As a humanitarian disaster ravages Gaza, activists around the world have taken a wide range of actions aimed at pressuring Israel, from mass marches and “die-ins” to blockades and sit-ins. Unions have also ramped up solidarity actions in a range of sectors. While the scale of these actions is unprecedented, they follow on the heels of years of organizing and education campaigns by rank-and-file labor activists.

Among the most celebrated labor actions have been those launched by dockworkers in a number of countries — including the United States, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Italy, South Africa, Belgium, and Tunisia — who have refused to load Israeli ships and cargo and transport arms to Israel. In the United States, major actions took place in 2014 and 2021 under the banner of “Block the Boat,” organized by the San Francisco–based Arab Resource and Organizing Center.

Katy Fox-Hodess and Rafeef Ziadah have been researching port-based pro-Palestine actions since 2019. In this interview, conducted by labor historian Peter Cole, they discuss the key lessons for pro-Palestine organizers seeking to work alongside and within the trade union movement (you can find information on both here and here). Understanding these lessons is particularly important given the severity of the crisis in Gaza and Palestinian trade unions’ recent call to workers around the world to prevent the manufacture and transportation of arms to Israel.