After an initial offensive against a ship of the British shipping company Borchard Lines, the Genoese dockworkers organized with the Calp and the Usb union have targeted the Israeli shipping company Zim “by preventing the loading of the ship Zim New Zealand with war material bound for Israel, occupying the Spinelli Terminal (Genoa Port Terminal, ed.) and immediately proclaiming a strike.” This was communicated by the Usb union itself, announcing that in the late evening of Saturday the ship in question “left the port without having loaded the containers. In Genoa, there is no space for arms trafficking, there is no space for complicity with the genocidal government of Israel.”
A few hours later, a note from the same union returned to the matter, specifying that “on the evening of September 27, the Calp dockworkers were notified by the workers on shift that, at that very moment, the Zim New Zealand, a ship of the Israeli company Zim with ten suspicious containers on board, was moored at the Spinelli terminal. Faced with this report, the dockworkers – together with a part of the city – chose to enter the port to prevent the loading of the ship, while an increasing number of people moved in solidarity towards the Varco Etiopia gate. Usb immediately proclaimed a 24-hour strike starting at 9:30 PM at the terminal, to guarantee the workers the possibility to abstain from every loading and unloading operation potentially connected to arms trafficking.”
A few hours later, “thanks to the strength of the mobilization and the massive presence of workers, students, and supportive citizens, the ship was ordered to leave the dock immediately.” The Usb communication adds: “Initiatives in Italian ports against Israeli goods are multiplying. It is time for it to become a common slogan: immediate embargo on all goods bound for or coming from Israel, blockade of Israeli ships in our ports.”
During the course of Sunday, however, the ship Zim New Zealand then entered the port but “to only perform unloading operations of about 150 containers and will not perform any loading before leaving the port of Genoa,” the Calp reported. “We are monitoring the situation – they added, asking – everyone to remain alert, in case we receive different information and in case it becomes necessary to move towards the Varco Etiopia gate. This ship must not load anything for Israel.”
From the Ligurian capital, the protest by the same grassroots union spread to Tuscany, to Livorno, where the ship Zim Virginia is expected to dock at the Terminal Darsena Toscana on the night of Monday, September 29.
“The Usb Rsu of Alp (the Livorno Port Labor Agency, ed.), together with the Usb secretariat, is ready to declare a strike even if the workers of article 17 should be assigned to that ship. It is unthinkable – states a note – in this dramatic moment, when the population of Gaza is under attack and exhausted by hunger, and while our brothers and sisters on the Global Sumud Flottilla are constantly threatened, to even think of working a ship of the Israeli shipping company. It is not only a matter of conscience but also a political message we want to send.”
