Voiceover

Welcome to the recording of the Mask Off Maersk Melbourne Mass Meeting, hosted by Free Palestine Coalition Naarm and Unionists for Palestine. This conversation took place on the 21st of December 2024, with Tasnim, of Free Palestine Coalition Naarm, Jeanine, of Palestinian Youth Movement Britain, and Celine, of Palestinian Youth Movement Los Angeles.

Tasnim

Today, the goal is to basically start launching the so-called Melbourne Campaign in relation to this logistics company. And the campaign has been launched by Palestinian Youth Movement, and this is happening globally because PYM has chapters across different locations in the West. So we thought we would hear from Jeanine and Celine about the campaign. I'm not sure how to pronounce it. Is it Maersk or … how do you say it? It's a great question because we spent a really long time figuring that out too. Maersk?

Celine

Still not sure … (Cross-talk)

Tasnim

Yeah, that shows you how much I'm in that industry. But yeah, that's part of why we wanted this to be an open campaign and a mass meeting as well, because the goal is to localise it, but also to bring people in the room who have knowledge of the industry, who are able to really bring that campaign forward through union and through mass action. And of course, as Palestinians or people from the region, but also as local organisers, we can make our contributions across sectors.

So there's skill sets that are required from everybody. Like for example, I'm more of a writer, so I can contribute in that way, even though I don't have knowledge of this particular industry. And so even if yourself here who's attending this meeting, you don't know much about what this company is involved in. There's lots for all of us to do as a combined effort to hopefully get this going. But yeah, I'll hand over to Jeanine and Celine. So if you both want to introduce yourselves and then just tell us about what you've been doing, why this is important, what the strategy has been so far. And yeah, I'd love to hear from and learn from you.

Jeanine

Cool. I can increase myself and hand over to Celine. And then we actually have like a bit of a presentation so we can go through that if people are keen to see it. So my name is Jeanine. I am currently based in London. I'm part of PYM Britain. I am Palestinian Lebanese and actually lived in Nam for 10 years. I left three years ago, so it's good to be back speaking to some organisers there. And yeah, good to be reconnected with Tasnim as well. Me and Celine both sit on Mask Off Maersk steering internationally. 

So we've been meeting with different groups from there's five of us, but we've been meeting with different groups from all over. We've been connected to youth in Denmark and France and Spain and Norway and all over. So it's really exciting to be meeting with you all. Do you want to introduce yourself Celine?

Celine

Yeah, hey everyone. My name is Celine. I'm based in Los Angeles. Also a member of the Palestinian youth movement. And I'm also on the campaign steering with Jeanine. And happy to meet you all.

Jeanine

Okay, cool. I might share my screen. Cool. So yeah, like the purpose of this presentation that's not that long is just to introduce the Mask Off Maersk campaign and talk a bit about why we decided to launch this campaign. So the presentation is kind of divided into four parts. The first is kind of what is the PYM just for those that might not know and why we decided to add to this campaign. The second is we'll talk about kind of the high level strategy. The third thing we'll talk about is like the front of the campaign. 

So like Tasnim mentioned, there's different sectors and different ways that different people can be and get involved in the campaign. And then the fourth, we'll just talk about give like a little case study about some recent campaign updates and developments, hopefully to get people kind of really excited and pumped to drive this campaign forward. 

So just for those that don't know, the Palestinian Youth Movement is the largest organisation of Palestinian Arab youth organising for the liberation of Palestine from the far diaspora or like all the West. We organise in over 30s cities across the U.S., Canada, Britain and Italy. And the PYM was really born out of the post-Oslo moment, which really liquidated Palestinian institutions and stripped Palestinian youth of the historic role that we'd always played in our national liberation struggle.

And so the PYM exists to kind of reassume the responsibility for our national liberation struggle from within the diaspora. And we understand ourselves as not in solidarity with our siblings back home in Palestine, but actually as fighting another front line and confronting imperialism from within the belly of the beast. And so that's kind of the PYM and what we're about.

In terms of why we decided to take up this campaign, we actually made a decision that we wanted to target a logistics company before we decided specifically that Maersk was the company that we wanted to target. And this was for a few different reasons. The first one was because for the first few months of this genocide, or in the first few months of this genocide, we really were able to confirm what we all, all of us all around the world already knew, which is that the political class of Western imperialist nations will never act in the interests of the people. And so if we really want justice and liberation for the Palestinian people and to free ourselves from the chokehold of imperialism, we need to take matters into our own hands.

And so we wanted to wage a campaign that enforced what we're calling a people's arms embargo or an arms embargo from below. So by us organising around a logistics company, we're kind of forcing an arms embargo from below or a people's arms embargo. In terms of, you know, which sector then do we want to intervene in? And we started thinking about strategic sectors that would enable us to enforce a people's arms embargo. And I think the first and kind of most obvious answer was weapons manufacturers.

You know, people often think about weapons manufacturers. We've seen a lot of energy around Elbit, around Lockheed, around companies like Caterpillar. And we've seen people really energised and mobilised around weapons manufacturers. And we've seen kind of amazing campaigns being taken up by different pro-Palestinian organisations. In Britain, we have Palestine Action. And we also have workers for Free Palestine that have taken different approaches to shutting down arms factories. And we know that that's really moved our community. And our community have been really energised by, you know, this idea of shutting down arms factories and this idea of an arms embargo. 

