Were Pisa workers right to block weapons for Ukraine?

The Italian union USB (Unione Sindacale di Base, Grassroots Workers’ Union) says that its members at Galileo Galilei airport in Pisa have refused to load weapons for Ukraine.

The union has called for air traffic control workers to also participate in blocking the shipment of weapons, and for a demonstration at the airport.

It says the workers were lied to about what was in the cargo, told it was humanitarian aid. What is positive is the workers’ militancy, their willingness to use industrial action as a political weapon and their exercising of distrustful oversight and controls over the actions of their bosses and the state. I've also been told there is a more general practice of unions in Italy blocking the shipment of weapons on anti-militarist grounds. Still, unless we’ve misunderstood something, the action was wrong.

USB says:

“These planes land first in US / NATO bases in Poland, then the cargoes are sent to Ukraine, where they are finally bombed by the Russian army, resulting the death of other workers, employed in the bases affected by the attacks.”

As if Russian bombing is a result of the Ukrainians having weapons - except in the sense that if they were completely disarmed the Russian army would conquer the country very quickly…

Unfortunately other comment by this union on the Ukraine-Russia conflict suggests this statement was disingenuous rather than just confused. Three days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine the USB International Department put out this condemning Ukraine and the Western powers and supporting the Russian nationalist forces in eastern Ukraine. USB is affiliated to the Stalinist World Federation of Trade Unions, which also includes the state labour fronts in China and Syria.

Of course this does not mean all the workers who took part in the action, perhaps for a range of reasons, share that viewpoint. But it is surely relevant.

UK and West Coast US dockers have refused to unload Russian state-linked cargo in solidarity with Ukraine. Politically that is actually the opposite of the Pisa action.

So is the action which Italian dockers have rightly taken in the recent past against the shipment of weapons to Saudi Arabia (because of the war in Yemen) and Israel (because of the bombing of Gaza). Stopping weapons for an oppressor state and weapons for one engaged in legitimate self-defence against a much stronger invader is not the same!

The UK SWP - which as far as I can see has mentioned actions by dockers here against the entry of Russian fossil fuels only in passing - has hailed the Pisa action, as part of its wider opposition to weapons for Ukraine.

In his 1938 article “Learn to think”, Leon Trotsky wrote:

“Let us assume that rebellion breaks out tomorrow in the French colony of Algeria under the banner of national independence and that the Italian government, motivated by its own imperialist interests, prepares to send weapons to the rebels. What should the attitude of the Italian workers be in this case? I have purposely taken an example of rebellion against a democratic imperialism with intervention on the side of the rebels from a fascist imperialism. Should the Italian workers prevent the shipping of arms to the Algerians? Let any ultra-leftists dare answer this question in the affirmative. Every revolutionist, together with the Italian workers and the rebellious Algerians, would spurn such an answer with indignation. Even if a general maritime strike broke out in fascist Italy at the same time, even in this case the strikers should make an exception in favor of those ships carrying aid to the colonial slaves in revolt; otherwise they would be no more than wretched trade unionists – not proletarian revolutionists.

"At the same time, the French maritime workers, even though not faced with any strike whatsoever, would be compelled to exert every effort to block the shipment of ammunition intended for use against the rebels. Only such a policy on the part of the Italian and French workers constitutes the policy of revolutionary internationalism.

"Does this not signify, however, that the Italian workers moderate their struggle in this case against the fascist regime? Not in the slightest. Fascism renders 'aid' to the Algerians only in order to weaken its enemy, France... The revolutionary Italian workers do not forget this for a single moment. They call upon the Algerians not to trust their treacherous 'ally' and at the same time continue their own irreconcilable struggle against fascism, 'the main enemy in their own country'. Only in this way can they gain the confidence of the rebels, help the rebellion and strengthen their own revolutionary position."