1934 West Coast waterfront strike – Wikipedia

1934 undertaking strike by longshoremen in California, Oregon, and Washington

The 1934 West Coast Waterfront Strike ( besides known as the 1934 West Coast Longshoremen’s Strike, a well as a number of variations on these names ) lasted eighty-three days, and began on May 9, 1934 when longshoremen in every US West Coast port walked out. The strike peaked with the death of two workers on “ bloody Thursday ” and the San Francisco General Strike which stopped all sour in the major port city for four days and led ultimately to the liquidation of the West Coast Longshoremen ‘s strike. The result of the strike was the unionization of all of the West Coast ports of the United States. The San Francisco General Strike of 1934, along with the Toledo Auto-Lite strike of 1934 led by the american Workers Party and the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934 led by the Communist League of America, were catalysts for the lift of industrial unionism in the 1930s, much of which was organized through the Congress of Industrial Organizations. [ 1 ]

background [edit ]

Longshoremen on the West Coast ports had either been unorganized or represented by company unions since the years immediately after World War I, when the ship companies and stevedoring firms had imposed the exposed shop after a serial of fail strikes. [ 3 ] Longshoremen in San Francisco, then the major port on the seashore, were required to go through a rent hallway operated by a company union, known as the “ aristocratic book ” arrangement for the color of the membership book. [ 4 ] The Industrial Workers of the World had attempted to organize longshoremen, sailors and fishermen in the 1920s through their Marine Transport Workers Union. [ 5 ] Their largest hit, the 1923 San Pedro Maritime Strike, bottled up shipping in that harbor, but was crushed by a combination of injunctions, mass arrests and vigilantism by the american Legion. While the IWW was a exhausted military unit after that strike, anarchist intend remained popular on the docks. [ 6 ] Longshoremen and sailors on the West Coast besides had contacts with an australian anarchist motion that called itself the “ One Big Union “ formed after the kill of a general come to there in 1917. [ 7 ] The Communist Party had besides been active in the area in the belated 1920s, seeking to organize all categories of maritime workers into a single union, the Marine Workers Industrial Union ( MWIU ), as share of the drive during the Third Period to create rotatory unions. [ 8 ] [ 9 ] The MWIU never made much headway on the West Coast, but it did attract a number of former IWW members and foreign-born militants. [ 10 ] Harry Bridges, an Australian-born boater who became a stevedore after coming to the United States, was repeatedly accused [ further explanation needed ] for his acknowledged Communist party membership. [ 11 ] [ 12 ] Militants published a newspaper, The Waterfront Worker, which focused on longshoremen ‘s most compress demands : more men on each gang, lighter loads and an autonomous union. [ 13 ] [ 14 ] While a number of the individuals in this group were Communist Party members, the group as a whole was mugwump of the party : although it criticized the International Seamen ‘s Union ( ISU ) as weak and the International Longshoremen ‘s Association ( ILA ), which had its infrastructure on the East Coast, as corrupt, it did not embrace the MWIU, but called alternatively for initiation of humble knots of activists at each port to serve as the first step in a slow, careful bowel movement to unionize the industry. [ 15 ] Events soon made the MWIU wholly irrelevant. just as the passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act had led to a ad-lib significant wax in union membership among ember miners in 1933, thousands of longshoremen now joined the fledgling ILA locals that reappeared on the West Coast. [ 16 ] The MWIU faded away as party activists followed the aggregate of West Coast longshoremen into the ILA. [ 15 ] These newly emboldened workers first went after the “ blue book ” union, refusing to pay dues to it and tearing up their membership books. The militants who had published “ The Waterfront Worker ”, nowadays known as the “ Albion Hall group ” after their usual meeting place, continued organizing pier committees that soon began launching slowdowns and other types of job actions in ordering to win better working conditions. [ 15 ] While the official leadership of the ILA remained in the hands of conservatives sent to the West Coast by President Joseph Ryan of the ILA, the Albion Hall group started in March, 1934 to press demands for a coastwide shrink, a union-run hire hall and an diligence across-the-board waterfront confederation. [ 17 ] When the conservative ILA leadership negotiated a unaccented “ gentlemen ‘s agreement ” with the employers that had been brokered by the mediation board created by the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Bridges led the membership in rejecting it. [ 18 ] The sticking point in the assume was recognition : the union demanded a close shop, a coastwide contract and a union hiring mansion. The employers offered to arbitrate the quarrel, but insisted that the union agree to an open patronize as a condition of any agreement to arbitrate. The longshoremen rejected the marriage proposal to arbitrate. [ 19 ]

