Summary
The Arab labour organisation proclaimed by Fakhri al-Nashashibi in Jerusalem at the end of July 1934, generally understood as a Nashashibi creation and vehicle, which under Michel Mitri in Jaffa became the leading force countering the Histadrut’s Hebrew labor campaign in 1934-36 (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, lines 2457-2540). It is a different organisation from the Palestine Arab Workers Society (PAWS), founded in Haifa in 1925.
Details
- Fakhri al-Nashashibi proclaimed the AWS with himself as president; branches followed at Bayt Dajan (August 1934) and in Jaffa under Michel Mitri (October 1934), strongly supported by the pro-Nashashibi Filastin, which hailed Fakhri as “protector of the workers” and devoted unprecedented attention to labour affairs (lines 2457-2472).
- The AWS seized on the Hebrew labor campaign: it demanded forceful British action against the Hebrew labor pickets, called on Arab workers to set up their own picket lines and boycott Jewish products and produce, and staged the December 1934 “first Arab picket” in Jerusalem, in reality a protest march (lines 2465-2472).
- At the Majdal Yaba quarry in fall 1934 the Jaffa AWS got wind of the “Hebrew stone” replacement plan, warned the workers, and backed them through seventeen days until management agreed to retain all the Arabs employed there (lines 2465-2472).
- Under Mitri, who took over after Fakhri lost interest in labour affairs during 1935 and built the AWS into a strong local force claiming some 4,700 members, the AWS refused the Histadrut’s September 1935 offer of organising experience and funds conditional on Mitri distancing himself from the Arab nationalist movement (line 2528).
- Mitri’s December 1935 letter to the Jaffa District Commissioner stated the AWS campaign’s purposes: relief of unemployment, protest against Jewish picketing, “the Judaization of the Port” and immigration policy; after the protest march was prohibited the AWS convened a national conference of Arab trade unionists in Jaffa and in February 1936 campaigned against the award of three Jaffa schools’ construction to the Histadrut’s Contracting Office, picketing the sites with the Histadrut’s own tactics until the government required 50 percent of the jobs for Arab workers, Mitri demanding 100 percent Arab labor (lines 2528-2540).
- At Majdal Yaba in 1936 the AWS backed the Arab workers’ pickets against a renewed attempt, with the Histadrut’s blessing, to fire all the Arab workers and replace them with Jews, which the workers’ response again frustrated (lines 2531-2540).
- Mitri and George Mansour represented the AWS at the April 10, 1936 Haifa gathering that laid the foundations of an all-Palestine Arab labor federation (lines 2531-2540).
Related pages
Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, Michel Mitri, Fakhri al-Nashashibi, Palestine Arab Workers Society, Palestine Labor League, Histadrut, Hebrew Labour