A Report presented by PFLP Delegation to the International Seminar 1-4
May 1997 Brussels.
Dr. Adel Samara
Dear comrades,
It is a great honour for us to present to the International Seminnar this report on the working class of the part of our people in the West Bank and Gaza. It is for you to judge and evaluate the situation of the working class and the function of all leftist parties including our party.
One can describe the situation of the Palestinian working class in the era 1967-1993 as
one infected by double dependencies. It was, and still is, a class in itself, not for
itself, still dependent on its two main class and national enemies. On the national level,
the working class in the West Bank and Gaza is still dominated by the Palestinian
petty-bourgeoisie political leadership. On the class level it is still divided and
exploited by three main forces, [which are, despite ostensible enmity, each other's
allies]: local Palestinian capitalism, Israeli capitalism and Arab Oil capitalism.
It is understandable, although not justified or acceptable, that a working class in a
peripheral capitalist colonized society is exploited to the maximum, but it is
unacceptable that the working class political/national struggle should be continuously
subjected to and exploited by the bourgeoisie.
Since the beginning of the Israeli occupation of 1967, the Palestinian working class was
subject to repression by the occupation authorities via the arrest of its leading cadres,
closing the offices of its organizations and deporting its leaders. The Israeli capitalist
regime feared that a Palestinian working class leadership would radicalize the national
struggle and never compromise with Zionism. That is why, the interest of the occupation
was - and is - to keep the struggle under the leadership of the bourgeoisie and petty
bourgeoisie. However, it should be noted, the worries about the potential radicalization
of the national struggle by the Left leadership were largely exaggerated: the Palestinian
Left, although it adopted Marxism-Leninism on the declarative level, never reached the
level of actually representing the working-class. Unfortunately, the right-wing Fatah
organization is stronger inside the working class than the Left (similar situations
prevail in many parts of the world). During 1967-1993 period, the working class
political/national struggle was led by the PLO organizations and factions, none of which
represented the working-class, although this class was always the first to declare its
support of the PLO's policies and positions. But this same class never got the chance, nor
did it even try, to radicalize these positions. In a sense, the political support extended
to the
right-wing leadership, which gave little in return, was the equivalent of capitalist
exploitation of cheap labor.
In the entire 1967-1993 period, what the Palestinian leadership demanded from the working
class was unquestioning support of the PLO, which always claimed to be 'the mother of all
Palestinians.' The Madrid-Oslo imperialist peace settlement made it clear that this
'mother of all,' even if ever was anything like that, had became the 'mother of one class'
- the bourgeoisie. The tragedy of the working class still is that very few of its
activists realized this fact. Most of the Palestinian Left still lacks the courage to
denounce the compromise and consequent betrayal of the class which this Left pretends to
represent.
The Palestinian trade unions failed to struggle effectively for working class demands.
Workers have made almost no gains under the Israeli occupation, and later the PA, over
what they had won under the Jordanian regime, before 1967. Until today, the workers never
gained an agreement for minimum wage standards within the Palestinian economy. This has
left them completely at the mercy of the capitalists. That is why the wages in the
Ramallah area, which is the most well-off area under the PA, is only $200-250 monthly!
It is important to emphasize is that after Madrid- Oslo agreements, and after the creation
of the PA, the trade unions continued to be a tool of reactionary political parties, and
still failed to struggle for workers' economic rights. In addition to that, working
conditions deteriorated greatly. Because of the continuous closure which the Israeli
occupation imposed on the PA areas, unemployment jumped to more than 60%, which obliged
workers to accept even a lower wages. By imposing the closure, the Israeli capitalist
regime again supported the Palestinian peripheral comprador capitalism against the working
class. It makes no difference whether we call this a direct or indirect alliance. In fact,
the working class is under attack from the donor countries, the World Bank and IMF, the
Palestinian and Israeli bourgeoises. The PA has adopted re-adjustment policies, market
mechanisms, and absolute support for the private sector, but it has failed to designed a
development program to create and guarantee secured jobs. The employment opportunities
which the World Bank created -like street cleaning - were limited and temporary, and
provided only a few jobs. The donor countries know very well that the PA authorities are
spending the donations and loans as salaries for its 45,000 police members and 35,000
civil employees.
