Dock workers block arms to Israel as Danish unions stand by
Arguably unions in Denmark have been cautious to not get involved with matters a bit too “complex” like the live-streamed genocide of Palestinians by the Israeli forces, however there are other labour organizations who resist, put their livelihood on the line ultimately standing for their fellow workers in Palestine and other countries devastated by colonial domination.
Notably, comrades from the Collettivo Autonomo Lavoratori Portuali (CALP) in Genoa have been actively raising their voice the past 2 years against the Zionist aggression and the complicity of the Italian state among other causes. In their most recent action on August 11, after identifying a vessel loaded with containers of military cargo destined for Abu Dhabi and likely to supply and fuel the massacre of Sudanese people, their response was immediate and compelling. They blocked the port of Genoa and captured the cargo before loading it to another vessel by announcing a strike and organizing two demonstrations within the port premises. Yet this is not an isolated action taken by a marginal group by way of affirming their commitment to an abstract list of humanitarian values. Instead, working in solidarity with anti-colonial struggles and labour rights movements is the commonplace of these actions and their consistency makes it clear that will not end short and before smashing oppression and exploitation worldwide.
On August 5, a strike in the docks of Genoa forced shipping giant Cosco to divert three Evergreen-owned containers carrying military-grade steel bound for Israel back to Singapore. This came in after two earlier blockades of the same vessel by the dockworkers’ union ENEDEP, on July 8 and July 16, in the port of Piraeus, Greece, supported by large numbers of Palestinian solidarity activists.
Shortly earlier in Barcelona, unions, solidarity movements, and the Palestinian community of Catalonia jointly blocked 122 tonnes of steel destined for the Israel Military Industries (IMI – a subsidiary of Elbit Systems). The shipment, scheduled to sail to Haifa on July 1, was halted after an immediate call for a blockade.
In Marseille, dockworkers decided on June 5 to block containers carrying links (components used in rapid-fire machine guns). The following day, the dockworkers’ collective CALP (Genoa) voiced their support to the Marseille dockers and asserted that they will not allow such cargo from entering their port calling for a “shield of workers’ solidarity” against Israel.
Workers’ solidarity must be international and must reject all forms of imperialism, and colonialism with tangible means. Labor unions’ in Denmark have been silent and inactive in the face of genocide and function as enablers of imperialist violence and capitalist profiteering. They claim to represent the interests of the Danish working class but they do so at the expense of workers in the global South, ultimately aligning more with their own ruling class than with the oppressed workers of the world. Unions that fail to oppose the genocide of Palestinians aren’t “neutral” – they are tactically supporting imperialism and colonialism by maintaining a narrow, state-sanctioned version of class struggle.
The working class in the global North is faced now with a choice: to stick with its business unionist politics or to actively combat fascism, Zionism and imperialist wars, while standing in unwavering solidarity with liberation struggles across the global South.
Here is a free lesson from the ports of Genoa: “Arms ships are not welcome here. Every time arms are found in the port of Genoa we will mobilize and bring discomfort to the whole city.”
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