And so we were thinking to ourselves, you know, as a transnational organisation, what links all of these different weapons manufacturers together? Because in different countries, you have different weapons manufacturers that make different parts of, for example, the F-35 fighter jet. And some way, somehow, these different components from all these different countries have to make it to the US predominantly for assembly. And then from the US, they go to the Zionist entity of Israel to genocide our people. And so what is linking, what is bringing all of these components together and enabling the supply chain to go ahead? And that is logistics companies.

These logistics companies are the ones that are making all the different components that are made in different places around the world come together to be able to make full, you know, weapons or military cargo that is then being used to genocide our people. And so the obvious answer became, okay, let's target a logistics company because logistics companies are almost like the common denominator that enable the flow of weapons.

And our early research really showed that Maersk was involved both in the transport of components to the US for assembly. So they transport, for example, the wings of the F-35 fighter jet from Italy and from India to Lockheed Martin in the US. And then they also transport complete military cargo from the US to the Zionist entity once it's been assembled. And so they're really involved in all aspects of the supply chain. Another reason we wanted to target logistics or once we decided we wanted to target logistics, we really thought about the importance of targeting a commercial logistics company.

So, you know, there are companies like ZIM, for example, that are not commercial, that mostly transit or exist pretty much to transport weapons. Maersk is a commercial logistics company. And the reason we wanted to target a commercial logistics company is because one, there are more pressure points to target a commercial company. And we'll talk a bit about this a bit later on. But secondly, because transporting weapons components and military cargo is only a small part of their business. So you're not asking them to self-combust or to self-suicide like you are the weapons manufacturer or you are like somewhere like ZIM. You're asking them to drop a part of their business that we can, as the people, can make no longer profitable for them.

So that's kind of like some of the rationale behind why we wanted to target a logistics company specifically. There's a couple of other reasons, one of them being that, you know, beyond the practicalities, there is a historical legacy of organising against logistics and achieving freedom and liberation.

So there's this collective that you might have heard of called the Maritime Unions Against Apartheid that was led by trade unions actually in so-called Australia and Denmark and in Britain. And the Maritime Unions Against Apartheid really played a critical role in the fall of apartheid South Africa by enforcing essentially an arms embargo from below, essentially enforcing an arms embargo on ships that were enabling apartheid in South Africa. And so we really wanted to build a campaign that builds on this historical legacy and this historical role of organising against logistics.

And finally, logistics is a key archive imperialism and so targeting logistics enables us to kind of raise popular consciousness on imperialism, on monopoly capitalism and think about how it's these companies that are the invisible profiteers that are making a killing out of the genocide of our people in Gaza.

So these are kind of the main reasons why we wanted to target a logistics company and a commercial logistics company specifically. In terms of why Maersk, there's really kind of like two parts to this. The first is that it's winnable and the second is that it's impactful. So in terms of it being winnable, like I mentioned in the previous slide, you know, transporting military cargo, transporting weapons components is only a small part of Maersk's business. And we can, if we place enough pressure on that part of their business and make that part of their business no longer tenable, we can pressure them to drop specifically that aspect of their business.

Maersk also takes pride in being an ethical company. You know, they say things like they want to be carbon neutral. By 2050, they have all of these philanthropic donations that they give and these philanthropic funds. They have a foundation where they, you know, give money to the arts and that sort of stuff. And so, you know, we can use this logic of Maersk priding themselves on being a kind of ethical company and use that to exert pressure to kind of see this logic through to the future … see this logic through to the end. You know, if you actually care about, you know, being an ethical, quote unquote, ethical company, ethical corporation, which we all know is actually impossible, then you can't make an exception for Palestine. You need to see this logic through to the end.

And so we really saw this as a winnable campaign where we could isolate a small part of their business, pressure them to drop that part of their business and use their own narrative and their own logic against them in winning this campaign. And the second part is that it's impactful. A lot of what we're thinking about was, you know, what is going to have logistics is a huge sector and Maersk is the industry lead. And that means that they set the industry standard. So if Maersk severs ties with genocide, this kind of signals to the entire logistics industry that doing business with Zionism and doing business with genocide is not profitable.

And this is a significant intervention in one of the key industries that we need to be able to actually create a crisis in imperialism. Right. And so it's not only winnable, but it's also impactful. And we have an ability to impact the whole logistics sector by targeting Maersk specifically. And I'll hand over to Celine to talk about the campaign strategy and the different fronts of the campaign.

Celine

Thanks, Jeanine. Yeah, so we're going to talk about like a couple of different ways we've been taking this up.

But just to explain the like just how we're thinking about the overall strategy. Our objective is to get Maersk to drop its transportation of military cargo to Israel, right? Like Maersk ties with genocide. And the way we want to do that is by making it costly on multiple levels for Maersk to be able to continue doing business with genocide through pressuring them in multiple ways. And the ways we want to have been taking this up and want to continue taking this up both on international level and on in different locales is through media through mobilisation. Through a labor strategy and also through a shareholder strategy, a legal strategy and a divestment or kind of like a municipal campaign strategy. And then we have research that is underpinning all of these different fronts of work.

So we can go through like some examples of the different fronts of the strategy. So the first is media. Here we've like our main objective here has been kind of to popularise the role that Maersk has been playing in this genocide and highlight the role that they've played both historically and today in facilitating human rights abuses.

So we've really been wanting to amplify like our campaign research and also highlight like what we've been able to achieve through this campaign. So we've been able to popularise Maersk as a broader movement target. Like for example in the US like the Palestine solidarity movement is really thinking about only a few like major targets in this period and one of them is Maersk on a broad scale.

