Dockworkers Strike Across 113 Ports in 22 Countries Over Arms Shipments and Seafarer Deaths
Dockworkers went on strike across Europe and beyond on October 30, disrupting shipping and ferries as they protested against the use of their ports for arms shipments and the number of seafarers killed in wars from the Gulf to the Black Sea, Reuters reported.
Strikers across 113 ports in 22 countries also called for pay rises, better working conditions and the right to have doctors on board vessels crossing war zones. More than 25 unions backed the strike originally called in Italy, France, Greece, Spain's Basque Country, Turkey and Morocco; on Friday it covered major hubs including Piraeus, Valencia, Le Havre, Algeciras and Genoa, as well as Morocco's Tangier Med and India's Nhava Sheva.
The Greek seafarers' union PENEN said seafarers have suffered casualties numbering in the hundreds, including the dead and the severely injured: 28 attacks on vessels in the Gulf in the first 21 days of October, a record since the start of the Iran war, and 570 confirmed attacks in the Black Sea so far this year, leaving 40 seafarers dead and hundreds wounded.
In Piraeus, cargo operations were disrupted and ferry services to Greek islands suspended as about 3,000 dockworkers and seafarers joined the walkout. Indian union representatives said about 15 Indian seafarers had died as a result of the Iran war. A group called No Harbour for Genocide said the protest would halt some 52,000 containers and snarl cargo worth $2.8 billion, a figure Reuters was not able to independently verify. In May 2026, dockworkers' unions from over 35 European countries published the Istanbul Declaration demanding that port facilities not be used to transport weapons destined for war zones.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 照片：希腊比雷埃夫斯港，Jean Housen 摄，Wikimedia Commons，CC BY-SA 4.0 授权 / Photo: Port of Piraeus, Greece, by Jean Housen, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
