NationalGeneralStrike.30 October

On 30 October, dockworkers across the Mediterranean and Europe stop work. The call comes from a network of port unions in Italy, France, Greece, Turkey, Morocco and the Basque Country, formed at a meeting in Istanbul in May 2026 and covering more than 100 ports on strike.

The rallying cry: Dockworkers do not work for war. They refuse to load arms, ammunition and military equipment bound for war zones, and they refuse to let ports become military bases for NATO, the United States or the European Union. Alongside this they ask for what any worker asks for. Real wages, stable contracts, shorter hours, decent pensions, and no automation that strips the docks of people in the name of a war economy. These ports are being blockaded against shipments of war materiel bound for Israel and used in the genocide of the Palestinian people. We at ANGA answer that call.

The refusal has a history with strong roots in Genoa. For years, the Collettivo Autonomo Lavoratori Portuali—an autonomous dockworkers' collective at the port of Genoa—has inspected cargo manifests and refused to load weapons. In 2019, they turned away Saudi ships carrying materiel for the war in Yemen. In 2021, they tipped off colleagues in Livorno about a vessel that had loaded explosives in Genoa and was headed for Ashdod. The Livorno dockers threatened to strike and the ship left without its cargo. When the Global Sumud Flotilla sailed for Gaza in 2025, Genoa's dockworkers made a promise. If the flotilla was touched, not a single nail would leave the port.

The flotilla was attacked and Italy stopped. On September 22 in 2025, a grassroots general strike brought hundreds of thousands into the streets under the words Blocchiamo Tutto, meaning to block everything. Dockworkers in Genoa, La Spezia, Ravenna, Trieste, Livorno and Venice halted arms transfers. Days later an Israel-bound container ship left Genoa empty. On 3 October, after Israel boarded the flotilla in international waters, the largest union confederation in the country joined the base unions in a second general strike. Estimates of participation ranged from four hundred thousand to two million. Ports, railways, highways, schools and universities closed. The government called it a pretext for a long weekend. The ports called it something else.

Since then the movement has crossed borders. On February 6 this year, dockworkers shut down twenty-one Mediterranean ports in a first coordinated day of action. October 30 will be the second and larger in coverage and scale. In Italy, the Unione Sindacale di Base has called a general strike of the public and private sectors with a 24-hour stoppage in the ports, demanding an arms embargo on Israel, an end to rearmament, and compliance with Law 185 of 1990, the Italian law that forbids arms exports to countries at war or in violation of human rights.

We stand with students across Italy and worldwide demanding safe schools and an end to the Meloni government's militarization of the economy, which diverts public funds from culture, education, healthcare and welfare to arms.

We strike as we did on the historic May 8 Strike against Israel's Genocide Pavilion at the Biennale, when 30 national pavilions partially or fully closed in a 24-hour strike for Palestine and workers' rights with over 3,500 people marching from Garibaldi to the Arsenale in solidarity with the strikers.