We also have popularised our research which actually resulted in the Spanish government turning away to ships in which I think Jeanine will speak more about later. And we've also made Maersk more of a household name like in the US especially where I am like people like see it everywhere but don't really think about Maersk. And now like we've been able to make Maersk synonymous with genocide by exposing and like really consistently like explaining what their role has been. We've gotten coverage in media in North America and Spain and Turkey and the Arab world and have put enough pressure.

This is something also that's a sensitive point for Maersk. Maersk does care a lot about its image. So it's created enough pressure that Maersk has responded actually multiple times. Initially they were denying it completely and then admitted more and more as you know through different statements throughout the trajectory of the campaign so far.

So for example, because of this increasing international pressure, Maersk's head of communications actually said that the cargo question by Spanish authorities was carried out on behalf of the US government as part of the US Israel Security Cooperation Program. So that was like kind of I think the first confirmation really from Maersk around that they have been transporting cargo to Israel as part of this program that's provided $17.9 billion of US military aid on the labor front.

So here like we've been really popularising the Palestinian General Federation of trade unions position on the handling of arms destined for Israel as a Palestinian lead picket line. I'm sure you all saw but the PGF to you, yeah, which represents around 290,000 members released a statement earlier this year in September. And they kind of listed six main points as the one year anniversary of the genocide and was approaching and one of those points was an explicit call for port workers to refuse to deal with military shipments to Israel through all military ships and logistics companies, especially Maersk and ZIM.

And, you know, I think the other thing is just kind of even beyond this like we're working with any union in any sector, like regardless of which sector they're in if we can move trade labor unions to connect their demands for an arms embargo to this campaign or to kind of name Maersk. Maersk kind of offers us like a more concrete path to implementing an arms embargo because for example, our governments have not been responding to the demands of the people that we've been making in the streets for the past several months. So we're directing also this demand to Maersk to stop the transportation of military cargo. And we believe that we can enforce the people's arms embargo through that.

And so we think that actually any union in any sector could, you know, demand an arms embargo and also name Maersk in that and be directing their demand towards a more movable target. And so this will also actually kind of present the isolation of logistics unions and taking on Maersk and build up again more kind of popular consciousness around the role that Maersk is playing and how we can take it on.

We have just two examples here of just some kind of statements that have included this … one is the Housing Workers Branch of the Unite Union, which is the second largest trade union in Britain, passed a motion in solidarity with the campaign, and also the Martin Luther King Labor Council in Seattle passed a similar resolution.

We've also been using mobilisation as a tactic in a lot of ways, like we've been coordinating protests at different Maersk sites. We've been doing petitioning. We just did a like a letter hand in action at multiple in multiple cities at Maersk offices. We've been doing like phone blockades, call-ins to different corporate offices to call executives of the company to raise the demands. And on some of those calls actually like we've reached like people who work at Maersk or like on the customer service lines who were like, oh, I actually didn't know that Maersk is involved in this and like actually wanted to have some conversations about it. So we've been engaging in different types of mobilisations and we have this petition that's going to the executives of the company.

And what we've been able to achieve to is like international coordinated mobilisation and we've been doing this both where we have PYM chapters but also with with organisations that want to take up the campaign and coordination with us.

In Los Angeles, for example, we had in August, Maersk had this event here at the Port of LA they actually own. They have a terminal here at the port and the Port of LA is the largest port in the US. And they did a celebration of like their container vessel that runs on green methanol and so they were, you know, did this whole thing about how they're a green company and did this like two day event. And we had like a protest on the first day of the event and they ended up canceling the second day entirely and like actually like the ship left the port like they had the ship dock and it was supposed to stay there for a while and they just left.

And they actually got like we had we had a response from them around that so and then we also have been seeing protests in Morocco over Maersk ships carrying military cargo that ones that were actually routed from Spain that docked in Tangier. People were protesting there and we've also seen in Denmark like demonstrations that have been happening weekly ending at the Maersk headquarters because it is a Danish company and their headquarters are there. And they actually did a letter hand in just last week. And so I think it would be good maybe on this call to brainstorm potential ways that we could potentially coordinate in the future to in Australia and across Australia and maybe think about different levels of mobilisation.

But I also just want to mention like for Morocco. It's been also like, you know, the fact that Maersk is coming and docking in Tangier, and that Morocco is allowing military cargo to come in is, you know, it's it's kind of representative of the normalisation agreement that Morocco has with Israel. And so people have been protesting Maersk and as I kind of like a symbol of the normalisation agreement. And so like this is kind of like we're kind of been building this like anti normalisation current again and like really reviving popular protests around Palestine in the streets and we also saw protests in Tunisia recently as well.

And finally, like we are also are also pursuing a shareholder legal and divestment strategy so we're, we are connected to a sympathetic shareholder, and we're looking into avenues to move on a shareholder resolution strategy at the next general meeting. And we're also pursuing a legal strategy right so like we actually submitted a report on Maersk to Francesca Albanese’s office in the United Nations.

We also saw that the Spanish government filed a lawsuit against Maersk and has been, they just had press conferences this past week, segment of the, these politicians that put out this lawsuit to also push back against. And I'm sure you all saw the US is investigating Spain and threatening to find them because they turned away these ships and so now there's a battle around that and then a divestment strategy so we know that, you know, cities that different institutions have investments and or contracts with Maersk and so we're also want to pursue like a divestment strategy around that.

We're also going to see Maersk included on the BDS list as a target, and that can be another avenue for local resolutions for more trade union resolutions, and more avenues for us for government pressure in general. And maybe we can brainstorm like local pressure points, but maybe I'll pass it to you Jeanine to talk about the case study and we can come back to that.

