Top post for Jewish unionist
A JEWISH unionist who is fighting to prevent boycotts against Israel has been elevated to one of Australia’s top union jobs.
A JEWISH unionist who is fighting to prevent boycotts against Israel has been elevated to one of Australia’s top union jobs.
Michael Borowick has been appointed to the highest office ever held by a member of the Jewish community in the Australian Council of Trade Union’s (ACTU) 83-year history.
The newly minted assistant secretary – one of two who share that position – has taken up his ACTU appointment during what can be considered interesting times for Jews and the Australian union movement.
Late last month, a group calling itself Australian Unionists Supporting Palestine bombarded union officials around Australia with hundreds of emails calling for an end to what it calls “partisan, one-sided support for Israel”.
And the Victorian Trades Hall Council executive voted in September to send representatives to a conference in Melbourne advocating the Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.
But those who seek to delegitimise Israel will find no friend in the new ACTU executive member, who is an avowed opponent of BDS tactics.
“Many supporters of the BDS campaign are traditional opponents of Israel, and are simply denigrating the only democratic state in the Middle East with a free trade union movement,” Borowick said.
“Members of the Jewish and wider community need to know that Israel has many supporters in the union movement, and that those that seek to undermine Israel don’t speak for the movement as a whole,” he said.
Borowick was elected unopposed to the ACTU’s four-member leadership group at its executive meeting last month, filling a casual mid-term vacancy.
The former construction industry electrician has had a busy year. In October, he founded a local arm of Trade Union Friends of Israel (TUFI) and led an inaugural TUFI Australia mission of eight unionists to Israel.
“On the ground in Israel, mission participants were presented with a different picture to the one they receive through the Australian media,” Borowick said, with delegates assuring him they would recommend the experience to their union colleagues. He hopes TUFI Australia visits to Israel will become an annual event.
In order to take up his ACTU post, Borowick, a union official for 20 years, stood down from his position as assistant secretary of the Australian Workers Union’s Victorian branch.
PETER KOHN
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