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Title: Logistical Syndicalism Author: Jeff Shantz Date: 2021, Summer Language: en Topics: labor movement,supply chain,sabotage,economy--global,anarchist analysis Source: Scanned from Anarcho-Syndicalist Review #83, Summer, 2021, page 9 ff
A foundational position of green syndicalism is that workers pose the
most potent force both for ending ecologically and socially harmful
activities and for safely dealing with the transition to new forms of
sustenance (knowing how to deal with toxic materials, decommissioning
industrial sites, etc.). Particularly through strike action, work
refusals and collective sabotage, workers can directly stop practices
that are destructive of nature and social well-being, rather than making
appeals to governing authorities, whether they be in the workplace or in
governments. This is a collective power that can immediately end
capitalist production and circulation and because of this it poses the
greatest threat to capital and states.
Recently anti-capitalist organizing has given sharpened focus and
attention to logistical chains and the nodes of distribution and ways in
which capitalist circulation are particularly vulnerable, especially in
contexts of just-in-time production and exchange. Targeting logistics
points has proven an effective tactic in recent struggles ranging from
pipeline developments in settler colonial Canada to solidarity pickets
during labor disputes and strikes.
In 2021 several dock workers' actions have been organized in response to
calls from Palestinian workers for solidarity as the Israeli state
launched new offenses against Palestine. Attention tuned to the
aggressions with mass evictions in the Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan
neighborhoods of Jerusalem, the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque, stepped-up
statist violence in the West Bank and the areas taken from Palestine in
1948, and the bombardment of Gaza. At the time of the dockers' strikes,
Israeli air strikes had killed more than 230 Palestinians, including
more than 70 children and 40 women, in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
The dock actions focused on ships of Zim Lines, Israel's largest and
oldest cargo shipping company
Notably these strikes and work refusals were rank-and-file initiated and
led. They represented forms of wildcat strikes, unsanctioned and
occurring outside (and against) the bounds of collective agreements.
They were solidarity strikes based not on the immediate or contractual
interests of the striking workers but on broader interests of class
solidarity and commitment to workers facing extremes of oppression
elsewhere.
In a mass show of community and workplace solidarity, thousands of
people blockaded the Port of Oakland, California, to stop the Israeli
ZIM-operated Volans cargo ship from unloading its cargo. Following weeks
of organizing under the banner of "Block the Boat," the action
culminated June 4, when more than 1,000 people turned back the ZIM-owned
cargo ship. This was the second ship to be turned away by blockaders,
following a successful port blockade on June 2. Block the Boat
initiatives were initiated by the Arab Resource and Organizing Center
(AROC).
Crucial to the blockades were the actions of dock workers in
International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10, who honored six
simultaneous community pickets held during the morning and evening
shifts. The dock workers did not cross the picket lines and did not work
the ship. This left no option for the ship but to leave port.
Jimmy Salamy, a Palestinian rank-and-file worker with ILWU Local 10,
spoke of the significance of the broad working class solidarity
expressed in the actions, and of the rank-and-file impetus behind the
dock workers' participation:
An injury to one is an injury to all. Just as ILWU Local 10 workers
refused to unload cargo from apartheid South Africa in the 1980s, we
honored community pickets asking us not to unload cargo from Israeli ZIM
vessels. Rank-and-file members of ILWU Local 10 stand against Israeli
apartheid and with our brothers and sisters in Palestine.
During the blockade, ILWU Local 10 President Trent Willis said: Workers'
struggle is worldwide.... [W]hen the workers of the world figure that
out, and realize that we have to band together to make change, then
it'll be a better world, including for the Palestinian people. Worker
power, economic power, is real power--it's more powerful than those
bombs Israel is dropping.