Jeanine

I think like something will be good for us to think about at the end, maybe, is like along these four fronts. So I mean shareholder legal divestment are kind of three but like shareholder legal divestment around mobilisations around media and around labor like what are some of the pressure points that exist and how what it might look like to to localise the campaign.

So I'm just going to quickly like run us through a case study of like a recent campaign win. And this also kind of hopefully will show how how research and doing good research enables and opens a lot of doors for other fronts of the campaign to be opened up so on the fourth of November.

So a couple of … last month, we released a research report. We've since released a second one, but the research report that we released on the fourth of November, essentially revealed that between September 2023 and September 2024, AP Moller–Maersk had shipped millions of kilograms of military goods to the Israeli military from the United States across more than 2000 shipments. And this military cargo included things like hulls, engines, specialised parts for armoured personnel carriers and tactical vehicles, as well as the parts for projectile systems so a vast amount of military cargo that they were transporting. And the evidence we published suggests that Maersk typically sends one ship per week from Port Elizabeth in New Jersey to the port of Algeciras in Spain. And each shipment typically includes approximately 1000 tons of military cargo on this vessel on behalf of the Israeli Ministry of Defense.

And so what we did to be able to find this research is we looked at Bills of Lading. So essentially you can't see what a ship is carrying while it's carrying the cargo itself. But three months later, and this is specific to the US and actually we're having some challenges in Britain because we're having to do like freedom of information requests and things like that because this information is not publicly available where we are. But in the US, three months after the ship has completed its journey, you can see what was on the ship.

And so we were able to essentially establish a pattern of what Maersk is sending when and we were able to establish a pattern that Maersk is typically sending one ship per week from New Jersey to Spain. And that Maersk rarely missed a weekly trip on this line. It was consistently sending military cargo.

The reason why this is particularly significant, it's significant anyway, but the reason why it was particularly significant is because as of May 2024, the Spanish government had actually officially enforced or maybe not enforced, had officially said they were going to enforce an arms embargo on Israel, meaning that Maersk was knowingly flouting the Spanish arms embargo.

And Celine kind of spoke to this, how this is now creating like a diplomatic tension between the US and Spain because of Maersk flouting this Spanish arms embargo. And just to give you an example of like some of the stuff that Maersk is transporting.

So this picture here, if you can see my mouse, is a Namer APC and this is essentially like a small tank. And Maersk is transporting thousands and thousands of these to the Israeli Ministry of Defense. And also this Oshkosh vehicle is another example of what Maersk is transporting. And you can see this picture that went quite viral of it transporting Palestinian detainees. And so these vehicles that are being used to transfer our people in Gaza and these tanks that are being used to also kill our people in Gaza.

So these are just two examples of some of the things that Maersk is transporting. So in terms of like a timeline of what happened on November 4th, we released a research report on November 5th. A day later, Spain responded to our research report. And they said that if the information is confirmed, all necessary measures will be taken.

Essentially we had released a research report saying that like based on the pattern that we've identified, we predict that like these ships that are coming in the next in the next day or so are going to be following this pattern and they're going to be transporting military cargo when they're going to go through the port of Algeciras in Spain. Then, two days later on November 7th, Maersk ships were denied, two Maersk ships were denied entry at Spanish port. And so essentially what the Spanish government did in denying these ships is kind of confirm our research that actually they looked into it and they confirmed that actually there was military cargo that was destined for the port of Algeciras and they denied docking for these two Maersk ships.

Just to kind of clarify how this works is that Maersk shipments from the United States to the Zionist entity of Israel first travel from the US to a port city in the Mediterranean. So these ships on the left, Maersk Atlanta, Maersk Chicago, Maersk Columbus, you can, yeah, these Maersk ships, they travel from the US, mostly from Port Elizabeth in New Jersey to a port in the Mediterranean. And then these ships, these five ships on the right, these are on a loop in the Mediterranean. And so what Maersk is doing is something called a trans shipment where the cargo goes to a port in the Mediterranean and then from the port in the Mediterranean is transferred onto a different ship. And those different ships are the ones that end up going to the port of Ashdod or the port of Haifa.

So if you were to look up these ships where military cargo is first onboarded onto the ship or loaded onto the ship, you wouldn't see Ashdod or Haifa as a final destination. And that's because of this trans shipment method. And part of the reason they do this trans shipment method is to kind of mystify the supply chain of military cargo. And so we're able to identify kind of which ships are transporting from the US to a port in the Mediterranean that's then on a loop.

And this is just the US. We still have more research to do on ships that are leaving from other places, ships are leaving from Europe, ships that are leaving from, you know, the Australian continent, and to be able to kind of like expand this research even further.

So just to go back to the storyline, so on November 7th, the Maersk ships were denied at Spanish at the port of Algeciras. And then on November 8th, you know, for about 24 hours, there was these two Maersk ships that were stranded in the Mediterranean. They couldn't dock in Algeciras. They didn't really know where to go. And so they decided to head to Morocco. And so the Maersk Denver was rerouted to Morocco to drop off military cargo in the Tangier Med Port after being denied entry in Spain. And once this was announced, once we knew that the military cargo was heading to Morocco, the Moroccan front for Palestine and against normalisation in Tangier released a statement against the Maersk ship. So on November 9th, a day later, this statement came out from comrades in Morocco. And what this sparked was popular protests, which we'll get to.

