Dockers: Don’t Work for War!

This model motion is reproduced from TheCommunists.org, with thanks.

Note to trade unionists: The following text has been compiled to help you frame a motion on this topic to your union branch or annual congress. Feel free to take as much or as little as you deem suitable, depending on the rules operating in your organisation, and to choose from or adapt the final demands depending on the sector in which you work. Remember that any points you leave out of the motion itself can always be brought into your speech in support of the motion.

This [conference]* notes that dockworkers across the continent, including France, Greece, Italy and other countries have been organising strikes, protests and blockades to prevent arms and military equipment destined for Israel to be loaded onto container ships. The dockworkers are actively responding to the actions of their own governments, which have been complicit not only in the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza, but in imperialist wars around the world. 

This [conference] applauds the actions of these brave and principled workers, who serve as an example and inspiration to us all and demonstrate clearly that worker militancy does endure within the wider trade union movement.

However, this [conference] notes that, despite Britain being a nation with huge ports the length and breadth of this land, our dockworkers await the call to action from the trade unions which claim to organise them. 

In fact, the consensus view amongst the bureaucracies of British trade unions, as evidenced by motions carried at TUC and trade union conferences over the last few years, is that the British government should be spending more public money on arms and military equipment! But any increase in spending will only continue to feed the imperialist war machine: it can only serve the purpose it has always served, which is to buttress British aggression abroad and inflict perpetual suffering on innocent people across the world.

Moreover, a stronger British capitalist class is not in the interests of British workers. The wealth that is obtained through wars for plunder abroad is what enables them to wield such enormous power against the working class here at home, pushing down our pay and conditions, privatising our public services and coopting too many of our leaders.

This [conference] believes that dockworkers occupy a vital place in the mechanism of production. They have their hands directly on the levers of economic power and, in an epoch of ‘just in time’ logistics, can inflict real damage on the capitalist class and their profits.

This [conference] further believes that the above-mentioned examples of dockworker action in Europe show us all that the first and best defence against the machinations of our savage, bloodthirsty ruling class is an organised and militant working class. If trade unions bureaucracies choose to defend our class enemies, then we will be left with no choice but to organise ourselves.

This [conference] therefore resolves to:

1. Convey the terms of this motion to [insert union body here], and
2. Call on members to visit ports across the country, reach out to dockworkers, explain what dockworkers across Europe have been able to achieve and spread the message that wherever they work, they can and must halt the imperialist war machine.

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* Change as required: eg, branch, meeting, union etc.