Port workers: No arms through our docks

With demands against war and militarization, unions representing workers in more than 40 Mediterranean and European ports have launched a common international day of action, calling for all dockworkers and port workers to mobilize together on Oct. 30.

The National Federation of Ports and Docks of the General Confederation of Labor (CGT FNPD – France), the Union of Container Handling Workers (ENEDEP – Greece), Langile Abertzaleen Batzordeak (LAB – Basque Country), the Port, Maritime, Shipyard and Warehouse Workers union (Liman-İş – Turkey), the Organisation Démocratique du Travail (ODT – Morocco) and Unione Sindacale di Base (USB – Italy) issued a declaration calling for the Oct. 30 mobilization at an Istanbul meeting in May. The port union ORSA Porti of Gioia Tauro, Italy, has since endorsed the declaration. Its demands are:

• An immediate end to the genocide of the Palestinian people.
• An end to the U.S.-Israeli wars of aggression against Iran and across West Asia.
• Full solidarity with the peoples of Cuba, Venezuela and Sudan, support for the right of all peoples to resist occupation and for the right of self-determination.
• Ports must not be used for the transport of arms, ammunition, military equipment or troops destined for war zones. They must not become military bases for NATO, the United States or the European Union, nor serve as tools for shipowners and monopoly groups.
• No to the war economy, government rearmament plans, and the European project of militarization of ports and strategic infrastructure.
• Public resources must be used to meet people’s social needs, not to finance war. Collective agreements must guarantee real wage increases, secure employment, reduced working hours, and fair pension provisions.
• Technological progress, mechanization and artificial intelligence must not be used to eliminate jobs or undermine workers’ rights. Dockworkers and port workers say NO to the bosses’ automation of ports.

In an action of international solidarity, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Pacific Coast Pensioners Association (PCPA) unanimously passed a resolution supporting the Oct. 30 Mediterranean port workers’ mobilization.

The PCPA also passed a unanimous resolution to divest union stocks, bonds and other financial instruments from Israel at its convention in Tacoma, Washington, in September. The resolution was introduced by Bill Proctor, a retiree from Local 19 in Seattle. Proctor is known in the ILWU as one of the historic initiators of the Southern Africa Liberation Support Committee, which was instrumental in the decisive 11-day ILWU boycott of a ship carrying cargo from apartheid South Africa in 1984.

Clarence Thomas, an officer of the PCPA, cited the vote by United Auto Workers delegates at their June convention to divest union funds from Israel bonds when he presented the PCPA resolution to the Local 10 Executive Board in San Francisco following the PCPA convention. The ILWU Local 10 Executive Board proceeded to vote for divestment.

From the Mediterranean to the Pacific Coast, port workers are saying their docks will not load weapons for genocide and war.