A day later, Maersk issued a statement to Le Figaro and AFP. And what they essentially said was that, you know, the Spanish government had changed their definition of what is included in their arms embargo. So essentially what our report showed was that Maersk was transporting a bunch of military cargo, but we hadn't released anything that they were releasing ammunition. And so they kind of tried to play innocent by saying, you know, we ship all the things that are needed to kill the people in Gaza except live ammunition. And the Spanish government changed what their definition of arms is. And actually, you know, we're not transporting live munitions. We're only transporting kind of all of the other components that are needed to make the genocide possible.

So they said to gain clarity for future operations. We've consulted the Spanish authorities to understand why entry was denied for cargo. No different than previous shipments that have routinely been trans shipped through this port without incident.

We've now since released a research report that showed that there are ships that are leaving from the U.S. that were going through the port of Algeciras in Spain that were carrying ammunition. And so it's the Spanish arms embargo is being flouted by ships leaving from the U.S., even ones that did contain live munitions. And that's kind of where this diplomatic crisis, this is really exacerbated this diplomatic crisis. And now the U.S. government is kind of doing an investigation into this and it's become a big, a big news story.

So on November 10th, when the ship was heading to Morocco, they were met with popular protest in Morocco. So on November 10th, protest erupted in Tangier, Morocco. There were thousands of Moroccans that took to the streets protesting the docking of this Maersk ship into their port. And we also had 10 Moroccan workers at Tangier Med Port refused to load military cargo onto the [indecipherable]. And they have since been fired and now they're trying to unionise and alongside comrades in the ITF were supporting them to unionise at the port. So, yeah, this essentially created a significant disruption for Maersk. And up until today, the cargo that was destined for the Zionist entity on this original ship still hasn't been able to make it to the Zionist entity. And so we've actually delayed the shipment by at least two months now.

So this is just kind of like a case study or like an example of a recent campaign, when essentially by, you know, we published a report, the report in a opened media avenues for us and opportunities for us to do more media interviews and to engage in more of without press contacts and to put out press releases.

And so the media front really opened up through this research report that we developed. We saw the mobilisation strategy taken up in terms of the fact that Moroccans kind of have mobilised around this ship. We saw the labor front taken up with these workers that, you know, refused to load military cargo. And we've seen other trade unions sign on to a solidarity statement that we wrote in solidarity with these Moroccan workers. And so it's enabled us to build with labor in a stronger way. And we've seen legal taken up because, you know, the Spanish government is now suing Maersk. Maersk is flouting … There's now the diplomatic tension between the US and Spain.

And so we've seen so many different avenues opened up and all the different fronts of the campaign taken up through like a single incident. So I think this is like a really good example of how when you put the research out, you can then kind of strategically think about how to use the research to intervene in different fronts of the campaign. So yeah, we can stop there and like, I think it would be good to have a discussion about how you guys are thinking about taking it up. And also if you have any questions or reflections on what we presented.

Tasnim

Thank you both. It's incredible to see, you know, the journey of the campaign from where it began to, you know, some of these wins that are in the making. So I did see the news that yeah, now the US government is kind of interfering to, you know, protect capitalist profits against the Spanish government and their decisions. It just kind of shows you like how this, this is a global system and that's part of why we also want to join the campaign because we're able to, I guess, exert some of that pressure here locally. And as you said, from the example of apartheid, South Africa, I mean, that was still, you know, before a lot of this globalisation was taking place.

I know that shipping has been globalised for centuries since the beginning of the colonial era. So it's a deeply, deeply complicit industry with a lot of blood on its hands. And yeah, I think it's great to see the multiple fronts as well that the campaign has been working along. I think we can learn a lot from and to value. And of course, the centralised way that you're working allows for more power for the campaign because, you know, you have like a systematic way of approaching it.

So you have the research that informs the media, that informs, you know, the legal strategy. So it's connected to each other and that's coordinated. And that's kind of what we've been trying to move towards, whether it's with the Elbit Out of Victoria campaign or a few of the other initiatives we're doing. For example, the anti-weapons pickets to have more coordination gives more power to the work that we're doing. And that's, I think for me, like a big takeaway that the fact that you're able to do this is because you're very, very organised, but sometimes in the movement, there's less kind of emphasis on how vital that is to be strategising in that coordinated way.

So I thought maybe now what we could do is open up the floor. People want to give their input, ask questions, yeah, say what they know about the company or what they would be keen to contribute to. So feel free to just jump in.

Attendee

Honestly, before this, I knew nothing about Maersk. I'm sure I've seen it on the side of some trucks and things, but it wasn't anything that I actually looked into. And I definitely, like, I understand obviously how it's a contributor to this genocide. So, you know, in any way that we can kind of, you know, oppose it and disrupt it, we should. I guess I don't really have much to contribute in ways to do that. But yeah, can tag along for anything that happens.

Tasnim

Thanks, River. So Steven's asked in the chat about the MUA. So has there been any contact with ILA in America or MUA here? Jeanine, I saw that there was some correspondence about handing in the letter. Do you want to speak to that?

Jeanine

Yeah, I can speak about the MUA and then maybe Celine can speak about the ILA. So, yeah, we're in contact with a couple of different people from the MUA. I've spoken to Paul Keating and we're also in contact with Jamie from the MUA. We met Jamie actually. We were in Rotterdam last month. There's like a Maersk network within the ITF, which is the International Transport Federation, and Jamie was in Rotterdam. And so he met with him there. And so we've been coordinating with him and thinking about ways that we can link up and the different ways that MUA can take up the campaign.

The MUA was actually, I think was called something different back then, but it was actually one of the unions that was part of Maritime Unions Against Apartheid. So there's like a long history of the MUA kind of taking this sort of radical action. So, yeah, we have been in contact with them.

