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- 'You cannot talk about this at work’
Last week, ASU For Palestine — a group of rank-and-file Australian Services Union (ASU) members primarily based in Victoria — published the findings of two surveys they conducted earlier this year.
The surveys, one internal to ASU For Palestine members and one that solicited responses on social media, aimed “to find out more about how workers are experiencing workplace repression when organising or showing solidarity for Palestine at work”. They collected anonymous responses from nearly 100 people at dozens of workplaces covered by the ASU, including governmental and non-profit organisations that work on gender-based violence support services, legal and justice services, mental health, LGBTIQA+ advocacy, housing and homelessness, education and youth services.
Titled ‘The New McCarthyism’, the report found that bullying, intimidation and threats towards workers who have expressed support for Palestinians or for a ceasefire in Gaza is widespread across the social services and non-profit sectors.
70% of respondents said managers in their workplace had claimed talking about Palestine was creating an ‘unsafe environment’. 60% said their workplace had prevented or attempted to prevent display of pro-Palestine material such as stickers and posters. 32% reported that their workplace had penalised or disciplined staff for wearing the keffiyeh, and 35% said that their employer had stalked staff’s private social media accounts.
Respondents also provided first-person accounts of actions their workplaces had taken against members of staff.
“The survey demonstrates a widespread culture of censorship and repression that is often justified on the basis of 'cultural safety', a concept that has been distorted essentially to protect Zionist feelings and used against workers who advocate for Palestinian justice,” ASU For Palestine organiser Monica Campo says.
“Organisations are terrified of upsetting the small minority of Zionists who sometimes may work in these organisations, but are often also donors and funders to these organisations. In many instances, workplace disciplinary measures against employees, came as a direct result of complaints by Zionists.”
A high-profile instance of this occurred earlier this year, when support worker Stella Latham was sacked from her position as a housing case manager by Sacred Heart Mission in St Kilda. Michael West Media reported in August that Sacred Heart claimed Latham’s Palestinian advocacy, including the wearing of pro-Palestinian t-shirts to work, constituted a “serious and imminent risk to the health and safety of others”.
‘Don’t talk about this publicly’
While respondents named 62 organisations in the survey, several received multiple mentions. Mental health support service Headspace, LGBTIQA+ organisations Switchboard, ACON and Drummond Street Services, homelessness support provider Launch Housing, poverty support provider the Brotherhood of St Laurence and the Foundation for Young Australians were all cited by multiple current or former employees as workplaces that had cracked down on their staff expressing support for Palestinians at work.
One organisation, the Victorian Mental Illness Awareness Council (VMIAC), was cited six times — more than any other.
Riley* is a former VMIAC employee who also served as an ASU Health and Safety Representative (HSR). In late 2023, they began receiving complaints about a colleague whose vocal support of Zionism and Israel in the workplace was making other workers feel uncomfortable.
“I had a conversation with my manager about what was going on, and the vibe was ‘don’t talk about this publicly, talk about it behind closed doors’,” Riley says.
“It’s really common in the mental health sector, especially when organisations can use the fact that they get funding from the Victorian government — which obviously has ties to Israel — to stop staff from speaking out. They claim it will affect their funding.”
In January 2024, VMIAC’s Committee of Management held a meeting with staff addressing concerns about the workplace’s culture, which was the subject of an external review (referred to internally as the Independent Preliminary Assessment, or IPA).
“The [meeting] included a slide about ‘Israel and Gaza’, and they basically told us ‘you cannot talk about this at work’,” Riley says. “They framed it as a health and safety issue — their direction was ‘make sure you think about people’s health and safety before you do anything’ — but the HSRs weren’t consulted.”
“VMIAC is an entirely lived-experience organisation — every staff member is actually required to have lived experience of mental health. That’s one of the biggest issues — they were actively taking advantage of the fact that staff members were more likely to be impacted and more vulnerable.”
Following the meeting, Riley sent an email to staff in their capacity as a HSR offering to set up a private chat for people who wished to discuss the issue of Palestine. Their use of the word ‘Palestine’ prompted an angry response from their self-identified Zionist colleague in one of VMIAC’s public work chats.
“When suicides mount in australia for the disapor [sic] people might think more about how they conduct their business at work,” they wrote. “i am on the list of 600 jews for being jewish, you have no iea hoe [sic] that feels”.
They also cited 474.17 of the Crimes Act, which outlaws “using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence,” saying that “it might be of interest for people to have a red [sic] about using communication channels”.
