CUPE vice-president asked to step down

Board seeks Hahn’s resignation as uproar grows over video denounced as antisemitic

- ROB FERGUSON

‘It is a terrible mistake, and antisemitic, to conflate abhorrent actions by the state of Israel with Jewish humanity or identity

The Canadian Union of Public Employees has “lost confidence” in national vice-president Fred Hahn and is demanding his resignation after he posted a video denounced as antisemitic.

“We’ve given him pretty strong direction,” CUPE national president Mark Hancock told the Star in an interview Wednesday, a day after the union’s executive board met over the growing controversy surrounding Hahn.

Hahn was re-elected earlier this year in a separate but related role as president of the union’s Ontario wing, which also faces a human rights complaint filed last November in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent attack by Israel in Gaza that has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians. The complaint alleges systemic discrimination and promotion of antisemitism that isolates Jewish members of the massive publicsector union.

Saying “the timing was wrong,” Hahn apologized in late October for an Oct. 8 statement celebrating Palestinian resistance in the wake of the attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people and saw more than 200 hostages taken.

“We’ve asked him to reply by noon Thursday,” Hancock said of the resignation request. “I’m very optimistic and hopeful that he will do the right thing.”

Hahn has not replied to requests for comment made through the union.