And then in Britain, there's also the RMT and UNITE, which are the main logistics unions that we've also been coordinating with here and trying to build with here, mostly actually around railways and like truckers, because most military cargo actually leaves Britain by plane, not by ship. So that's something we've been thinking about in terms of the strategy here looks a bit different than like a maritime approach. But I would assume like on the Australian colony that like actually a lot of it is leaves by ship. So yeah, I'd know, Celine, if you want to talk about the ILA.

Celine

Can you repeat the question that cut out for me? What about the ILA?

Jeanine

Like what connections we have and how we've built with them?

Celine

Oh, okay, okay. So I think so we have chapters on like the West and the East Coast, I think with the ILA, some of our chapters have they were on strike for a bit and we had chapters go out and do strike support, go out on the picket lines and build relationships and some of them convene some labor meetups recently to engage people that they had met from the LWU also similar. Some people who had been like, there's like a local in the north of California on the West Coast that has taken like a more strong position historically has taken very strong positions on Palestine, historically since the anti apartheid movement have recently put out like a statement that they will not touch any cargo going to Israel but for the most part, that's not the position of the LWU on a broader scale or the ILA.

So it's been mainly just about kind of building relationships with people in different locals and some people who have who have leadership roles in different locals. So there's some relationships here to people in the Inland Boatman's Union and also been working with some people in the railroad unions too who are also in the transport logistics sector.

Jeanine

Yeah, something else we've been doing a lot of across all of our chapters and we just had a training on it like a few days ago is like work outreach. So different chapters have like gone out to like Maersk warehouses or ports or things like that and actually like taken, like, hot chocolate – it's winter frost now – so like, you know and like, snacks and like, you know, had conversations with workers in general but like, also specifically about the Maersk campaign.

I don't know like, Celine … I feel like LA has like a good case study of this in terms of like, the port … we've more done like offices and things like that in Britain, which I can speak to but I don't know if you want to speak about like the outreach you guys have done.

Celine

Yeah, I mean we wanted to … we had some days where we just kind of go out to the dispatch hall and try to just engage people like in between shifts. That's also hard to do because like there's like technically no solicitation allowed so when you've come into fire you know things like that it's like not super easy but the other thing is that even at the action I was talking about where we did the protest like at kind of at the port close to the terminal where Maersk was holding its event and the CEO was there. Any truckers who passed through or were in the area we had like worker liaisons assigned so even during like the actions that we have having worker liaisons assigned to engage them. And we've done that for all our actions and then also just whenever we're going to do an action aside we have like a few days in advance we have a group go out and bring like pizza and drinks and stuff and just engage people on their way in and out of work.

So that's kind of how we've built like some relationships and then also just through relationships to other labour leaders in the area who have their own relationships and connecting us to them as well has been a good way and we've convened just a couple meetings to with people to engage them on like local strategy around Maersk.

Tasnim

Thanks, that's pretty incredible. We've tried some worker outreach work as well around the weapons companies like the weapons manufacturing companies because the F 35 chain a lot of the parts are being produced here locally. So we've been picking then and then try to do some worker outreach and I guess similar strategy which is … so I get you're calling it people's embargo, but I guess what the language we've been using here is like, yeah, workers embargo … so workers … we want, you know, work bans, industrial actions. All of that is illegal, of course, strikes etc. 

And the unions here have been under a lot of attack by the Labour government but I think that's the way to go and for me … what I want to ask you is: how have you had people engaged with the campaign to do that work? So let's say you need people to do workers' outreach or you need people to, you know, do some of this like more invisible work right? How do you convince people this is important and to get them on board with it?

Jeanine

So maybe I can speak to this quickly. I think that it depends like so in Britain for example like when we first we did a local campaign launch so when we first launched the campaign we had like campaign launch in London and we … I don't think it was public. I can't remember, but I don't think it was publicly advertised.

And so we invited movement partners and other organisations, trade unions, that we wanted to feed into the campaign. And we kind of presented them with the campaign strategy; it was kind of like the first half of the presentation that we just gave. And then we had breakouts across the fronts. And so like different … like, we had a labour breakout, and so a lot of trade unions went towards labour breakout.

We had a media breakout and so a lot of people that had come that were from like writers or like local newspapers or whatever or like a left wing outlet like ended up in the media breakout. And a breakout on research people that were interested in research would go into that breakout and then people that were interested in more of the divestment stuff that had taken up like local council divestment in their locales were in a different breakout.

And we essentially are engaged them on questions of like, what excites you about the campaign? What do you think the challenges for the campaign might be in Britain specifically or in London specifically in terms of being able to take this up? And what where do you think some of the pressure points are that sort of thing. And based on that they've then felt like they were part of building at the strategy for the campaign. And those breakouts turned into like popular committees or like group chats where then we would like drive that work forward.

So that's like one of the things that we did. And then we ended up having like another meeting a couple of months later once we've done some of the initial research and things like that. There was a bit more directive that was more like open to the public and that people could just like come along and join … and join, join a group. But we'd already kind of like fleshed out the strategies for like, labour and divestment locally, and then invited people to participate. So that's one way of kind of going about it.

I also think like in terms of places where we don't have PYM chapters … like … a lot of people have reached out to us because an opportunity has presented itself. So for example like in Denmark, something we're working with them now on is that the AP Moller Foundation, which is the foundation of the the Maersk family, have given grants to 12 artistic and cultural institutions in Copenhagen or maybe I think across Denmark. And so now they're thinking about doing like a Sydney Festival-esque like type campaign around like, getting these cultural institutions to cut ties with Maersk.