Riley claims that VMIAC management responded by temporarily shutting down staff group chats and cancelling several planned staff training sessions on workplace safety.
“I was disciplined for that, and my Zionist colleague wasn’t,” Riley says. “I literally didn’t say anything pro-Palestine other than using the word ‘Palestine’ in an email.”
In an email sent to all staff in February, February, VMIAC management laid out the organisation’s policy in full.
“Our direction to employees … is that employees do not engage in communication in the workplace on the Israel-Palestine conflict that will be likely to adversely impact the wellbeing of another employee, including triggering experiences of trauma, isolation, and suicidal crisis,” the email reads.
“To the extent necessary to support someone’s wellbeing, we acknowledge that some employees will need to talk with a colleague, line manager or external supervisor. Outside the workplace, employees are supported to exercise their freedom of expression.”
‘You’re not going to get anywhere with this’
Despite the directive not to discuss Gaza or Palestine openly, the issue continued to cause VMIAC workers distress.
“In our union meetings, anti-Palestine repression came up every single time,” Riley says. “We also had anti-Zionist Jewish colleagues who were feeling particularly unsettled by all of it. People were calling me constantly to talk about how difficult they were finding it.”
Riley was already in regular contact with their ASU organiser regarding unrelated workplace issues at VMIAC. When they raised the issue of workers being targeted for supporting Palestine, however, they were told that the issue was not a priority for the union.
“When I raised the Palestine stuff, their advice was basically ‘you’re not going to get anywhere with this’,” Riley says. “The union wasn’t willing to help fight against the anti-Palestine repression because they didn’t think it was worth it.”
ASU For Palestine say Riley’s experience is far from unique. The group has met with ASU officials several times urging the union to take a stronger stance on Palestine-related workplace repression and the genocide more broadly. They have not been successful.
“They have consistently given the same answer, which is that individual union members should take it up with their organisers or the union directly — but when members have, they haven't always received support,” Campo says. “Overall, the ASU seems to not want to collectivise a response to workplace repression — for example, we have asked them to publicly defend the right to political expression at work.”
“While ASU-covered industries don’t have the industrial power to halt trade or enact work bans that are needed to disrupt the Israeli apartheid regime, ASU and ASU Private, as Labor-affiliated unions and some of the more socially progressive unions, potentially could have had some influence in advocating to the government,” she says. “Unfortunately, more than a year in, this has not happened. In fact no union in Australia has really done anything much at all, though some officials have spoken up.”
Campo believes this represents a missed opportunity for the union movement to rebuild trust with its membership and strengthen its militancy.
“Unions in general have been slow to respond to the repression people are experiencing in workplaces, which is perhaps not surprising because this kind of new McCarthyism — which often involves external Zionists directly lobbying organisations to reprimand their workers — is something we haven't really seen before,” Campo says.
“But one of the most rewarding things that has arisen out of our organising is a growing confidence and militancy of rank-and-file union members on all kinds of industrial issues. Many of our members have become delegates in their workplaces, are running Enterprise Agreement bargaining and organising around workplace conditions and other issues.
“We essentially want to rebuild the strength of rank-and-file unionism in Australia.”
Contacted with questions, the ASU responded that it “has no comment on the matters you have provided”.
Since leaving, Riley has kept in contact with VMIAC employees, who have told them the situation has not improved.
“I had to leave because I was basically told they were trying to find a way to fire me, despite being good at my job,” Riley says. “Similar things happened to multiple other people — a lot of the most active voices in the workplaces were basically siphoned out. My pessimistic read is that VMIAC feels like they got away with it.”
VMIAC did not respond to requests for comment.
*Names have been changed.
Hoor Hammad, the little bub above, is turning one next month. I don’t think there is a worse environment on earth for a one-year-old kid to grow up in at the moment than Gaza.
Ahead of Hoor’s first birthday on January 21, I’m trying to raise some extra money to give her, her mum Noor and their family a bit of relief. The border crossings between Gaza and Egypt are still shut, but funds go towards buying food, medicine and shelter, all of which are astronomically expensive in Gaza and have been for some time.
If you’ve got anything to spare, please consider giving some money. Any money raised will be sent to Noor's brother Abdallah Abdalrahim, who lives in Sweden and can send her money directly. Make a donation on behalf of a friend or family member for Christmas, give in your own name, whatever works.
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