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"Organization...rank and
file control...unity of action...union democracy...solidarity among all
coast ports...among all unions."
Harry Bridges
- his litany of unionism -
HARRY THE DRAGON-SLAYER
It was 67 years ago last Wednesday that the West
coast Waterfront Strike of 1934, led by Australian-born
longshoreman and merchant mariner Harry Bridges of San Francisco,
finally came to an end. Aside from being one of the most significant
milestones in American labor history, it damn near set off a bloody, new
Civil War during the deepest, darkest days of the Great Depression.
A Civil War based on economics and social class, instead of
geography.
Longshoremen and stevedores all up and down the west coast, as well as
Hawaii, were joined by other Maritime workers as they hit the
bricks and completely shut-down all shipping from U.S. west coast ports
for three months in a bid to have their union recognized for the first
time. Ship owners, with their politicians and police in tow, responded
by launching a violent assault on the strikers that, by the time it
ended, left 7 longshoremen dead and many others injured. Among the
dead was the leader of Seattle's local of the International
Longshoremen's Association - Shelvey
Daffron. You'll find no streets or parks named in his honor.
The Hooterville Yacht Club would never allow such a thing.
The whole thing began five years earlier at, amazingly enough, the
port of Tacoma. At the time (the end of the 20's) it was the ONLY
fully-unionized, closed-shop port on the entire west coast. Paddy
Morris and Jack Bjorkland, respectively the then-tiny ILA's organizer
and secretary, tried organizing from that base to other ports
during the 20's but times were good and jobs aplenty. Not much of anyone
was interested. Then came the Great Depression - the Dirty Thirties
- and attitudes rapidly changed. Dock bosses in the morning "Shape
Up" had their pick of the litter. You wanted a job, you
had to kiss their butt first. Bribes and payoffs were routine. Piss
and moan about working conditions or safety, they'd not only Can
your butt, they'd Blacklist you from every dock on the coast.
Literally thousands of hungry men with hungry families were waiting to
take your place.
Within five years, Paddy and Jack rapidly organized Everett, Gray's
Harbor, Portland and Seattle - in that order. Then they hit Frisco and
showed those boys what a real union looked like. They signed up too.
Amongst them was the Australian-born immigrant Harry Bridges - a
merchant mariner who had 'retired' to the docks as a longshoreman. I
think he was a crane-operator. He was soon to become their leader and
an American labor legend. In no time at all the ILA had the entire
west coast from Alaska down to Los Angeles and across to Hawaii unionized.
The American Federation of Labor did its best to try to undermine their
efforts even going so far as to illegally back a Company Union (the
Blue Book Union) in preference to them. But in the end, they
predominated.
On May 9th 1934, with Harry at the helm, the ILA decided the time had
come to flex their muscles. After ship owners summarily laughed off
recognition of the union as the longshoremen's bargaining agent, Harry
ordered every port on the coast plus Hawaii locked down. From Honolulu
to Long Beach to Seattle - nothing moved. No one had ever before
seen a labor action on such a wide scale. The ship owners were stunned
by this unexpected turn of events. They thought Harry would be buyable,
like Seattle's Dave
Beck, or just roll-over and kiss their butts like so many other
union bosses they dealt with. They guessed wrong. He was not for-sale
and his balls were not only big, they were pure brass. But the
owners were certain that with the help of their political friends
and their Cop flunkies, they could put Harry in his place and break
this strike. The ports stayed shut-down.
While the owners rounded up Scabs (often university students) to handle
their ships, Harry's boys got out their baseball bats to persuade
the Scabs that it wasn't worth the trouble. In Seattle, two U Dub
students Scabbing on a lumber ship got crushed when the load fell
on them. The ship owners didn't bother training any of these
people and few had any experience to speak of. Why should they bother?
It was the Depression - Scabs were a dime a dozen. In the meantime,
Harry did something no one had ever done before - he worked the
Black churches of San Francisco soliciting support for his strike,
not only from Black dock-workers but also of the wider
African-American community. He offered them something few union leaders
ever had before: an equal shot at dock jobs.
A crucial strategy during the ILA's strike was the inclusion of Pilipino, African-Americans and other non-whites in their union. Up
until then, non-whites were routinely banned from unions. Labor
Temples were bastions of Lilly-White segregation. Even in the Navy
of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Black sailors were only allowed to
work the gallies and ammo docks or shovel coal below decks - the
dirtiest and most dangerous jobs. Hundreds died while FDR casually
turned his elegant back and ignored them. FDR had a difficult time
conceiving of Black Folks as anything but waiters, chauffeurs and
maids. Harry and John L. Lewis of the International Miners Union
realized that this left employers a vast pool of experienced,
hungry Scabs to draw from. Including non-whites in the ILA, took
that advantage away from the owners and added a potential knock-out
punch to the ILA's fight. He didn't do it to be nice or from any
High Moral Principles; he did it because he needed them. And,
because Harry didn't judge people by the ideology or the color of
their skin. He didn't feel he could afford the luxury.