Trade Unions Internal Division
Palestinians trade unions remained divided throughout the occupation period, to the
extent that their number by the end of 1980s reached 185, although the number of members
in all these trade unions was 7,000 only. Women members are nearly 30% of the total, but
their share in the leading ranks never exceeded 15% only (1). The agreement to unify the
trade union movement, which the main trade union blocks (affiliated to Fatah, PFLP, and
the PPP, although not, at first, those affiliated with the DFLP) concluded in 1990, failed
to produce real unity. Each political party maintained its own trade union. The only
important result was the creation of the Trade Union Action Office as a joint office to
follow-up workers' issues. But even in this the members of this office were never elected
on a democratic basis, but were nominated by their own political parties.
The same goes for the conference which held in Amman, Jordan in 1994. It was ostensibly an
attempt by the Palestinian trade unions inside the occupied territories and in the
diaspora to unify the trade union movement. What happened there was merely the
distribution of seats, on a quota basis, between the political parties in the executive
committee of the trade union. Moreover, the conference was supposed to lead up to general
elections, but these never took place. This emphasizes the political parties domination
over the working class. That same year, one good measure was implemented, the division of
the trade unions into 12 unions, according to profession. But, the positions in these 12
trade unions were again divided, on a quota basis, according political party-affiliation.
In February, 1996, all the trade unions decided to held a conference inside the West Bank
to draft a constitution for the trade unions. But the general-secretary of the Palestinian
trade union in the diaspora sabotaged it, falsely claiming that the majority in the
conference was affiliated with the Palestinian opposition. This bunch of bureaucrats
always prefer the interests of the ruling party have indeed become enemies of the
Palestinian working class.
Trade Unions under the PA
As it mentioned earlier, trade unions under the PA are still in the same degenerated
condition as they were under the direct occupation. The current structure of the
Palestinian trade unions is as follows:
- There is the Palestinian trade union in the diaspora. Its general-secretary, who lives
inside the PA area, is a member of Fatah, which is the ruling party in the PA, in which he
is a high-ranking official.
- There is the Palestinian trade union for the workers in the West Bank and Gaza. Its
general-secretary is from Fatah, but he does not have a job in the regime.
- Each of the two general-secretaries is trying to replace the other.
-There are trade unions which belong to Fatah, the PFLP, Hamas, PPP and DFLP. Each one of
them operates more for the interests of its political party than for the interests and
demands of the workers. The professional unions do not represent the workers either. There
are two Palestinian journalists' unions, one for the PA areas and the other for
Palestinians in the Diaspora. Each has a general-secretary, each from Fatah. The same is
the case for the writers' union and the teachers' union.
The sharp criticism against the General-Secretary of the Trade Unions in the West Bank and
Gaza clearly reflects the situation: he alone is leading and deciding political and
financial matters, with no accountant or auditor for the trade union accounts and budgets.
He never presented the executive committee with any budget or financial report about the
trade union resources. Instead, he is presented a budget to Norway, one of the big donors
to the trade union.
An identity crisis on the national and class levels.
The working class is disintegrating more intensively under the PA than are other class
and social sectors. The are three reasons for this:
- its subjugation to left-wing political organizations which are suffering a deep
theoretical and ideological crisis. The various leftist organizations always pretended to
represent the working class, without ever being what they claimed. After the collapse of
the Soviet Union, these organizations and parties stopped identifying themselves as
Marxists, instead referring to themselves as the 'democratic forces;' they divested
themselves completely of even the thin layer of ideological and class contents which they
had previously had.
- its subjugation to right-wing political organizations which are inherently opposed to
the working class, in accordance with their ideologies and the class origins of their
leadership.
- the subjugation of the working class to geographic fragmentation: one third of the
working class of the West Bank and Gaza are working in diaspora, especially in the Arab
oil countries; third used to work in Israel; and one third in the West Bank and Gaza (2).
