Summary
The Galicia-born labour boss of Haifa (1898–1969), secretary of the Haifa Workers’ Council from 1931, who played an increasingly important role in the Histadrut’s Arab activism and became Haifa’s mayor in 1951 (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, lines 2262-2264).
Details
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Born in Galicia, Hushi came to Palestine in 1920 as a Hashomer Hatza’ir member, settled in Haifa in 1927 after a kibbutz stint, and worked his way up through the local Histadrut and Mapai hierarchy; his domineering, abrasive personality led many colleagues to find him difficult, and it was said he was on good terms with members of Haifa’s Jewish criminal underworld (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, lines 2262-2264).
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His efforts to learn Arabic and organise Arab workers in Haifa, especially dockworkers, were in keeping with his desire to be top dog in Haifa; after nineteen years as chief of the Histadrut in Haifa he became the city’s mayor in 1951, a post he retained until his death (lines 2262-2264).
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In Chapter 5 Hushi took charge of the Histadrut’s Arab work in Haifa: he saw the Haifa club as only a transitional form toward mobilising Arab workers into Histadrut-linked trade unions, regarded its secretary Philip Hassun as an ineffective and expensive “legacy”, and, backed by Ben-Gurion and Ben-Tzvi against Hassun’s desperate appeals, secured Hassun’s dismissal in June 1932 and implemented his own approach, bolstered by funds raised in England by Israel Sieff (lines 2301-2332).
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He negotiated for the striking Arab lightermen at Haifa port in April 1932 and insisted, with his MAPAI colleagues, that the resulting Harbor Workers’ Union comprise separate national sections, its Arab members becoming the first cell of the Palestine Labor League (lines 2332-2340).
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From 1933 he organised, with Histadrut support and funding, the immigration of groups of Jewish dockworkers from Salonika to displace Arabs and gain a permanent Jewish foothold at Haifa harbour, arranged the Pardes porterage contract, and formed the Histadrut’s Manof labour company at the new harbour; by April 1936 some 200 Jews had regular harbour jobs (lines 2335-2344).
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Eliyahu Agassi explained decades later that for Hushi organising Arab workers and getting Jewish workers into workplaces where Jews had no foothold, like the harbour, were one opportunity, not two (line 2335).
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At the end of 1934 Hushi complained that within the Histadrut “there is no psychological preparation for this work, there is a passivity which opposes it, and the work is being carried out by a small number of comrades; there is no sympathy for this work”, noting that some 1,500 Arab workers had passed through the Haifa club and only a very small number remained, and by November 1933 he had threatened to terminate his Haifa Arab organising unless the Histadrut funded it adequately (lines 2406-2412, 2495).
Related pages
Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, Histadrut, Haifa, Yehuda Burla, Mapai, Philip Hassun, Eliyahu Agassi, Palestine Labor League