Union Organizing Across National Divides: Palestinians and Jewish Israelis in the Jerusalem Bus Drivers’ Union

Two leaders from a progressive Israeli labor union that organizes Jewish and Palestinian workers in joint unions will visit the University of Oregon for a four-day visit.

The union, "Power of the Workers," will send one Jewish and one Palestinian organizer from their union, who will talk about all of the aspects of organizing unions across those lines.

They will focus in particular on their experience organizing public transportation bus drivers in the Jerusalem area, where occasional anti-Palestinian threats or violence have been met by a series of one-day strikes in which Jewish and Palestinian drivers all stuck together. This isn't a simple kumbaya story, but it's impressive and instructive, and a little bit hopeful in a place where it's hard to find hope.

Speaker Bios:

Mohammad Hresh is a Palestinian and was born and raised in the city of Nazareth. He has worked as a bus driver for the past 13 years and, in that role, was one of the key rank-and-file activists who led the original union organizing campaign of drivers at the Superbus company, a major transport company operating in the Jerusalem area and the Galilee.  He has served as a key leader in the Koach La’Ovdim union for the past decade, including representing co-workers in negotiations, grievance hearings and public advocacy, and is a member of the leadership committee of the union’s Public Transportation branch.  Mohammad continues to work as a bus driver and lives in Nazareth with his wife and their two children, Ali and Reem.

Tamar Ohana Warkentin is a Jewish Israeli, whose family originally immigrated to Israel from Morrocco.  She is a social worker and for the past nine years has served as a full-time union organizer with Koach La’Ovdim.  She has held multiple leadership roles within the union, including serving as head of the union’s Jerusalem regional branch and also head of the Public Transportation division, and currently is director of the union’s newly established center for workers’ education, training, and culture.  In addition to her union work, Tamar is also a leading activist in Israel’s LGBTQ+ community, and recently won a precedent-setting court case establishing parental rights for queer and interfaith families. Tamar lives in Jerusalem with her wife and two children.

The speakers will be of interest to a wide range of students — both those interested in labor/economic justice, those interested in Isreal/Palestine, and those interested in organizing across national/ethical/racial lines more broadly.

Sponsored by UO Labor Education and Research Center/ Department of Sociology/ Global Justice Program/ Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics.

This event is part of International Education Month (IEM) programming. View the full calendar of IEM events here: https://international.uoregon.edu/IEM.