Dockworkers across Europe and beyond went on strike on Friday, disrupting cargo operations and ferry services in a coordinated protest against the use of civilian ports for arms shipments and against the toll of war on seafarers.
Strikers at 113 ports in 22 countries also pressed for higher pay, better working conditions and the right to have doctors on board ships crossing war zones, according to Reuters. The action was backed by more than 25 unions, after originally being called in Italy, France, Greece, Spain’s Basque Country, Turkey and Morocco.
The walkout covered major shipping hubs including Piraeus, Valencia, Le Havre, Algeciras and Genoa, as well as Morocco’s Tangier Med and India’s Nhava Sheva. In Piraeus, cargo operations were disrupted and ferry services to the Greek islands were suspended, with about 3,000 dockworkers and seafarers joining the protest.
At a rally in Piraeus, Apostolos Kypraios, head of the Greek union of merchant marine engineers, told Reuters: “We will not work for their wars, and we will not become food for their cannons.” He said seafarers and their families lived with the anxiety of whether a colleague would get home.
The Greek seafarers’ union PENEN said seafarers had suffered casualties numbering in the hundreds, including the dead and the severely injured. It said there had been 28 attacks on vessels in the Gulf in the first 21 days of October, a record since the start of the Iran war, and 570 confirmed attacks in the Black Sea so far this year, leaving 40 seafarers dead and hundreds wounded. A series of strikes in the western Black Sea has raised concerns about the widening scope of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Representatives of India’s WTWFI union said about 15 Indian seafarers had died as a result of the Iran war, with many more stranded at sea as waterways were blocked.
A group of dockworkers and activists called ‘No Harbour for Genocide’, which campaigns to stop military cargo reaching Israeli ports, said the protest would halt some 52,000 containers and snarl cargo worth $2.8 billion. Reuters said it was not able to independently verify that impact figure, and this article flags it as unverified.
The protest follows the Istanbul Declaration published in May 2026 by dockworkers’ unions from more than 35 European countries, demanding that port facilities not be used to transport weapons destined for war zones. Dockworkers also pointed to the rising cost of essential goods and energy linked to the conflicts, with the head of the Piraeus port dockworkers’ union saying many workers could barely afford fuel to get to the supermarket.
Note on sourcing: this report is based on a single Reuters article; the casualty and attack figures are attributed to the unions named, and the 52,000-container impact claim is unverified by Reuters.
Sources: Reuters, “Dockworkers strike in Europe and beyond against arms shipments, war deaths”, https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/dockworkers-strike-in-europe-beyond-against-arms-shipments-war-deaths-2026-10-30/