The working class dependency on the political organizations is shown by two examples:
first, the continuous use of the working class to support the PLO's affirmation that it is
the sole representative to the Palestinian people. But the working-class' consistent
support for this position never led to any improvement in working class representation in
the PLO or in the Palestinian National Council (PNC). Second, the trade unions'
relationship to the Israeli workers federation, the Histadrut: following Madrid-Oslo, the
Palestinian trade union signed two agreements with the Histadrut, one in February, 1995
and one in February, 1997 (3).The agreements with the Israeli Histadrut should have
covered both class (political/national) and technical dimensions. On the class national
dimension there are two remarks: first, the signing of the two agreements between the
Israeli and Palestinian trade unions was another indication of Palestinian working class
dependency on the Palestinian bourgeois political leadership. Agreements between the
Palestinian and Israeli trade union federations followed the signing of Oslo accords. In
effect, leadership of the Palestinian trade union merely copied the PLO leadership and did
what the latter had done.
Thus, the trade unions, just like the bourgeoisie, made 'normalized' its relations with an
enemy which still occupies its country and prohibits more than four million Palestinian
refugees from returning to their homeland. The majority of these four million are from the
working class.
Second, the Palestinian trade unions leadership lacks the consciousness to elaborate a
class position towards the Histadrut, whose companies are building settlements in the West
Bank and Gaza. The Israeli working class is a colonial one. Accordingly, the normalization
of the relationship with the Histadrut is normalization with the settler, colonial.
capitalist, Zionist regime.
As a working class, it must reject any normalization with the Histadrut, either in the
form of meetings or agreements. Although there are those who claim that the agreements
were aimed at regaining and defending the rights of the Palestinian workers inside Israel,
this could and should have been done through the International Labor Organization (ILO).
However, even the agreement that was signed has been violated by the Histadrut: the
Israelis have not paid the entire sum to which they agreed, namely, to return the 1% which
is deducted from wages of the Palestinian workers in Israel, the total amount of which is
estimated at 8 million NIS. Histadrut paid 50% of it only. The agreement stated that 25%
of this 1% should be kept by Histadrut because of services rendered for signing work
contracts between Palestinian workers and Israeli capitalists.
Moreover, the agreement never asked the Israeli side to return other deductions which were
taken from the Palestinian workers during thirty years, such as insurance and health
deductions, not to speak of surplus value.
The Histadrut succeeded in applying these items to Palestinian workers in Israel who are
living in the areas which under the control of the PA, i.e. in cities, not in rural areas.
This is in itself a division of the working class according to the division of the
Palestinian people in the '67 occupied territories made by Oslo, which divided the
Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza to three areas: a, b and c.
The PA and the Trade Unions
The subjugation of the working class to the right-wing and the capitalist class goes
back to the old working class dependency to the right-wing leadership of the PLO. The PA
still maintains the same old mentality of attempting to dominate all social classes,
especially the working class. One of the aspects of control is to deal with all competitor
opportunist leaders of trade unions by giving them some of them top jobs in its
institutions. This bribe to trade union leaders subjected them to capital, and blocked the
class dimension of working class organizations.
The working class needs to struggle for three main aims at once. It must continue its
struggle against the settler colonial Zionist regime, liberate itself from its dependency
on the capitalist regime of the PA, and progress towards being the leadership of the
entire society. a necessary condition of the realization of these aims is a radical change
in the analysis, perspective and forms of struggle of the working class in general and of
Palestinian Marxist-Leninists in particular. However, this cannot happen unless the
working class liberates itself from its bureaucratic leadership, the domination of the
right-wing political parties, and adopts in the future a more radical left organization.
Notes
1 See Al-Ayiam daily 2-11-1996
2 The number of Palestinian workers in Israel, at its height, reached some times 165,000 persons, i.e. nearly 40% of the West Bank and Gaza labor force.
3 The two agreements between the Federation of Palestinian Trade Unions and the
Histadrut have been published by the Federation of Palestinian Trade Unions. See also
Hasan Bargouthi, Al-Quds daily, in which Bargouthi discusses the legal and technical
aspects which the Palestinians who signed the agreement should consider, to prevent the
agreement from favoring the Israeli side, as was the case with the Oslo Accords.