The Big hit [edit ]

An engraved truncheon club commemorates police action in the Battle of Smith Cove in Seattle. The fall upon began on May 9, 1934, as longshoremen in every West Coast port walked out ; sailors joined them several days belated. [ 20 ] The employers recruited strikebreakers, housing them on moored ships or in wall compounds and bringing them to and from work under patrol auspices. [ 21 ] Strikers attacked the stockade housing strikebreakers in San Pedro on May 15 ; police fired into the strikers, killing one and injuring many. [ specify ] The kill of Dick Parker created resentment up and down the coast. [ 22 ] Daily exchangeable smaller clashes broke out in San Francisco and Oakland, California, Portland, Oregon, [ 23 ] and Seattle, Washington. [ 22 ] Strikers besides succeeded in slowing down or stopping the apparent motion of goods by rail out of the ports. [ 24 ] The Roosevelt administration tried again to broker a deal to end the strike, but the membership doubly rejected the agreements their leadership brought to them and continued the strike. [ 25 ] The employers then decided to make a indicate of force to reopen the port in San Francisco. [ 26 ] On Tuesday, July 3, fights broke out along the Embarcadero in San Francisco between police and strikers while a handful of trucks driven by new businessmen made it through the picket line. [ 27 ] Some Teamsters supported the strikers by refusing to handle “ hot cargo ” – goods which had been unloaded by strikebreakers – although the Teamsters ‘ leadership was not as supportive. [ 28 ] By the end of May, Dave Beck, president of the united states of the Seattle Teamsters, and Mike Casey, president of the united states of those in San Francisco, thought the nautical hit had lasted excessively farseeing. [ 29 ] They encouraged the strikers to take what they could get from the employers and threatened to use Teamsters as strikebreakers if the ILA did not return to work. [ 30 ] Shipping companies, government officials, some union leaders and the press began to raise fears that the strike was the solution of communist agitation. [ 31 ] [ 32 ] This “ crimson daunt “ besides helped ignite a controversy about the New Deal Public Works of Art Project murals that were at the meter being completed in San Francisco ‘s Coit Tower ( on Telegraph Hill, close to the location of the fall in San Francisco ), leading to the postpone of the column ‘s July 7 afford, and belated to the removal of communist symbols from two of the american Social Realism expressive style murals. [ 31 ] [ 32 ]

San Francisco Coroner ‘s Records of Death for Howard Sperry and Nicolas Bordoise After a quieten Fourth of July, the employers ‘ arrangement, the Industrial Association, tried to open the port of San Francisco tied further on Thursday, July 5. [ 35 ] As spectators watched from Rincon Hill, the police shot tear accelerator canisters into the crowd, then followed with a charge by climb police. [ 36 ] Picketers threw the canisters and rocks back at the police, who charged again, sending the picketers into hideaway. [ 37 ] Each slope then refortified and took stock. [ 38 ] The events took a violent turn that good afternoon, as hostilities resumed outside of the ILA strike kitchen. [ 39 ] Eyewitness accounts differ on the claim events that transpired next. According to some witnesses, a group of strikers beginning surrounded a patrol cable car and attempted to tip it over, prompting the patrol to fire shotguns in the atmosphere, and then revolvers at the push. [ 15 ] other eyewitness accounts claim that police officers started shooting in the management of the strikers, provoking strikers to defend themselves. Policemen fired a shotgun into the crowd, striking three men in intersection of Steuart and Mission streets. One of the men, Howard Sperry, a hit stevedore, belated died of his wounds. Another man, Charles Olsen, was besides shot but late recovered from his wounds. A third man, Nick Bordoise – a greek by birth ( in the first place named Nick Counderakis ) who was an out of work penis of the fudge ‘s union volunteer at the ILA rap kitchen – was shot but managed to make his way around the corner onto Spear Street, where he was found several hours late. Like Sperry, he died at the hospital. [ 40 ] Strikers immediately cordoned off the sphere where the two picketers had been shot, laying flowers and wreaths around it. Police arrived to remove the flowers and drive off the picketers minutes later. Once the patrol left, the strikers returned, replaced the flowers and stood guard over the blot. Though Sperry and Bordoise had been snapshot respective blocks apart, this point became synonymous with the memory of the two slain men and “ bally Thursday ”. [ 41 ] As strikers carried hurt picketers into the ILA marriage hallway patrol fired on the hall and lobbed tear gas canisters at nearby hotels. At this steer person reportedly called the union hall to ask “ Are you bequeath to arbitrate now ? “. [ 39 ]