The Block the Boat blockades come directly in response to calls from
Palestinian trade unions in Gaza who have requested that workers
globally refuse to handle Israeli goods, deal with Israeli businesses,
or handle Israeli cargo. Elias Al-Jelda, of the Executive Committee of
the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions in Gaza, stated:
It warms our hearts in the besieged occupied Gaza Strip and the rest of
occupied Palestine that our comrades led by AROC, and with the
solidarity of our fellow workers in ILWU Local 10, achieved this great
workers worldwide to intensify the boycott campaign against ZIM ships
and all business profiting from apartheid Israel, in solidarity with our
people's struggle for freedom and justice in Palestine.
The Oakland blockades were part of a call for a June 2-9 International
Week of Action to stop ships operated by Israeli cargo companies from
docking. The campaign has focused especially on incoming ships operated
by the Israel-based Zim Integrated Shipping Services Ltd or ZIM, which
is one of the world's largest shipping companies, and the largest in
Israel. It has been a main transport for military weaponry and equipment
for the state of Israel--both to and from Israel.
The June 2021 efforts mark the first time that ZIM has tried to use
Oakland port since 2014, when a series of successful pro-Palestinian
actions blocked ships from docking for months. The 2021 blockades mean
that Israel's largest shipping company has now been prevented from
loading or unloading in the Bay Area for more than seven years.
solidarity actions have since been organized at the ports of Los
Angeles, Seattle and Tacoma, Houston, New York City and Detroit. In some
places, connections between dock workers and other workers and community
need to be built or strengthened. There is no question about the
significance of workers striking or refusing work over and above
solidarity protests.
After its failed attempts to dock in Oakland, the Volans took the rather
extreme measure of trying to dock at Prince Rupert, s British Columbia.
Prince Rupert is a far north port only a bit south of the Alaska border.
This may have seemed like an obscure location where a mobilization
against ZIM Lines was less likely than in larger city centers, with
larger activist bases, like Oakland, Seattle or Vancouver. If so, those
hopes were quickly dashed. On June 14, only hours after being notified
of ZIM's intentions to dock in Prince Rupert, a community mobilization
set up pickets at the entrance to the city's Fairview container
terminal.
To their credit, unionized longshore workers refused to cross the
community picket lines. This foiled the ZIM efforts as International
Longshore Workers Union local 505 members are required to tie down and
unload all ships that stop at the terminal. This is the power of worker
organizing on a class basis--a strength that community protests and
pickets alone do not have and which secure power only through the
participation of the workers who withdraw their labor. The Prince Rupert
Port Authority later confirmed that the Volans would not be unloading in
Prince Rupert,
The International Dockworkers Council released a statement commending
local 505: "We would like to express our solidarity with the comrades
who choose not to cross the picket line to defend such a noble cause."
To be sure, the power of a picket line is realized only when all workers
respect it and hold to the spirit of "Nobody in and nobody out."
I participated in a relatively smaller action at the Port of Vancouver
in early June. At that action, we blocked a main entry to the port for
several hours. A ZIM ship stops in Vancouver roughly every month. There
is also a ZIM office in downtown Vancouver. That action showed the
weakness of relative isolation from dock workers themselves. While some
individual dock workers participated, and some truckers showed support
and turned away, there was no organized collective participation that
could have shut the port down in the form of a strike.
Longshore workers at the port of Livorno mobilized against the Israeli
assault on Gaza and against weapons shipments to Israel, saying publicly
that they would refuse to offload or reload a ship destined for Israel
if it stopped at the port. The Livorno longshore workers made the
decision after getting word that their work could be contributing to the
Israeli occupation forces. The workers had been given a heads-up that
some of the containers they were scheduled to load were destined for the
port city of Ashdod in the Occupied Territories and contained weapons
and explosives.
Dock workers, organized as part of the Union Sindicale di Base (USB, one
of the rank-and-file unions in Italy), called a strike against the ZIM
ship the Asiatic Island on May 15. "The port of Livorno will not be an
accomplice in the massacre of the Palestinian people."
They had been informed of the ship by fellow workers in the Collettivo
Autonomo Lavoratori Portuali (Autonomous Port Workers Collective) in
Genoa, where there were also actions scheduled against offloading or
loading the ship.
