Jewish Labor Committee

As today's Australian Jewish community is largely a post-war migrant community, the AWU joined with the Jewish community to celebrate this festival on the UN-declared International Migrant Workers' Day.
Lucy Fu, who works in aged care at the Montefiore Home one of the biggest aged care centres for the Sydney Jewish community, spoke for Asian Women at Work a community organisation assisting Asian migrant women who work in low-paid jobs.

Asian immigrant women workers must speak up for their rights at work
Lucy Fu lit the candle for Empowerment and talked about the need for Asian immigrant women to speak out and demand their rights at work.
Paul Howes, the AWU National Secretary, told the crowd who came together, in the atrium of the historic Sydney Trades Hall, that the union was eager to co-sponsor the event because of the universal message of Chanukah.

Shared values of Jewish community and trade union movement
"It celebrates the need for freedom from oppression. It celebrates the value of acting for what is right, and of communities not succumbing to laws that deprive them of basic freedoms.
" Chanukah also teaches the importance of struggle of a small committed band to win out for the good of the whole.
" These statements could easily have come from a Trade Union program, so clear is the commonality of Trade Union values and Jewish values," Paul Howes told the audience watching the lighting of the candles in the Chanukkiah.

Enthusiastic participation by MUA National Secretary
A particularly enthusiastic participant in the event was the National Secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia, Paddy Crumlin, who started off the candle-lighting.
When Cesha Glazer, a Holocaust survivor from Poland, came up to light a candle for Freedom there were a few teary eyes in the audience when she talked about the freedom Australia had given her, and her family, and asked people to remember the 6 million murdered during the Holocaust.

Chanukah re-told by professional story-teller
The Chanukah story was re-told to the audience by professional story teller Donna Jacobs Sife.
You can find a copy of the program here.
Other participants in the candle-lighting included:
"¢ Shirley Lee, a Fijian aged care worker turned NSW Nurses Association official
"¢ Mark Lennon, the Unions NSW Secretary.
"¢ Dr Lisa Jackson Pulver, the Director of the Muru Marri Indigenous Health Unit
"¢ Justice Stephen Rothman, AM, a former President of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies and a former union industrial officer.
"¢ Robert Goot, AM, SC, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry President, a barrister and also a former union industrial officer.

Jewish community wants to work with unions to battle discrimination in all its forms
The president of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, Robin Margo, SC, concluded the event before people went off to eat the traditional foods made with oil during the festival of Chanukah - donuts and potato pancakes.
"The Jewish community shares with the union movement, a desire to make NSW a better place for all of its citizens, whether that be in terms of fair and equitable working conditions, combating racism and discrimination in all its forms and reaching out to those in our society that are less fortunate than ourselves," Robin Margo told the union leaders in attendance.
"To this end, the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, as the roof body of the Jewish community of NSW, has a very active Social Justice Committee.
"The importance placed on social justice by the Board is illustrated by the our organisation being proud to have been a founding member of the Sydney Alliance, which brings together religious groups, community organisations and unions to work towards the common goal of improving the lives of all Sydney residents, but in particular the most disadvantaged ones," Robin Margo noted in his concluding remarks.