Action at the Port of Genoa against rearmament and genocide

By SI Cobas-Italy

The report below, which is slightly edited, is from the Italian union SI Cobas.

[There were] a paralyzed port, traffic jams, enormous damage and delays for shipowners and terminal operators — a day of struggle that points the way for class opposition to rearmament and a war economy. 

On June 25, the port gates San Benigno, Albertazzi, Etiopia and Lungomare Canepa in Genoa — Italy’s most important port — were simultaneously blocked for almost 10 hours with endless queues of lorries. Meanwhile hundreds of other people headed towards Terminal Messina (de facto blocked by the anti-riot police trucks), completely paralyzing the already jammed traffic.  

A resolute procession crossed the Sampierdarena and Cornigliano city districts and then expressed all its justified anger outside the offices of Leonardo SPA, the main Italian arms manufacturer.

This initiative succeeded in causing real damage to the bosses directly responsible for supporting Israel’s genocidal apparatus, the owners of the ships that transport death between Genoa and the ports of Haifa and Ashdod [in Israel], and the terminal owners who called for and supported Italian military intervention in the Red Sea.

Along with the GPIs (the Young Palestinians’ association), the Arab and Palestinian communities, the dockworkers, the students who have animated the encampments and university occupations in recent weeks and the hundreds of other anti-militarist and anti-capitalist comrades present, there were also many SI Cobas logistics workers on strike on June 25 for the renewal of the National Contract.

While other warehouses throughout Italy were being picketed and in Naples the demonstrators pushed their way into the police-guarded City Council, in solidarity with the workers of the Thermal Spa, who have been without pay for months, it was important that a strong working-class component also participated in the Genoa initiative.

The Genoa action linked the workplace struggle to the opposition to imperialist wars, from Ukraine to the Middle East, and to the [right-wing Giorgia] Meloni government, the expression of a concentric and relentless attack on the proletariat and on the viability of social struggles. SI Cobas delegations came to Genoa from Turin, Milan, Pavia, Modena, Bologna, Rome and Naples.  Members of the November 7 Unemployed Movement from Naples also joined. 

When we say that “the enemy is at home” or that “the war starts here,” we mean that the war must be sabotaged, which consists of acting concretely — attacking the profits of the Italian bosses and blocking the neuralgic centers of production and logistics in our country. 

Yesterday’s successful initiative in Genoa is not meant to remain in the annals of the movement, but must become a practical indication of battle and hard, determined struggle.

At a brisk pace, forward!

SI Cobas-Italy