The Asiatic Island, which flies the Singapore flag, is a standard
"feeder" (a small container ship) operating in the scheduled service of
the Israeli state-owned shipping company. Weapon Watch reports that ZIM
ships regularly load goods in the port of Genoa.
Weapon Watch, a Genoa-based organization that monitors weapons shipments
through European and Mediterranean ports,
had issued a public statement regarding the ship, reporting that it was
loaded with high-precision rockets. The ship began its journey
in Marseilles, France, and was bound for Genoa before proceeding to
Livorno and Naples. The ship was ultimately slated to deliver its
shipments to the Israeli ports of Ashdod and Haifa. Weapon Watch claimed
that the loading occurred without the ship docking in the "Dangerous
Goods Zone," as required by law.
USB released a statement denouncing the weapons shipping operation and
demanding that the Port Authority, harbormaster and border authorities
inspect the ship's cargo, along with the reported dozens of armored
military vehicles that were allegedly slated to be loaded while the ship
was in the harbor. Further investigation by union members found that no
military materials would have been loaded onto the ship had it called at
Livorno, but they still sought public clarification and confirmation
from the government whether authorization for the ship's cargo had been
granted. They also insisted that all military shipments to Israel be
ceased.
In Naples, the final Italian port of call for the Asiatic Island, dock
workers (members of the SI Cobas rank-and-file union) organized a march
of thousands of people to the port. They issued a statement in
solidarity with struggles against the transport of weapons. They also
denounced the complicity of virtually every political party in Italy's
parliament with the Israeli state's aggressions against Palestinians.
In June, dock workers in Italy again decided to strike against a ship
scheduled to dock at the Port of Ravenna, because of the likelihood that
weapons would be loaded for transport to the Port of Ashdod in Israel. A
statement by the workers asserted: "Workers felt moral responsibility
and refused to be accomplices in this tragic conflict." The strike was
effective, as the shipping firm decided to abandon the shipment.
At the end of May over 10,000 people marched on the Durban Esplanade and
the port in Durban, South Africa, in solidarity with Palestinians and
against the docking of a ZIM Lines ship in the port. This followed a
smaller march a few days before. In addition to members of the union
federations Cosatu and the South African Federation of Trade Unions,
participating groups included members of shack dwellers' movement
Abahlali base Mjondolo and the South Durban Community Environmental
Alliance. Marchers called on state-owned Transnet to refuse to allow
Israeli cargo ships to dock in South Africa's ports.
Thapelo Mohapi, the Abahlali base Mjondolo general secretary, spoke of
connections between his organization's struggles and the struggle of the
Palestinians. He noted that his members are often on the receiving end
of brutality deployed by the Thekwini municipality during forced
evictions:
We resonate with what is happening in Palestine because we are also
facing persecution. We believe in international solidarity. We want to
put to the end of the brutality that is happening in Palestine,...the
murder that is happening...must come to an end. The blood of Palestine
is our blood. Edwin Mkhize, secretary of Cosatu KwaZulu-Natal, expressed
the union's desire to pressure Transnet and the South African government
to stop permitting Israeli goods and ships to enter the country:
We have instructed our union members not to offload the cargo from
Israel. We want to impose the same sanctions against Israel so that it
will not continue with its apartheid policies against the people of
Palestine. We want to force the Transnet not to allow Israel cargo
vessels into our harbor. We want to tell our government not to only
condemn Israeli aggressive actions against the defenseless people of
Palestine. They must take action.
Another union, the Democratized Transport Logistics and Allied Workers'
Union, affiliated with the South African Federation of Trade Unions,
also instructed their members not to load or transport cargo from any
Israeli-registered ship. The South African Transport and Allied Workers
Union also took part in blocking the port entrance in what it described
as actions against "Transnet-facilitated Israeli imports."
Shabir Omar, a Durban-based academic and Palestine solidarity activist
who participated in the march and picket at the dock, put it in these
terms:
The dock workers have taken a stand that they are not going to offload
the cargo carried by an Israeli ship. We admire the courage of dockside
workers, we admire their stand, we thank them because they are prepared
to sacrifice so that people in other parts of the world can be freed.
