DWRC asks to end the blockade of the Gaza Strip

Ramallah, February 20, 2011

On the occasion of the World Day of Social Justice, the Democracy and Workers’ Rights Center in Palestine salutes the courage and determination of its sisters and brothers, who across the Arab region have launched their uprisings for their political and social rights and freedoms, in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, Bahrain, Algeria, Libya, and now Morocco. All around us, people have taken to the streets to re-conquer their political space, in an unprecedented grassroots’ movement for liberty and change. This movement bears the hopes of millions of working men and women for political, economic and social reforms that will bring responses to the tremendous challenges and injustices that are plaguing our region: high unemployment especially among the youth and women, low wages, soaring increase of living costs that every day is forcing more families into poverty, corruption and nepotism enabling appropriation of the wealth by a ruling minority, inadequate social protection systems that leave many without basic coverage. As dictatorial regimes have fallen in Tunisia and Egypt, and the call for reforms is growing stronger in other countries, the labor movement is witnessing its own revolution. Suppressed, forced underground or undermined by the former regimes, independent and democratic unions and elected workers’ representatives are now able to openly lead the struggle for social justice. The multiplication of strikes, sit-ins, and demonstrations motivated by social demands show the measure of the ground that needs to be covered to achieve decent work.      

Many might ask: What about Palestine? What about the workers of Palestine? The working men and women of Palestine have been engaged in the struggle for social justice for many years. They have been organizing in democratic and independent unions, creating notably the Independent Labor Committees Union in the Gaza Strip in 2004 and the Federation of Independent Union-Palestine in 2007 to give voice to the demands of the working class, encompassing both the employed and the unemployed. While the entire region is in turmoil, the movement of democratic organizing continues to progress in the Palestinian territories, illustrated yearly by dozens of union conferences to elect leaderships, strikes, days of action and collective bargaining, and establishment of new unions in workplaces and in the informal economy. Together, these unions are fighting for their economic and social rights, for access to services, pension, minimum wage, and respect of fundamental rights at work, and this within the restricted space that is available to them due to the continuation of the greatest injustice of all: the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and its policies of appropriation of land and water, colonization, and control over the movement of people and goods.

While in Palestine we rejoice over the victories of our brothers and sisters in the Arab region and stand in solidarity with their struggles for freedom and decent work, we also reaffirm our need for real perspectives for our future: we need an end of the blockade of the Gaza Strip so that the men and women in Gaza will be able to earn a living in dignity instead on relying on humanitarian assistance and survival strategies. We need an end of the Israeli occupation and the establishment of a viable sovereign Palestinian State on all the lands occupied by Israel in 1967, including East Jerusalem, so that our economy will be free to develop and grow, and create decent jobs. More than ever, we need support to achieve our inalienable rights to self-determination, to dispose of our natural wealth and resources, so that we can freely pursue our economic, social and cultural development and build a democratic Palestine, where our fundamental rights and freedoms will be respected and where we can develop a social protection system that will reduce inequalities and enable all to access to decent life.