On July 14th, dock workers organized through the Container Handling Workers Union (ENEDEP) and the Permanent and Probationary Port Workers’ Union (PLO) in Greece, led a joint action to halt a shipment of Indian produced enriched steel intended for military use by Israel in the ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza. The Port of Piraeus workers, joined by other anti-war protesters, blocked the unloading of the ship Ever Golden while denouncing the war and refusing to allow the dock to become a “hub for the transfer of war equipment.” The shipment, having been obstructed, was then sent off to be transhipped by the Chinese owned COSCO Shipping Pisces, in an attempt to smuggle the steel through under the noses of the workers and was set to arrive that following Wednesday, July 16th.

The workers, again, organized and coordinated another blockage, with thousands of people rallying under the cry that their “hands will not be soaked in blood.” The unions clearly expressed that these actions are as much an act of self defense for the workers as they are an act of solidarity; they do not wish to come under the crosshairs of warring bourgeoisies, becoming victims of the war themselves.

Similarly, in June, French dockworkers with the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) union of port workers at Fos-sur-Mer refused to load a shipment of 19 pallets of ammunition belt links used to manufacture machine guns that were set out to be delivered to Haifa, Israel. The strike successfully sent the Israeli ship back home empty handed. Afterward, Italian dockworkers in the Unione Sindicale di Base (USB) and Greek dockworkers in ENEDEP made public statements declaring they too would refuse loading and unloading any and all arms shipments to Israel. These actions are the result of a growing network of European dockworker unions in France, Italy, Malta, Slovenia, Spain, and others that have begun coordinating actions and sharing information about weapons shipments among themselves, to obstruct when possible.

This revolt of the proletariat against their national bourgeoisies and their imperialist wars confirms the need for continuous consolidation of the working class into class unions and how even just a few unions in coordination can disrupt the carefully orchestrated flow of war materials between the capitalist States to be used to kill proletarians abroad. It is on the basis of the economic struggle and self-defense that these worker defense organizations should continue to strengthen their coordination along international lines and further distinguish their class’s interests apart from those of the capitalists, but only with the class party and global revolution will we see the end of capitalism and its wars.