Summary
Arab labour federation formed in August 1945 by the Jaffa, Jerusalem and Gaza Palestine Arab Workers Society branches, along with eight others, seceding from the PAWS, aligned with the National Liberation League, into which the Federation of Arab Trade Unions and Labor Societies soon merged (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, lines 3535-3538).
Details
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The struggle over the Palestinian Arab delegation to the Paris congress founding the World Federation of Trade Unions precipitated the final split in the PAWS: after an August 1945 meeting in Nablus at which Sami Taha and Hanna ‘Asfur had themselves designated the PAWS’s delegates, the Jaffa, Jerusalem and Gaza branches, along with eight others mainly in southern and central Palestine, seceded and formed the Arab Workers’ Congress (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, lines 3535-3538).
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The new federation, aligned with the National Liberation League, chose Bulus Farah and Mukhlis al-‘Amr as its delegates to Paris, where they blocked another pro-Zionist resolution and helped secure the election of Lebanese communist Mustafa al-‘Aris as Middle East representative on the WFTU executive, defeating a Histadrut official’s candidacy; Taha and ‘Asfur enjoyed only observer status (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, lines 3535-3538).
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In Lockman’s Chapter 8, the AWC and its parent National Liberation League preserved the distinction between Zionism and the Jewish masses, insisting the Jewish masses could be won away from Zionism and that Arab-Jewish cooperation was key to an independent undivided Palestine (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, lines 3935-3939).
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The AWC co-launched the late April 1946 Socony Vacuum strike with the Histadrut, was the dominant force among the Iraq Petroleum Company workers in their March 1947 strike, and jointly planned and led the September 1945 Levant Fair military workshops strike of some 1,300 workers with the Histadrut (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, lines 3969-3981, 4009).
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The AWC held an apparently successful third national congress in September 1947, but the Soviet Union’s endorsement of partition split the NLL leadership; with al-Ittihad suppressed in February 1948 and the population’s uprooting, the NLL and AWC fell into disarray and largely ceased to function as coherent national organizations, their spring 1948 Jaffa and Gaza self-defense units swept away (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, lines 4035-4039).
Related pages
Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, Palestine Arab Workers Society, Federation of Arab Trade Unions and Labor Societies, National Liberation League, Bulus Farah, Sami Taha