19.06.2025

Union bureaucrats can only see jobs ... and dues

Build working class resistance

Arms shipments to and from Israel are being blocked in many countries - an example that trade unions in Britain can be won to follow. There is no time to lose, says Ian Spencer

Dock workers in Fos‑sur‑Mer, near Marseille, blocked the shipment of military equipment bound for Israel on June 5 in protest at the genocide in Gaza. According to the Confédération Générale du Travail, stevedores refused to load crates of metal links used to enable rapid machine gun fire.

The ship, owned by the Israeli shipping company, Zim, left France without its murderous cargo. “We are very proud of this action led by our comrades, and which is part of the CGT’s long, internationalist tradition for peace,” said Sophie Binet, secretary general of the union. “It is unacceptable that CGT dockers should be the ones forced to uphold the principles of international law and French values. The government must immediately block all arms deliveries to the state of Israel”, she added.

The ship was bound for Genoa, but the CGT had tipped off workers at the Italian port. Workers in the Unione Sindacale di Base immediately acted to prevent the ship from docking. USB members are using the action to build for wider struggle and are supporting a general strike on June 20. They are drawing attention to how the war policies of Giorgia Meloni’s government do nothing but impoverish an Italian population already burdened by inflation and low wages. The USB said: “We strongly reiterate that we do not want to be complicit in the genocide in Gaza and that we firmly oppose all wars.”¹

The 24-hour national general strike is set to affect air, rail and local public transport services across the country. The strike, will involve both the public and private sector, while Italy’s airline industry is also set to be affected due to a walkout by airport workers, including baggage handlers and ground staff, as well as external companies.²

The strike has been called by several trade unions, who are demanding less military spending and more investment in health, education, transport and safety in the workplace. The protest also focuses on the demand for wage increases, contract renewal, reduction of working hours and opposition to privatisation and job precariousness.³

Solidarity

In Sweden, last February, shipping company DFDS dismissed one of its workers, Erik Helgeson, who worked at the port of Gothenburg. Helgeson is national deputy chair and spokesperson for the Swedish Dockworkers Union, which voted last December to block the handling of military equipment destined for or originating in Israel.

Helgeson said: “People in Sweden have an impression that we only sell to neutral countries, or countries that are not engaged in war. People didn’t know what was going on.” While Sweden does export arms to Israel, they are outnumbered by its imports of Israeli arms, including from Elbit and Rafael, which is Israel’s largest arms firm, and has seen its profits soar since the start of the current genocide in Gaza.⁴ While Helgeson is waiting to have his dismissal contested in Sweden’s labour courts, dock workers have voted in favour of strike action and, because of Helgeson’s case, one of the key demands is protection for union officials from politically motivated dismissals, like that of DFDS.

The company put out a press release stating that Helgeson’s dismissal was “with reference to national security”. Sweden joined Nato in 2024, after many decades of neutrality, even while the Nazis occupied neighbouring Norway. Now, it seems dock workers have been given enhanced responsibilities for ‘security’. The blockade of shipments of military materiel has been used as the pretext for getting rid of a highly effective union official, but, as Helgeson said,

Solidarity is a source of power, It’s not only a kind act or a transactional thing. If you don’t have a culture of solidarity that expands outside of just narrow bread-and-butter issues in your immediate national area, then you’re kind of bound to be isolated when it’s your turn. We’ve never worked like that, and I don’t want to either.

Dock workers in many countries, including Sweden, the United States, Morocco, South Africa and Italy, have taken solidarity actions since 2010. The Palestinian Youth Movement has launched a campaign (Mask off Maersk) against the Danish shipping container giant, alleging that it has shipped military cargo to Israel during the genocide.⁵ In April, dock workers - members of the two largest Moroccan unions, the UMT and CDT - boycotted a Maersk ship suspected of transporting F-35 parts to Israel. Moroccan authorities responded by blocking dozens of pro-Palestine activists from reaching the port of Casablanca.

