Teachers and School Staff for Palestine (TSS4P) from over 40 NSW schools, double the number involved in previous actions, held a successful week of action in solidarity with Palestine and Lebanon in late October.
Teachers wore keffiyeh (the Palestinian scarf), Palestinian badges and earrings into schools, held “Watermelon Wednesdays” and took group photos with signs demanding to end the genocide in Gaza, stop the bombing and sanction Israel.
Teachers and staff defied media attacks, and stood up to the emailed threat to all staff from the Education Department about possible breaches of the Code of Conduct.
After a year of genocide and Israel’s attack on Lebanon more schools responded to building work from TSS4P and were willing to take action. It also showed the anger in schools that is still to be tapped and mobilised.
The week of action went ahead without backing from the Teachers Federation. Official union support could have seen the Palestine solidarity action potentially spread to hundreds of schools. Such widespread action could have put real pressure on state and federal governments to end the repression in schools and stop arming, and politically defending, Israel.
However the spark lit by Teachers and School Staff for Palestine is making its way into local union structures. The Inner City Teachers Association is hosting an advertised Palestinian speaker at their next meeting on 26 November. Canterbury Bankstown Teachers Association is organising with the Palestinian Australians Welfare Association to call a fundraising dinner and film showing for Palestinian refugees at 6pm Wednesday 4 December, and a Fund schools not Genocide rally on Tuesday 10 December (Human Rights Day) outside Federal Education Minister Jason Clare’s office in Bankstown.
Nor is the rank-and-file union movement for Palestine abating in Victoria. More than 200 public sector workers rallied at state Parliament on 30 October to demand their employer, the Victorian government, break all ties with Israel.
Five AEU (Australian Education Union) regions endorsed the rally, as well as the Health and Community Services Union.
By Chris Breen