And so you know in Denmark like that cultural boycott campaign is something that we really think we could drive forward, because that's an opportunity that's presented itself in Denmark. In Norway for example like the sovereign wealth fund has just committed to divesting from complicit companies and at one point the sovereign wealth fund earned 1.5% of Maersk. And so now we're talking to some organisers in Norway about getting the sovereign wealth fund to divest from Maersk.

And so it's kind of been like as opportunities have presented themselves in different locales people have come to us and said we want to do this and we've supported them to do that. So I think part of what we're trying to do as well is like think about like different places that are taking up similar strategies and connecting them to one another so that they can like support each other in terms of like the challenges that are coming up or the things that they're seeing or the approaches they're taking. So yeah.

Celine

Yeah, I would just add to like one way we've been engaging like … workers who are not in the logistics sector for example, like we have some you know people in education and different educators unions who have been you know like … really … like strong on Palestine who are engaging in different ways like, supporting us with phone banking, like doing their own like phone banks, circulating the petition like thinking about resolutions for arms embargo. For arms embargo that would name Maersk.

But also I think with like the retirement funds and the pension funds like there's there was an a recent campaign for the from the California. It's like, the teachers’ retirement fund – I know the acronym, I'm trying to remember what it stands for – but they pushed for a divestment campaign that actually included Maersk, because it has an investment. They have an investment in Maersk. So even just identifying things like that and seeing where we can take up those kinds of strategies has been really helpful as well, and now we're looking into another employees retirement fund public employees retirement fund here in California, to see if we can take up something similar.

Jeanine

Yeah, just quickly – sorry Tasnim, I saw you're unmuted – one more thing is that like, something else we've been encouraging people to do is like not see the Maersk campaign as something that separate from the local campaigns they've been taking up. So like, for example, you mentioned like Elbit Out of Victoria. I think for example like something that would be really interesting to research is like, you know, are any of these Elbit like these F-35 components that are being produced in these factories. Are they leaving or materials to make them coming in and out on Maersk ships? And is there a way we can kind of like tie Elbit Out of Victoria to Maersk?

So this is something that we have PYM in Italy and something that Italy was having thinking about is there's a huge campaign against Leonardo's which is a Italian weapons manufacturer that also makes components of the F-35 fighter jet. And so they're thinking about, you know, can we see if there are components that are leaving from these Leonardo's factories, in or out on Maersk trucks, or leaving through Maersk vessels, and thinking about tying the Maersk campaign to the Leonardo's campaign, given there's already an existing campaign in it like that's national in Italy around this. So I think that's something else you guys could could think about.

Tasnim

Yeah, no, that's excellent. Well, I was going to say in response to Celine but also to what you've mentioned is I guess, yeah, some of that groundwork research that needs to happen here. But the ties here are not as explicit. So something we've been trying to kind of communicate to people engaged in the movement and also to workers in these industries – and to media – is that it doesn't have to be as crude as like a weapon on a truck or a weapon on a ship.

As Celine, you're saying, we need to look at where is Maersk investing … You know, this is global capital. And it's enough that it's an international company that is doing that somewhere else, even if it might not be actually involved in the arms industry here in Melbourne. So we will look for that and if we find it I mean that's like a bingo. But even if we don't, it's enough to target Maersk based on their international complicity. Because that's part of the issue we had with the ZIM shipping and some of the propaganda that then the CEO, as well as you know the defenders within government, of course, in media, was that oh well, you know, this is an Israeli shipping line, and you're just targeting it because you're anti-Semitic. It's not involved at all in weapons. This is disinformation. There's no weapons on these ZIM ships here in Melbourne. There's no weapons in Melbourne ports altogether.

So that's kind of the responses that we've been receiving, and then we have to provide like a counter argument to say, well hey, we're not saying that. We didn't see any weapons on these ships. And that's not what we've claimed here so far. We're looking for information and please share that with us. 

And so the Greens and other politicians who are on side have been saying well tell us, you know, because a lot of this is hidden, so that's part of why the public doesn't know. But yeah, I think we need to kind of move past that anyway and like ZIM, Maersk, these companies – they're not like locally here as explicitly involved as let's say Elbit, which is obviously like the largest Israeli arms company. But we want to be able to get people around it and mobilise around it so they can contribute in some way.

And especially within the unions, like we want to make that case to the unions, to the rank and file that this is part of stopping the genocide. It's not only about like interrupting a truck that's carrying weapons, because that's part of the imaginary that people have from, I guess, from South Africa and that's not necessarily how like the global economy works in the current moment. Steven said something here. I don't know if people want to respond to it and then anyone else in the audience please feel free to jump in, comment, you can write in the chat as well if you like.

Jeanine

Yeah, so in terms of the ICJ ruling, we're actually like Celine mentioned that we've submitted a report to Francesca Albanese's office. And we also have like a legal report that's coming out and we've actually timed the release of the legal report with the anniversary of the ICJ ruling which I think is the 26th of January and so we're planning on doing press conferences in at least hopefully New York and the Hague, definitely New York, hopefully also the Hague announcing like the release of the legal report and talking about how Maersk is kind of, they're not like these companies technically can't break international law because they are not signatories, they're not states, but they can be complicit and like aiding and abetting the breaking of international law which is essential we're accusing Maersk of and so we're going to be releasing a legal report and doing some press releases outside of UN offices and headquarters at the end of January around that.