Under orders from California Governor Frank Merriam, the California National Guard moved in that evening to patrol the waterfront. [ 42 ] similarly, federal soldiers of the United States Army stationed at the Presidio were placed on alert. The picketers pulled back, unwilling to take on arm soldiers in an mismatched fight, and trucks and trains began moving without intervention. Bridges asked the San Francisco Labor Council to meet that Saturday, July 7, to authorize a general hit. [ 43 ] The Alameda County Central Labor Council in Oakland considered the lapp military action. Teamsters in both San Francisco and Oakland voted to strike, over the objections of their leaders, on Sunday, July 8. [ 44 ]

Funerals and general strike [edit ]

The following day, respective thousand strikers, families and sympathizers took part in a funeral procession down Market Street, stretching more than a nautical mile and a half, for Nicholas Bordoise and Howard Sperry, the two persons killed on “ bloody Thursday ”. [ 45 ] The patrol were wholly absent from the scene. The borderland made an enormous impact on San Franciscans, making a general strike, which had once been “ the visionary pipe dream of a belittled group of the most radical workers, became … a practical and realizable aim. ” [ 46 ] After dozens of Bay Area unions voted for a general hit over the next few days, the San Francisco Labor Council voted on July 14 to call a general assume. [ 47 ] The Teamsters had already been out for two days by that luff. [ 48 ] San Francisco Mayor Angelo Rossi declared a state of emergency. [ 49 ] Some federal officials, particularly Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, were more disbelieving. [ 50 ] Roosevelt late recalled that some persons were urging him to steer the USS Houston, which was carrying him to Hawaii, “ into San Francisco Bay, all flags flying and guns double-shotted, and end the mint. ” Roosevelt rejected the suggestion. [ 51 ] The general hit began on the 16th, involving some 150,000 workers. [ 15 ] On the 17th the police arrested more than 300 “ radicals, subversives, and communists ” while systematically smashing furniture and equipment of organizations related to the mint ; the lapp day, General Hugh S. Johnson as head of the National Recovery Administration spoke at UC Berkeley to denounce the general mint as “ a menace to the government ”. [ 52 ] The fall upon lasted four days. Non-union truck drivers joined the first day ; the movie theaters and nox clubs closed down. While food deliveries continued with the license of the strike committee, many small businesses closed, posting signs in hold of the strikers. [ 53 ] Reports that unions in Portland and Seattle would besides begin general strikes picked up currency. [ 54 ]

end of the strike [edit ]

The calling of a general strike had an unexpected result : it gave the General Strike Committee, whose makeup was far less belligerent than the stevedore ‘s hit committee, effective control over the maritime fall itself. [ 55 ] When the Labor Council voted to terminate the general come to it besides recommended that the unions accept arbitration of all disputed issues. [ 56 ] When the National Longshore Board put the employer ‘s marriage proposal to arbitrate to a vote of striking longshoremen, it passed in every port except Everett, Washington. [ citation needed ] That, however, left the hit seamen in the lurch : the employers had refused to arbitrate with the ISU unless it first gear won elections on the fleets on come to. While Bridges, who had preached solidarity among all nautical workers and scorned arbitration, apologized to the seamen for the stevedore ‘s vote, the President of the ISU urged them to hold out and to burn their “ fink books ”, the membership records of the caller union to which they had been forced to pay dues. [ 57 ] On July 17, 1934, the California National Guard blocked both ends of Jackson Street from Drumm to Front with machine gun mounted trucks to assist vigilante raids, protected by SFPD, on the headquarters of the Marine Workers ‘ Industrial Union and the ILA soup kitchen at 84 Embarcadero. Moving on, the Workers ‘ Ex-Servicemen ‘s League ‘s headquarters on Howard between Third and Fourth was raided, leading to 150 arrests and the dispatch destruction of the facilities. The employer ‘s group, the Industrial Association, had agents riding with the patrol. [ 58 ] Further raids were carried out at the Workers ‘ Open Forum at 1223 Fillmore street and the western Worker build up opposite City Hall that contained a bookshop and the main offices of the Communist Party, which was thoroughly destroyed. [ 59 ] Attacks were besides perpetrated on the 121 Haight Street Workers ‘ School and the Mission Workers ‘ Neighborhood House at 741 Valencia Street. [ 60 ] A police spokesperson suggested that “ possibly the Communists staged the raids themselves for publicity ”. [ 61 ] General Hugh S. Johnson, then head of the National Recovery Administration, gave a address urging responsible labor leaders to “ run these revolutionist influences out from its ranks like rats ”. [ 62 ] A lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union was kidnapped and beaten, while vigilantes seized thirteen radicals in San Jose and turned them over to the sheriff of an adjoin county, who transported them to another county. [ 63 ] In Hayward in Alameda County person erected a scaffold in front of the city hall with a noose and a sign stating “ Reds beware ”. [ 64 ] In Piedmont, an upscale community surrounded by Oakland on all sides, the head of police prepared for a reported assail by strikers on the homes of affluent ship-owners. [ 65 ]

