Hawzah News Agency- Union organizers described the action as the result of long-standing dockworker solidarity with Palestine and their own fight for dignified working conditions at home.
Ahead of the strike, ships that “regularly transport military cargo to Israel” altered their itineraries.
Demonstrations began in ports across Greece, Turkiye, and the Basque Country, where the Liman-İş Sendikası rallied hundreds of members to deliver a message “against genocide and in solidarity with Palestine''.
In Greece, dockworkers highlighted a contradiction between substantial European investment in rearmament and the austerity measures that cut public services, which they argued has compromised safety conditions.
“We won’t accept work without rights'', said Damianos Voudigaris of the Greek union ENEDEP. “Development should mean going home alive. Ports are places of work, not war. They are places of sweat, not blood''.
Italy saw some of the largest mobilizations of the day, with coordinated strikes across more than a dozen ports involving dockworkers, port employees, students, and members of the public.
The Unione Sindacale di Base (USB) reported from all striking ports, with assemblies displaying Palestinian and Cuban flags.
Dockworkers in Trieste warned against privatization, while participants in Bari and Ravenna said port infrastructure was being used, “sometimes covertly'', to transport military and dual-use materials to Israel.
In Genoa, members of the collective CALP led one of the largest demonstrations of the day, declaring, “We promised to block everything – and we blocked everything. We promised a general strike – and we had a general strike. We promised an international strike – and here we are''.
Strikers said the mobilization was only the beginning, saying, “Today it’s the ports, tomorrow it will be the entire logistics sector, and then it will be all workers''.
The World Federation of Trade Unions endorsed the mobilization with a solidarity statement and adopted the official banner reading “Dockworkers Don’t Work for War''.
The massive strike came one day after the Global Sumud Flotilla announced a new civilian aid mission for Gaza set to depart on 29 March, with organizers outlining a renewed maritime voyage beginning in Barcelona and extending through multiple Mediterranean ports, alongside parallel land convoys toward the Rafah Border Crossing.
Source: The Cradle.co
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