https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7556-9320
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ABSTRACT
This article aims to demonstrate how the working class evolved and was organised in Palestine and Lebanon between 1920 and 1948. Palestine and Lebanon, which share characteristics such as being a part of the Ottoman Empire and being governed by mandates, also share similar experiences in combating sectarianism based on nationality or religion. The establishment of British rule in Palestine and French administration in Lebanon after World War I also influenced the trade union movement in these two countries: Nationalism flourished, trade unions became tools of politics, and the divide and rule policy of the colonial administration made organization difficult. Although these administrations were referred to as ‘mandates’ of the League of Nations, they actually experienced a colonization process and its effects similar to those in Africa. In this study, particularly the concept of colonization will be used, and the activities of trade unions in colonial regions will be examined through two Middle Eastern countries. While the Palestinian trade unions, which struggled against both British colonization and settler colonialism, were effective in preserving Palestinian identity, the Lebanese trade unions, dealing with French colonization as well as sectarianism, also managed to significantly preserve working-class unity.
Acronyms
| AHC | = | Arab Higher Committee |
| AURW | = | Arab Railway Workers Union |
| AWC | = | Arab Workers Congress |
| CPSL | = | Communist Party of Syria and Lebanon |
| CUO | = | Commission for Union Organization (Lebanon) |
| CUU | = | Committee for Union Unity (Lebanon) |
| FATULS | = | Federation of Arab Trade Unions and Labor Societies |
| FUWEL | = | The Federation of Unions of Workers and Employees in Lebanon |
| GUTWL | = | The General Union of Lebanese Tobacco Workers (Lebanon) |
| HISTADRUT | = | The General Organization of Hebrew Workers in the Land of Israel |
| ICFTU | = | International Confederation of Free Trade Unions |
| IFTU | = | International Federation of Trade Unions |
| LCP | = | Lebanese Communist Party |
| LPP | = | Lebanese People’s Party |
| LU | = | The League of Unions (Lebanon) |
| NLL | = | National Liberation League |
| NURPTW | = | National Union of Railway, Postal, and Telegraph Workers |
| PAWS | = | Palestine Arab Workers Society |
| PCP | = | Palestinian Communist Party |
| PLL | = | Palestine Labor League |
| RWA | = | Railway Workers’ Association |
| URPTW | = | Union of Railway, Postal, and Telegraph Workers |
| TUC | = | Trade Union Congress (UK) |
| WFTU | = | World Federation of Trade Unions |
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Karin Hofmeester, Dr. Tuncer Beyribey and Kıvanç Eliaçık for their valuable comments on an earlier version of this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Orientals are Jews from the East who already live in the Middle East, whereas Occidentals are Jews from the West who arrived with the intention of establishing a state here. Because most Oriental Jews are working proletarians who work in low-wage occupations, this situation exemplifies the class divide in Jewish society (“ICATU Review Views on the Racial discrimination in occupied Palestine”, Citation1975, pp. 10–13).
2. Zionists used the term of ‘colonialism’ and took the colonial experiences of Europe, such as Algeria and Rhodesia, as an example. However, when colonialism started to have a negative meaning after World War I, they began calling their own experience a non-colonial, ‘unique experience’ (Lockman, Citation1996, p. 29)
3. The Nesher Cement Factory did not comply with the Hebrew labor rules until 1945. The quarry’s owner, which supplied raw materials to the factory established near Haifa in 1924, was Palestinian and employed Arabs. Pressure to hire Jews instead of Arab workers did not work because it was the only cement factory in Palestine, and Arabs were among its customers (Lockman, Citation1996, p. 87).
4. Bernstein sees this as a form of equalisation strategy that raises the value of cheap labor. The goal is to eliminate competition for cheap labor, and this method is used when exclusion is insufficient. Deborah S. Bernstein, ‘Strategies of Equalization, a Neglected Aspect of the Split Labour Market Theory: Jews and Arabs in the Split Labour Market of Mandatory Palestine’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 21(3), Citation1998, 450–457.
5. Arab workers’ lack of readiness for Western-style legal regulation was cited as the cause. (Smith, The Roots, p. 140).
6. In Mejdal, close to Gaza, with a population of 7–8 thousand people, more than 2,000 workers were employed in the weaving industry (Menachem, ca. Citation1941–1944, p. 1).
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Canan Özcan Eliaçık
Canan Özcan Eliaçık is an assistant professor at Istanbul Arel University. She was a postdoctoral researcher at the IISH with the TÜBİTAK International Post-Doctoral Research Scholarship in 2021–2022. Her doctoral thesis was awarded the Turkish Social Sciences Association Young Social Scientists Award. She is the author of the Barbarın Tarihi, Ezilenin Dini: Hikmet Kıvılcımlı’da Tarih ve Din (İletişim Yayınları, 2021).