consequence [edit ]

While some of the most knock-down people in San Francisco considered the strike ‘s denouement to be a victory for the employers, many longshoremen and seamen did not. ad-lib strikes over grievances and workplace conditions broke out as strikers returned to their jobs, with longshoremen and teamsters supporting their demands. [ 66 ] Employers conceded many of these battles, giving workers even more assurance in demanding that employers lighten unbearably heavy loads. [ 67 ] Longshoremen besides began dictating other terms, fining members who worked more than the ceiling of 120 hours per calendar month, filing charges against a gang bos for “ slandering colored brothers ” and forcing employers to fire strikebreakers. [ 68 ] early unions went further : the Marine Firemen proposed to punish any member who bought a Hearst newspaper. [ 69 ] The arbitration prize issued on October 12, 1934, cemented the ILA ‘s world power. [ 70 ] While the award put the operation of the hall in the hands of a committee of union and employer representatives, the union was given the baron to select the dispatcher. Since longshoremen were prepared to walk out if an employer did not hire a actor dispatched from the dormitory, the ILA soon controlled hiring on the docks. The employers complained that the union wanted to “ sovietize ” the waterfront. [ 71 ] Workers complained that the employers were exploiting them for cheap tug and forcing them to work in dangerous conditions without reasonable condom measures. [ citation needed ] The coupling soon utilized the “ band aid assume ” tactic to force many concessions from employers such as safe working conditions and better pay. [ 72 ] similarly, even though an arbiter held that the 1935 Agreement prohibited sympathy strikes, the union ‘s members however refused to cross other unions ‘ picket lines. Longshoremen besides refused to handle “ blistering cargo ” destined for non-union warehouses that the union was attempting to organize. [ 73 ] The ISU acquired similar agency over lease, despite the philosophical protest of the union ‘s own officers to hiring halls. The ISU used this power to drive strikebreakers out of the diligence. [ 74 ] The rift between the seamen ‘s and longshoremen ‘s unions deepened and became more building complex in the future years, as Bridges continually fought with the Sailors ‘ Union of the Pacific over labor and political issues. The West Coast district of the ILA broke off from the International in 1937 to form the International Longshoremen ‘s Union, subsequently renamed the International Longshoremen ‘s and Warehousemen ‘s Union after the union ‘s “ march inland ” to organize warehouse workers, then renamed the International Longshore and Warehouse Union ( ILWU ) in realization of the count of women members. [ citation needed ] The arbitration award besides gave longshoremen a raise to ninety-five cents ( $ 18.16 in 2019 dollars ) [ 75 ] an hour for straight time study, just diffident of the dollar an hour it demanded during the fall upon. It was besides awarded a contract that applied up and down the West Coast. [ 70 ] The strike besides prompted union personal digital assistant Carmen Lucia to organize the Department Store Workers Union and the Retail Clerks Association in San Francisco. [ 76 ]

bequest [edit ]

The ILWU continues to recognize “ Bloody Thursday ” by shutting down all West Coast ports every July 5 and honoring Nick Bordoise, Howard Sperry and all of the other workers killed by patrol during the affect. [ 77 ] The ILWU has frequently stopped oeuvre for political protests against, among other things, Italy ‘s invasion of Ethiopia, fascist intervention in Spain ‘s civil war, South Africa ‘s system of apartheid and the Iraq War. [ 15 ] [ 73 ] Sam Kagel, the last surviving member of the original union steering committee, died on May 21, 2007 at the age of 98. [ 78 ]

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