming 88 percent majority during the labor federation’s national congress.

The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO), the country’s largest labor federation, has voted in favor of a comprehensive boycott of Israel, including a ban on trade and investment with Israeli companies.

The decision was passed with an overwhelming 88 percent majority during LO’s national congress, held in the Norwegian capital, Oslo, from May 8 to 9, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.

The Palestine Committee of Norway also announced the move on its Instagram page, saying the LO “will introduce an economic boycott of Israel, with 240 votes for economic boycott, and 69 votes against.”

It said the resolution “means that LO now requires that the State Pension Fund abroad, Norwegian companies and financial institutions withdraw from companies that contribute to the Israeli occupation.”

“The resolution shows strong support among LO’s one million members to introduce boycott, divestment and sanctions,” it added.

Hamas Welcomes Decision

Palestinian resistance factions, including Hamas, welcomed the move by labor federation.

In a statement, Hamas said it “highly values the decision by the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions to boycott the zionist occupation and ban trade and investment with its companies.”

The movement said it considers the move “a courageous step that aligns with truth and justice and a victory for the rights of the Palestinian people.”

“Hamas calls on labor and trade unions worldwide to emulate this ethical stance and isolate the fascist entity and expose its crimes against humanity,” the statement added.

The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) as well as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) also welcomed the decision and urged labor unions to escalate the boycott.

The DFLP called for “pension funds, companies, and financial institutions to refrain from investing in firms complicit in occupation,” while the PFLP said the move “confirms the zionist entity’s increasing international isolation after its genocidal crimes in Gaza and the West Bank.”

$1.8 Trillion Wealth Fund

The trade union is aligned with the country’s governing Labor Party, Reuters reported, and has influence beyond traditional workers’ rights issues.

In an earlier interview with the news agency, Steinar Krogstad, deputy leader at LO, said the union wants Norway’s $1.8 trillion wealth fund “to pull out of the companies that have activities in the occupied Palestinian territories.”

Krogstad explained that LO’s general policy was that the fund, the world’s largest, should not invest in companies that breach international law.

“This question is more on the agenda now … because of Israel’s policy, attacks and war in Gaza and in the West Bank,” Krogstad reportedly said.

Appeal to Government

Reuters reported that LO, along with 47 other civil society organizations, urged Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg in a letter in April to pressure the central bank, which oversees the fund, to divest.

According to Reuters, the fund “held stocks worth 22 billion crowns ($2.12 billion) across 65 companies listed on the Tel Aviv stock exchange as of the end of 2024, according to fund data. They represent 0.1 percent of the fund’s overall investments.”

Palestinian Statehood

In May last year, Norway announced its official recognition of the state of Palestine.

Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said in a statement that “Norway recognized the state of Palestine, underlining that Palestinians have a fundamental, independent right to self-determination, and that both Israelis and Palestinians have the right to live in peace and security in their respective states.”

He added that there was “increased support today in Europe for a Palestinian state. Norway’s recognized Palestine at a time when other European countries — Spain and Ireland — have done the same.”