Emotions peaked after two months when the ILA staged large rallies in
major cities up and down the west coast. At a July 5th rally in San
Francisco, which later became known as "Black Thursday", the
ship owners and their Cops took their campaign of violence to a new
level. Police began opening fire on the unarmed marchers and assassinating
union leaders. Two ILA members died at the San Francisco
rally; at a rally in Seattle, the head of the ILA local was
murdered by the police; and at a rally in Los Angeles two strikers were
shot dead by the police. Many others were wounded and injured.
That was the straw that broke the camel's back. Now union people of ALL
stripes joined in. Tens of thousands of them - Teamsters, Miners,
Carpenters, you name it - joined mass funeral marches afterwards.
The Governor of California declared Martial Law. Others followed
suit. Union members in San Francisco trumped his ace by calling a
3-day General Strike in support of the longshoremen, the first seen
in America since the 1919
General Strike in Seattle. They completely shut the city down.
Nothing moved except the Teamsters deliveries to the hospitals. If
the politicians thought union people were just going to stand by
and watch them bludgeon the longshoremen into submission, they had
another thing coming. Nobody wanted to be next. And no one doubted
that if the owners succeeded, somebody definitely would be 'next'.
The strike was rapidly growing into something much larger and more
ominous. It was no longer just the longshoremen vs. the ship owners. The
entire union movement was joining in. In the midst of the darkest years
of the Great Depression, it was as though a new Civil War, one
based on economics and social class instead of geography, was breaking
out. And they started dishing out some violence of their own. In
Seattle, a King County Sheriff's Department 'Special Deputy' tasked with
organizing civilian vigilante groups to attack the dock workers was
found with a new hole in his head - right between the eyes. FDR's
negotiators sent out to cool things down, ran into a brick wall.
They waited too long - the time for talking was long past. That scared
the crap out of a lot of very Big People. If they didn't put an end
to this soon and keep it from spreading to the east coast...who
knows where it would stop?
The strike ended shortly afterwards when the ship owners, no doubt
feeling the now scorching heat from above them, finally caved in and
recognized the ILA. True to Harry's word, non-whites were as welcome
as whites at the new union halls that sprouted up on the waterfront.
But the fun was only starting for Harry. Uncle Sammy had his number.
Showing complete contempt for the law and common decency, Sammy
launched a 2-decades long campaign to smear him as a Commie and
boot him out of the country. The Immigration Service attempted to
deport him as a Communist Alien and flopped. Then the U.S.
Congress tried to legislate his deportation (!), but the Supreme
Court told them that was illegal. FDR's and Truman's Departments
of Justice then hit him with a long string of bogus, bad-faith
indictments. As fast as the judges threw their indictments in the
garbage, they contemptuously reindicted him on exactly the same
charge. He whooped Sammy's butt every time. Didn't lose a single
case.
In the midst of all this, Harry became a naturalized American citizen
and, after another indictment of course, finally got his American
passport. Obviously he wanted very much to become one of us. More,
he wanted the whole world to know it. Despite all the vicious crap
Uncle Sammy dumped on him, he was proud to be an American.
Seattle's own Dave Beck, an early crude prototype of Jimmy Hoffa and his
Thug Unionism (without the cleverness or guts), generally gets
credit for destroying the ILA. Dave and his goons had lots of experience
at this sort of thing around here and likely was owned outright by the
ship owners. But he was not only a small-timer, he was too late. Harry
shed the ILA like an old coat and formed up the International Longshore
& Warehouse Union, quickly leaving Dave and the ILA in the
shade. Then he helped form the CIO to counter the AFL (since amalgamated
into the modern day AFL-CIO). Harry's last great battle came in 1971
when he led the ILWU to a 3-week shut-down of all west coast
ports. He passed away in 1990 having out-lived all his
antagonists.
BTW - His real first name was Alfred. "Harry" was a catchall
name American sailors had for anyone who had an English accent. On the
docks everyone called him "Limo" on account of his Limmie
accent. His father, a Conservative, wanted him to sell real estate
but Harry wanted to be a sailor. As usual, he won.
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