Italian Workers' General Strike in Support of Flotilla

The Unione Sindacale di Base (USB), an Italian trade union with some 250,000 members in both the public and private sectors, organized mass actions in Italy in support of the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF), including a general strike on May 18. Demonstrations were held in multiple cities, including Rome, where protesters gathered at Piazza Cinquecento. Many displayed Palestinian flags and demanded that the Italian government reduce or end its complicity with Israel. Protesters repeatedly chanted slogans calling for a Free Palestine!. Transport was disrupted across the country. In Rome, one metro line was suspended, while in Naples, service on a metro line was halted. In Milan, some suburban rail services were also affected, and port workers in Livorno carried out industrial action.

In their call for the general strike issued on May 14 as the GSF set sail from Marmaris, Türkiye, the union said:

"The 300 activists who have decided to risk their own safety to denounce Israel's barbarity and come to the aid of the Palestinian people have set aside all reservations: the voyage to Gaza is resuming. There has been no shortage of attempts in recent days to dissuade them and make them turn back. Israel tried, with the illegal arrest of Thiago and Saif, the beating of many of their comrades, and the disabling of several boats left adrift, with crews on board and the sea in a storm. Then various European governments tried, starting with the Greek government, which demonstrated full complicity with Tel Aviv by failing to exercise any sovereignty over waters far removed from the Israeli coast.

"Yesterday, May 12, the European Union made it known that the Flotilla will not enjoy any protection on its voyage to Gaza: this is nothing new, it has already happened on previous occasions, but stating it explicitly has a certain impact.

"The Italian government remains silent, or rather reveals itself to be pro-European, in the sense of falling in line with other countries that are failing to defend their citizens who are courageously setting out simply to uphold the rights of a people, to bring aid, and to denounce the unbearable daily horror emerging from the rubble of Gaza and much of Palestine and Lebanon.

"The only ones lending a hand to this group of brave souls are the people themselves, the workers, the 'Gaza generation' or the 'people of autumn,' whatever one chooses to call them.

"The general strike serves this very purpose: to allow this world to make itself heard once more and to act as a ground crew to propel those boats forward -- the boats of hope, the boats of humanity."

The statement addresses the struggles Italian workers are waging which "speak to a state of working life in Italy that is under constant attack in terms of rights, wages and organizational structures." It says that the general strike "should give voice to these causes, which are once again fuelling a social conflict for which there is a great need. But this general strike also speaks to us, above all, of the desire to put a stop to barbarism and to force the Meloni government to sever ties with a terrorist state.

"It is a strike to tell our brothers and sisters on the Flotilla: we are here, you are not alone, and we will do everything we can to protect you.

"It is a strike to support the trampled rights of the Palestinians and to assert their sacrosanct right to live in peace on their land.

"It is a strike against rearmament and the many aggressions against peoples that this rearmament supports; it is part of the constant and concrete initiatives such as the strike against arms, conscientious objection and the international mobilizations that USB has been carrying out for months."