Workers Confront Apartheid: Comparing Canadian Labor Solidarity Campaigns against South African and Israeli Apartheid. Issue 2 (June 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Nastovski, Katherine
• Is Part Of: Working USA. Volume 17:Issue 2(2014)
• Page Start: 211
• Page End: 237
• Publication Date: 2014-06
• Subjects: Labor unions -- Periodicals; Labor -- Periodicals; Working class -- Periodicals; Labor unions -- United States -- Periodicals; Labor -- United States -- Periodicals; Working class -- United States -- Periodicals; 331
• DOI: 10.1111/wusa.12108
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1089-7011

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main"> <title> <x xml:space="preserve">Abstract</x> </title> <p>This article explores the challenges of building international labor solidarity by comparing two campaigns that developed inside the Canadian labor movement. I critically compare and assess the campaign against South African apartheid in the 1980s and the more recent efforts to oppose Israeli apartheid. Both campaigns are examples of grassroots international labor solidarity, where organizers sought to build international solidarity through member mobilization and a focus on the power of workers to engage in solidarity actions. I examine how these union activists organized within their unions, and how their organizational differences and the ideological and political contexts they organized within shaped their successes and limitations. Drawing from the work of Antonio Gramsci, I argue that these campaigns were sites of counter‐hegemonic practice both because of the analysis and critiques they offered but also because of the nature of their organizing.</p> </abstract>