In 1984, while the global struggle against apartheid burned hot, union dockworkers in San Francisco refused to unload South African cargo to demonstrate their hostility to a white supremacist, fascist regime. In so doing they reaffirmed what Harry Bridges, the first president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), asserted when asked about what role organized workers should play in world affairs: “Interfere with the foreign policy of the country? Sure as hell! That’s our job, that’s our privilege, that’s our right, that’s our duty.”
Few workers believe that they have sufficient power to express political opinions at work, let alone insert themselves into global affairs by downing their tools. And yet, as revolutionary unionist “Big” Bill Haywood reminded, “If the workers are organized, all they have to do is to put their hands in their pockets and they have got the capitalist class whipped.”
Starting in 2023, the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) called on workers and unions to “Stop Arming Israel.” In 2025, the PGFTU asked international workers to “organize days of rage and global solidarity in factories and workshops, in ports and airports, in the streets and public squares, in support of Palestine and its brave people.”