In Britain, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign has called for action against the arms factories making weapons for Israel. The UK is an active participant in genocide and ethnic cleansing in Palestine through its arms trade and military collaboration with Israel. One example is Britain’s contribution to the F-35 jet fighter. The PSC aimed to disrupt production at Lockheed Martin UK in Havant, Hampshire. One of the protestors, PSC director Ben Jamal, said:

We are protesting outside factories that are supplying the parts for the F-35 jets that Israel is using to reign devastation and havoc upon the people of Gaza. We know the Lockheed Martin factory has sent seven shipments of supplies of parts of the F-35s, which has enabled Israel to continue with its genocide since October 2023.⁶

There were similar protests in Rochester, Kent, at BAE systems on Marconi Way, which manufactures the Active Interceptor System used by the pilot to control the jet. In Sheffield, South Yorkshire there was a protest at the Forged Solutions Group, on Meadowhall Road.⁷

Another group, Palestine Action, has carried out lots of direct action stunts against companies involved with Israeli arms companies, such as the Armstrong works in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where Israeli arms manufacturer Rafael makes engines for drones that have been used to kill civilians in Gaza. The protestors climbed onto the gatehouse, covered the Armstrong sign in red paint and unfurled a banner reading: “This factory kills kids”. All five protestors were arrested on suspicion of ‘conspiracy to cause a public nuisance’. There was an oppressively large police presence that quickly arrived to protect the arms factory.⁸ Northumbria Police has spent £209,755 policing protests at the Newcastle factory.

Palestine Action also carried out an action at the Permoid Industries metal factory in County Durham, which makes ammunition containers for Elbit Systems - one of Israel’s major arms manufacturers. It has several factories in the UK. The activists cut through the fence to damage machinery on June 14. They later made their way onto the roof to cut holes, before spraying the equipment below with red paint two days later.⁹ Four activists were arrested.

Union inaction

These actions stand in contrast to the supine stance taken by unions with an interest in the arms industry. The GMB union, for example, is “proudly a union for defence manufacturing workers”. Moreover, it openly supports a ‘two-state solution’ and treats the breakout from the Gaza ghetto on October 7 2023 as somehow the equivalent of the subsequent response of the Zionist state - whilst, of course not mentioning at all the reasons why 2.3 million people are confined to the open-air prison in the first place.¹⁰ In fact, the same statement proudly declares that after October 7 it contacted Histadrut, Israel’s union federation, to express its “solidarity”, naturally ignoring the role played by labor Zionism in establishing the Zionist state and excluding Palestinians from the workforce.

While the GMB statement on ‘Israel and Palestine’, claims that its workers are mostly employed in shipbuilding and “do not work on arms for export to Israel’s military”, it says nothing about how the weapons the workers so proudly make actually end up there. After all, the biggest supplier of weapons to Israel is the USA, but presumably the GMB does not have any qualms about supporting the US arms industry, despite the ultimate destination of what it produces.

Arms embargo

Calling for the state to institute an arms embargo on Israel, as Sophie Binet has, while welcome, is unlikely ever to be heeded, particularly in the UK, where the revocation of a few tens of arms export licences to Israel, while leaving hundreds intact, is consistent with British policy of providing intelligence and logistical support to the genocide via its base at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. Similarly, recent revelations, following parliamentary questions, that the UK provides training for Israel Defence Forces personnel is really nothing new. Israeli pilots have attended RAF Cranwell and its soldiers have been welcomed at Sandhurst for decades.

The actions by Palestine Action in disrupting the Israeli arms supply chain are undeniably brave and effective - but only up to a point. We must support these activists when they appear in court and support the right of juries to reach a verdict guided by their conscience, which is supposedly a central tenet of English law. It is a principle that has seen some acquittals, even in the face of state intimidation and attempts to impose draconian sentences on political activists, such as members of Just Stop Oil, who are currently languishing in prison.

International solidarity of workers to impose a blockade of Israel is essential, in conjunction with the widest possible involvement in boycott, disinvestment and sanctions against the Zionist state. The failure of many British unions to prevent arms production is a shameful legacy of the British imperialist heritage - one which communists must do all they can to oppose.

As the bodies pile higher, there is no time to lose.