Despite the actions of many workers, and some unions, there was not full
support among dock unions and the ship in question was reportedly
offloaded and reloaded. Anele Kiet, the deputy general secretary of the
South African Transport and Allied Workers Union, expressed deep
disappointment that not all unions supported the withdrawal of labor and
did not support their members in refusing to offload the ship:
Our workers fulfilled our commitment to stand with the suffering people
of Palestine by refusing to offload this ship. We have also committed
ourselves not to touch any ship from Israel. Remember that Satawu is not
the only union that organizes in the harbor, there are other unions like
the Retusa [Revolutionary Transport Union of South Africa] and others,
who unfortunately didn't heed our call and allowed their members to join
contract workers in unloading this ship. We will engage these sister
unions so that they will understand why we have taken this stance and
join us in the future in refusing to service cargo ships from Israel or
accept any goods from that country.
Workers in South Africa obviously have significant experiences in
intense strike actions against the brutal force wielded by the state and
capital. Dock workers in Durban have their own longstanding history of
strikes in solidarity with working class movements globally, having
organized strikes on five occasions in the space of 11 years in the
fifties: 1949, 1954, 1956, 1958 and 1959. In the 1930s, dock workers
refused to load meat for Ethiopia following the fascist invasion. That
history continues to the present. In the words of historian David
Hemson:
The popular 1973 Durban general strike was triggered by a strike by dock
workers in September 1972. There were to be many others during
apartheid. Even after apartheid, dock workers refused to offload cargo
in solidarity with their counterparts in Australia and California, who
were striking in protest of privatization.
The May actions are by no means the first against ZIM Lines in South
Africa. In February 2009, SATAWU members, also in Durban, refused to
offload a Zim Lines ship in protest against the 2008-2009 Israeli attack
on Gaza.
South African workers obviously also recognize apartheid when they see
it, and many have made connections between their own experiences and
histories under apartheid and the situation of Israeli state occupation
and annexation in Palestine. As Na'eem Jeenah of the BDS Coalition of
South Africa puts it:
As South Africans, we know apartheid when we see it. When we look at
what is happening in Palestine now, it reminds us of what happened
during our apartheid past. Apartheid is an apartheid state. The reality
is that anyone that talks about a two-state solution today is talking
about a sovereign state of Israel and a Bantustan called the State of
Palestine. There is no possibility of a viable Palestinian State. The
only solution is a single democratic state that will accommodate both
the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Solidarity strikes and boycotts were, of course, key elements in the
international campaign against apartheid, and collective working class
organizing played central parts, refusing to handle shipments to or from
South Africa.
Strikes by dock workers and blockades of ports are significant
mobilizations of class solidarity. At the same time, they can actually
stop the movement of weapons to states and impede the carrying out of
invasions and massacres, rather than simply making moral appeals for
states to stop the aggressions that are at the heart of state
operations. They can also impact the profit drive of arms manufacturing
capital and statist arms dealers, whether Israel or England, the United
States or Canada.
Beyond the specific strike and blockade actions, there is the important
work of working class solidarity and relationship building across
national borders. These are building blocks of working class
internationalism, anti-imperialism, and class-wide organizing.
The conflicted responses in Durban show the necessity of autonomous,
rank-and-file organizing on an industrial (industry-wide) syndicalist
basis rather than the divided and divisive approach of trade unionism,
which organizes only on the limited basis of job types or specific
workplaces or contracts.
Trade unions operate too on the basis of hierarchical bureaucratic
models, "business unionism," in which union executives and officers
focus on "collective bargaining" (often not collective in any but
representational terms) with management in which the role of union
apparatuses becomes management of a contract and typically involves
disciplining of workers who might seek to organize outside of or beyond
the contract. Trade union contracts often include prohibitions against
wildcat strikes and solidarity strikes as one show of their commitment
to the contract with management and their own managerial role over
worker members.