A rank-and-file organizing effort by teachers has resulted in a historic vote to respect the “global picket line” called for by Palestinian trade unions. Put forward by union locals across the province, the motion to support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement is a big step toward ending Canadian support for Israel‘s genocide and occupation in Palestine.
Concerned about their pension funds being used to support Israel’s genocide in Gaza, teachers in the 51,000-member B.C. Teachers Federation (BCTF) got 11 BDS resolutions passed by 10 union locals in two years. On March 16 the motion passed at the union’s Annual General Meeting (AGM), making the BCTF the first province-wide K-12 union to pass a BDS motion.
The North Star interviewed Kaeli Wood, one of the teachers that led the push to pass the motion. In May 2024, despite being new to union organizing, Wood was able to get her local in Nanaimo to be the first to democratically pass a BDS resolution within the BCTF.
She and another teacher from Victoria, Auston Neveu, managed to comb through the union’s archives to find meeting minutes from the 1980s and 1990s where similar motions were passed to combat South African apartheid.
After tracking down some of the teachers who had passed those anti-apartheid motions, they learned that success had come once the push had broad support from locals across the province.
Wood and Neveu had contacts with teachers at 27 out of the 76 BCTF locals and built a network of grassroots support through one-on-one organizing conversations. When the AGM rolled around this March 14–17, 10 different locals representing about a third of the teachers in the room had passed their own BDS resolutions.
“I think for a lot of people who didn’t know that much about the issue or who were on the fence, that was probably very impressive and made them feel more confident in the idea,” recalled Wood.
A labour issue
Wood’s perspective, and that of the other organizers that pushed for the recent motion is that BDS is a labour issue. She explains that the BDS movement that began in 2005 was a call from workers and the major trade unions in Palestine to the workers of the world as a global picket line:
“Labour unions always say we don’t cross picket lines… You don’t have to endorse an organization or support them or believe in everything they believe to agree not to cross their picket line.”
Wood says that in early 2023, before the genocide in Gaza ramped-up, the BCTF sent a delegation to Palestine to meet the General Union of Palestinian Teachers (GUPT) where they learned about the conditions teachers and students are facing in the illegally occupied West Bank.
Even getting to school is difficult for Palestinian students and teachers due to the countless checkpoints, walls, settlements and segregated roads. Teaching is almost impossible amidst the constant threats and attacks by settlers and the IDF, and students are traumatized as a result.
Wood told The North Star that BCTF members feel that Palestinian teachers “are our colleagues and our friends.” She affirmed that she doesn’t want her money as a Canadian and member of the BCTF to go toward harming the families of the Palestinian kids that she teaches in her classrooms.
What comes next?
Wood explained that she and her colleagues had stressed to those writing the resolutions at other locals the need for the wording to be as actionable as possible so as not to be a purely “feel good” symbolic gesture.
“So we were very cautious to make sure that there were specific actions… a lot of those were about assessing our spending and our divestment policies and writing new policy, and that is something only the BCTF is going to be able to do.”
She noted that seven locals, including her own, have already begun taking the steps to assess their local budget and spending. She says the rank and file have taken the lead ahead of union leadership in educating other members.
Included in the motion was a mandate for the union to produce new educational materials. Her colleagues who were already leading the education regarding BDS within the union to pass the motion are continuing their work.
“I want to especially shout out our Palestinian colleagues who have spent so many hours working on this and have spent so much physical and intellectual and emotional labour really gently and compassionately and knowledgably educating their colleagues, including myself.”
BCTF members won’t be alone in their effort. A group of retired teachers have been holding weekly actions outside the office of the B.C. Investment Management Corporation (BCI) in Downtown Vancouver pushing for divestment of public pensions from war and environmental destruction.
A spokesperson for the group, called Retired Teachers Divest, told The North Star:
“Much gratitude to current teachers at this year’s BCTF AGM who worked so hard to bring everyone together—after 20 years of attempts, a historical success,” and “[we] will continue to advocate and organize for divestment of our pension from Israeli companies which supply the weapons and infrastructure required for the ongoing genocide of Palestine.”
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