On 30 October, one hundred ports across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas are expected to come to a standstill during a coordinated strike, sending the hopeful message that “workers have the power”!
This is a major internationalist initiative that takes the torch from the previous International Day of Action on 6 February, when dockworkers protested: “We do not work for war! Ports for the people and for peace - not bases for imperialists.”
In Greece, alongside the dockworkers at Piers II and III in Piraeus, seamen and workers in the ship repair Zone, at other shipyards, and at metal factories have decided to join the strike. Initiatives will unfold on the same day in even more sectors and workplaces in both the private and public sectors.
This struggle wil be uniting:
- those who operate the gantry cranes. Who load millions of metric tons of goods, and now business groups are demanding that they “load” raw materials, weapons, and ammunition for the war;
- the seamen, who set ships in motion all over the world, and today shipowners are sending them to war zones for their own profit, forcing them to sign documents stating that they are putting their lives at risk at their own responsibility;
- workers who build ships and set the machinery of the metal industry in action. With the shift to a war economy, they are witnessing employers seizing yet another opportunity to demand that workers work without complaint, intensifying exploitation for war purposes.
The Day of Action is emerging as a pivotal moment of militant intervention by the labor movement against imperialist war, the country’s involvement in it, and the transformation of critical infrastructure into links in the war chain.
But it is also a stand against the consequences for workers’ rights, income, and the lives of workers as a whole, as well as against calls for submission in the face of yet another “difficult winter” resulting from the escalation of imperialist war.
At the same time, it marks a milestone in the intensification of strikes in the coming period—for collective bargaining agreements with pay rises, for health and safety measures, and for stable, reduced working hours. Against all those measures that—as evidenced by the new budget—militarize the lives of the working class, dictate every aspect of their work and lives, and rightly provoke widespread discontent with the government's policies and those of the other parties.
On 30 October, workers from many different countries, whom the bourgeoisie has targeted for the division of imperialist spoils, will join the same struggle.
Among them will be Greek dockworkers and their Turkish colleagues, sending the message that the homeland of workers and the people has no common interests with that of the exploiters, who drag them into the fires of competition and war.
This day of major international action provides an answer to the question “what can we do?”: It demonstrates that workers find their strength when they take to the streets to oppose the aggressive plans of the bourgeoisie. The conflict with capital and its strategic choices in every country is being decided today — and every day — as is the organisation of the workers' and people's counteroffensive and the path towards overthrowing the rotten system of exploitation and war.
- Republished from the column, “Our Viewpoint”, Rizospastis, Wednesday, 7 October 2026