So yeah, that's something definitely that would be great to connect on. I don't know if there's a if there's a UN office in Canberra or anything like that, but maybe that's something we could think about taking up as well. And there was another question … it'll be great if you get access to any designed files … Yep – they're all on our website. So if you had to maskoffmaersk.com, all of the Canberra files and everything, posters, graphics are there, and if there's anything that you want that isn't on there, just message. I'm now in the chat, so just message me and I can … I can send you whatever you need.

Tasnim

Thanks for being in the chat. All right, you'll see you'll see one more chat. Yeah, yeah, I like that you called a Popular Committee! That's … that's a bit more fancy than than just thinking of it as another WhatsApp chat.

I was going to say, in terms of the unions and their involvement. Are you seeing potential like within rank and file for work bans or, you know, walking off the job at Maersk sites. So have you got any connection with people who work for Maersk?

Jeanine

So we've been doing in Britain worker liaising outside of the Maersk office, which is like about 40? A bit longer – maybe an hour outside of London – in an area called Maidenhead. And the office is all tech workers, which maybe are not the most like revolutionary workers but we've been able to have like some really interesting conversations with some of the workers. Like some of them didn't … we've been there now three or four times. Some of them in the beginning like didn't know that Maersk was complicit. Like a bunch of them the second time we went were like, oh yeah, we remember you from last time. We've sent like an email to a bunch of us to send an email to the CEO.

There's also a fortnightly like Maersk meeting that's like international where people from officers all over the world can like raise things with HQ in Denmark. And so they said that like our campaign is regularly brought up and Maersk's complicit is regularly brought up in those kind of fortnightly meetings. We've been able to get like some phone numbers through the worker outreach that we've done and we're thinking about kind of convening them and thinking about what it might be like to get them organised. The office is not unionised, but UTAU – the United Tech and Allied Workers Union – in Britain, that would represent them if they were to unionise is really pro-Palestine. And so and the person that leads UTAU, like the paid organiser at UTAU, also runs No Tech for Apartheid UK.

So like there's a lot of potential for us to organise and to unionise that office we've been working on that. And I don't know what potential there is but that's just like the early beginnings of potentially something. And then with the RMT which is the Rail Maritime and Transport Union there's a bunch of rail workers that actually did wildcat strikes, so illegal strikes, around the transportation of military cargo on British railways for Iraq – like during the Iraq war. And so they're now thinking about reaching out to the people that were initiated those strikes thinking about how they were able like what their method was to be able to organise people around that and doing something similar around Maersk because a lot of the rail freight in Britain is actually Maersk-owned or Maersk-run or operated. So the RMT and like thinking about rail workers is like another thing that we've been thinking about.

But yeah, like it's a slow burn. I don't know, Celine, if you want to add anything. I would say I think that like … I don't want to offend anyone but I would say that I think like the potential for more radical union action is higher in like Europe and in Australia than maybe it is in the US. But I don't know Celine I don't want to take on your behalf.

Celine

No, no, I mean that's true. I mean we've been discussing this like we're discussing like … you know, what we need to do is kind of build a current like a pro-Palestine current and engage more on the on resolutions at this point for example but … I think also the other thing is … also where we've seen it is like in Morocco, like with people protesting like workers walking off the site losing their jobs over this, so that's … you're right, Jeanine. I think it's much higher in Europe and in Australia than it is in the US. They have a long, long, long way to go.

Tasnim

Yeah – I think here in Australia is pretty tough as well. A lot of workplaces unfortunately at the moment are not unionised, so that's part of the issue. And many of the union leadership are not interested in moving towards, I guess, yeah, like more of the illegal side of like unionised action. So that's, yeah there are many obstacles but I think, you know, you've given us a lot to begin with and even if it was beginning by you know protesting outside the Maersk headquarters and then doing some of this outreach work with the M.U.A. who are keen from what I understand. It's one thing to be keen to kind of like, you know, show public support for the campaign and issue statements, and it's another thing to use, like, union power. But yeah. It's one step at a time.

And I think for us what we would do next is I guess have like a campaign meeting, where we begin organising around an action. And that way we can expand the team and see who's keen, and have a committed group of people, because that's really what we'll keep going and I think that's what's really valuable about what you have is that you have a structure where you have people carrying the campaign.

So I think first we need to build that we need to kind of create a committee for the campaign who people have capacity to kind of keep up with it, you know, put in the time and effort to get it running.

Celine

That sounds great. I think we were happy to stay in communication; I know Jeanine is talking to you also. Anything, any ways that we can support or maybe we can also just share like any things that we might coordinate across our chapters or any ideas that come up that we're learning from our chapters or other partners, we can maybe share with you all just to help, you know, if it does help, you know, just to see kind of how people are organising these meetings or what they're doing locally. But that sounds like a really good place to start.

Tasnim

Yeah, that sounds great. And if Melbourne comes up in your research or anything like that. And if you need any research support as well, just like let us know, like we've got a pretty … like a pretty great research team, not just in the PYM, but like it's made up of different people from different organisations as well. And the stuff they can … like, they're all like essentially a bunch of nerds and like the stuff that they're able to find is amazing.

Jeanine

And so if you guys hit like roadblocks or anything and you need some research support, just like let me know and I can connect you. It's not me and Celine but we can connect you to the right people.

Tasnim

Yeah, all right. Yeah, we'll do that. So I think maybe once we have our meeting we'll get some hands up off who's interested to, to, you know, do read local research and then we can connect them with the teams you have and they can hopefully put something together that suits our context. All right. Well, thank you everyone. Thank you Jeanine and Celine. Thanks everyone!

Jeanine

Great to connect. Thanks Tasnim for organising.

Voiceover

For more information about the campaign, visit freepalestinecoalitionnaarm.com.