Summary
The Jaffa Arab labour organisation of which George Mansour was Secretary and Michel Mitri President, with a membership of about 7,000 as Mansour states it in 1937, and the most developed of the beginnings towards an organisation of labour in Palestine in his account (The Arab Worker under the Palestine Mandate, PDF p.3).
Details
- Mansour describes the federation in Jaffa as rudimentary but holding public meetings attended by as many as 2,000 people, endeavouring to assist the workers and the fellahin in their relations with the Government and with employers, and possessing, like the Palestine Arab Workers Society in Haifa, branches throughout the country (The Arab Worker under the Palestine Mandate, PDF p.3).
- The booklet The Arab Worker under the Palestine Mandate is headed as compiled by Mansour, formerly Secretary of the federation, from material submitted by the Arab Labour Organisations (PDF p.2).
- At the Majdal Yaba quarries in 1934, the federation got wind of the plan to dismiss the Arab workers and introduce Jewish workers in their place and sent word to the workers not to leave the village; the workers stayed and refused a party of 150 Jewish workers for 17 days, and the managers re-engaged the Arab workers for the moment (PDF p.15).
- Mansour records the obstacles the Arab unions faced: agents, Arabs and Arab-speaking Jews, paid by the Jewish labour organisations to keep a watch on the Arab unions and to prevent Arab workers from joining them (PDF p.4).
- The editors’ introduction in the same file names the organisation the Arab Workers Society, a labour organisation founded in 1934, of which Mansour was Secretary and Michel Mitri the leader (PDF p.1); Kanafani names a Federation of Palestinian Arab Workers in Jaffa, which produced the 1936 census of 1,000 workers and Mansour’s report to the Peel Commission, and a Federation of Arab Workers in Jaffa of which Mitri was president (The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine, PDF p.7-9 / printed p.13-17). Whether these names are one organisation under varying names or successive bodies is not resolved in the sources; see Open questions on The Arab Worker under the Palestine Mandate.
Related pages
The Arab Worker under the Palestine Mandate, George Mansour, Michel Mitri, Palestine Arab Workers Society, Jaffa, Conquest of Labour