Dockworkers Strike at 100+ Ports: How Much Will Global Trade Be Disrupted?

FTZ News:  Dockworkers walked off the job Friday at more than 100 ports across Europe, the Mediterranean and North America, part of a coordinated protest against the shipment of military cargo and in support of better pay and safety for seafarers.

Unions in France, Italy, Greece, Spain, Türkiye and Morocco issued the joint call. Their statement was blunt: "Ports must not be used for the transport of weapons, ammunition, military equipment and troops. Dockworkers do not work for war." At Piraeus, Greece's largest port, roughly 3,000 dockworkers and seafarers joined the walkout, according to Reuters. A separate 24-hour seafarers' strike over pay and working conditions kept ferries docked, cutting off service to the Greek islands for the day. "We don't want to participate in any war, all around the world," said Giorgos Gogos, president of the Dockworkers Union of the Piraeus Port Authority."We don't want our ports to be hubs of military material, transferred so as to kill people." A campaign group called No Harbour for Genocide, which has been pushing to block military cargo bound for Israeli ports, said the action would hold up roughly 52,000 containers and disrupt cargo worth $2.8 billion.

The union coalition behind Friday's strike traces back to a general assembly vote on September 29 by ENEDEP, the dockworkers' union covering Piers II and III at Piraeus. Its president, Markos Bekris, has argued that handling military cargo puts the port and its workers in the path of war. The union also held a one-day stoppage on October 25 in memory of Dimitris Daglis, a dockworker killed on the job in 2021. France's CGT ports and docks federation called a strike at Le Havre, Marseille, Dunkirk and Rouen, framing it as a rejection of port militarization under European policy — and tying it to separate anger over the French government's budget proposals, which the union says would weaken social protections.

In Italy, the USB labor federation folded port protests into a broader nationwide general strike, with demonstrations planned at Genoa, Trieste and Gioia Tauro. In Istanbul, protesters gathered outside Haydarpasa port demanding an end to shipments bound for Israel. How much of this actually slows global trade is harder to say. Marcus Baker, who heads marine, cargo and logistics at the insurance broker Marsh, said a one-day strike is unlikely to dent global trade in any lasting way, though perishable and time-sensitive cargo could feel it.

Judah Levine, head of research at the shipping marketplace Freightos, pointed to Genoa specifically — ships there are already waiting one to two days for a berth, and the strike could push that further.

Ed Anderson, who teaches supply chain management at the University of Texas's McCombs School of Business, put it more simply: a single day of action isn't enough, on its own, to cause shortages. Friday's action builds on a smaller coordinated strike that unions organized on February 6./.