From Genoa to Oakland, dockworkers refuse to load the war

Dockworkers on five continents are striking, stopping work and picketing Oct. 30 to keep the ports out of the wars of the United States and Israel. Their banner reads “Dockworkers do not work for war.”

The second International Day of Action of Dockworkers and Port Workers brings together more than 25 unions at 113 ports in 22 countries, according to Italy’s Unione Sindacale di Base (USB). Each union chose its own form of action: 24-hour strikes, shorter stoppages, demonstrations and pickets at the port gates. The first day of action, on Feb. 6, involved 20 ports in seven countries. Unions from more than 35 ports set the Oct. 30 date at a meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, in May.

Markos Bekris, who leads the Greek dockworkers’ union ENEDEP at Piraeus, Greece’s main port, explained the strategy to Al Jazeera: “Weapons need transport, infrastructure, and workers’ hands to reach their destination.”

In France, the CGT dockworkers’ union called a 24-hour walkout at about two dozen ports and predicted 95% of port activity would stop. In Italy, port workers are on a nationwide 24-hour strike, with Genoa, the country’s busiest port, at the front. Genoa dockworkers have refused to load weapons cargo since 2019. USB widened the action into a general strike with protests called in more than 40 cities. In Greece, seafarers’ unions called 24-hour stoppages that are keeping the island ferries in port, and Piraeus dockworkers called a three-hour stoppage.

Port workers in Hamburg, Germany, are taking part, along with dock unions in Ireland, Denmark and Australia. Dockworkers at Tangier Med in Morocco and in Veracruz, Mexico, joined the call. In India, workers at about a dozen ports, including Nhava Sheva, near Mumbai, are part of the action. In the United States, International Longshore and Warehouse Union Locals 10 and 34, which represent San Francisco Bay Area dockworkers and marine clerks, endorsed the day of action. Seventeen Palestinian unions and federations endorsed the day.

The campaign group No Harbour for Genocide tracked more than 300 shipments of parts for Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms maker, through 56 commercial ports over the past year. All 56 were on the strike list.

The war cargo comes from the Pentagon. On Oct. 22, Livorno dockworkers in Italy refused, shift after shift, to load the container ship Sunaid X, which carried supplies for Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily. Sigonella is a hub for United States drones and tanker planes in the war on Iran. Global Sumud Flotilla sailboats blocked the harbor mouth until Italy’s financial police seized them.

The unions’ Istanbul Declaration demands an end to the wars the United States and Israel are waging across West Asia and against Iran, and pledges solidarity with Cuba, Venezuela and Sudan. It also rejects automation used to cut dock jobs, and the unions are demanding higher wages, permanent jobs and safe workplaces.

The governments answer with prosecutors. Bekris faces charges in Greece for an October 2024 protest in which Piraeus dockworkers blocked a container of ammunition bound for Israel.

Dockworkers have done this before. They refused to load Italian ships during fascist Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia, helped stop Pentagon arms shipments to Pinochet’s Chile and refused to unload cargo from apartheid South Africa. Harry Bridges, the ILWU’s first president, was once asked whether union workers should interfere with United States foreign policy. His answer: “Sure as hell!”

The Pentagon’s wars need ships, cranes and docks, and they need workers to run them. On Oct. 30, unions at 113 ports joined together to refuse that work. In Livorno, eight days earlier, dockworkers showed what the refusal does to a Pentagon supply ship.