Harry Renton Bridges versus Dave Daniel Beck:
The Consequences of their Battles upon the Evolution of Unions

Within the confines of the labor movement in America two main unions faced off during the 1930s: the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and the American Federation of Labor (AFL). At the core of the AFL versus CIO conflict, the question of skilled versus unskilled labor ignited a controversy that ultimately changed the face of labor unions.

Different types of ideologies, tailored by the different sections of labor, influenced each union. Since each union had a different ideology, there emerged leaders with different backgrounds and beliefs. Leftist Harry Bridges represented the Longshoremen and the CIO, whereas conservative Dave Beck represented the Teamsters and the AFL.

Their conflicts, competition and personal vendettas against one another caused a larger rift between the two unions. This squaring off between the two unions ultimately forced unions to evolve as a result of the conflict and competition for labor by Bridges and Beck. The intensity of the conflicts between Bridges and Beck, represented the largest conflict and competition for labor in the AFL versus CIO battle.

William Green and John L. Lewis may think themselves 'locked in deadly grapple,' but it is a parliamentary debate compared to the bellowing tough-and-tumble between Seattle's Dave Beck and San Francisco's Harry Bridges. The whole of the long stretch from the Canadian border to the Mexican line is scarred by their trampling feet, and Cascades and Sierras echo the roar of combat.

The conflict and competition of Beck and Bridges led to more efficient and effective unions by utilizing militant strategies, becoming more in touch with the needs and beliefs of the labor, as well as increasing the role of the union in the everyday life via the economy.

The conflict and evolution of the unions began with the earlier formation of industrial unionism during the nineteenth century, which triggered a battle that lasted throughout the 1930s. The AFL represented craft laborers or skilled workers. The AFL officials did not want to mix the lower skilled, industrial union workers with the highly skilled unions because of elitist ideologies or the perceived impracticality of it.

Either way, the bottom line remained the AFL did not accept unskilled industrial unions. By the 1930s, after the market crashed, the public was ready for a change and for industrial unionism. John L. Lewis proposed that the AFL accept industrial unions, but was voted down by 62 percent of the votes. Lewis continued the struggle for the industrial unionists with his creation of the CIO a few weeks after the vote.

The newly formed CIO remained under the AFL for approximately one year before the split from the AFL, due to the belief they were two separate unions within the AFL.

The unemployment coupled with the alienation of the form of industrial, mechanical labor led to radicalism. With high unemployment during the Great Depression, the value of labor spiraled downward in comparison to its value prior to the market crash. Workers became part of a mechanical process, which added to the already depreciated value of labor.

"Where you used to be a man, …now you are less than the cheapest tool." When the times became more desperate, the level of radical ideologies rose and influenced the laborers that joined the CIO. The CIO became increasingly popular due to the acceptance of industrial unionism. After the formation and expansion of the labor union known as the CIO, society would soon be introduced to its future Western Regional Director, Harry Bridges.

Harry Bridges' true identity, where he came from, who he represented and what he accomplished help to explain his ideology. Bridges' ideology forms the foundation for his positions in labor. From his background to labor conflicts to his multiple trials, Harry Bridges' life can be summed up as simply "a living legend."

In Kensington, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, Alfred Renton Bridges was born on the 28 July 1901. His background before moving to the states seemed to be indecisive. He began in a college preparatory school, dropped out, and decided to go to sea. Prior to his emigration from Australia, Alfred Renton Bridges began to call himself Harry, after an uncle who worked as an advocate for trade unionism and the socialist cause within the Australian Labor Party.

His high level of respect for his uncle and the leftist cause was matched by another influence after he began his new career of a life at sea. While Bridges worked with other seamen between Melbourne and Tasmania; he soon learned more about another leftist group, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), also known as the "Wobblies."

Harry Bridges sailed from Australia to different locations in the world and ended up settling in San Francisco in 1920. At nineteen years of age, Bridges joined the Sailors Union of the Pacific (SUP). Once involved in a nationwide seamen's strike, Bridges briefly joined the IWW. His experiences up to the age of nineteen had laid the foundation for his leftist views.

The reasons behind his involvement in the SUP and IWW were not entirely due to his past influences in Australia, but also the conditions of dock workers. Bridges' view of necessary leftist intervention was not unfounded.

The dock workers' life of labor proved not only extremely harsh and dangerous, but dock workers were also abused in multiple ways. For instance, longshoremen had no job security and many workers were picked for only daily work from thousands of laborers who would venture down to the docks in hopes of being selected. 

This practice had been common throughout the times of labor surpluses, yet Bridges undertook the mission to put a stop to the practice in his field of labor. In order to stop such forces at work, in 1933, Bridges emerged as the leader of the newly founded International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) Local 38-79 in San Francisco.

Strikes, bribes, and other trials tested Bridges after his initial step into a leadership role, yet he emerged unscathed. "Hurtling into headlines over-night during the San Francisco general strike of 1934, this militant young Australian had risen from simply the boss of the San Francisco waterfront to the principle threat to A.F. of L. power on the Pacific Coast."

The success of the San Francisco general strike of 1934 assisted him in the obtainment the position of president of the Pacific Coast District. While he expanded his power and influence in the ILA, Bridges played a role in his attempt to unite West Coast maritime unions via Maritime Federation of the Pacific (MFP).

After Bridges became a successful strike leader in 1934, many business leaders and public officials began to demand he be deported on the basis he was not a citizen and a supposed communist, yet Bridges claimed never to be a member. "Harry Bridges denies that he is a communist. He is not a member of the Communist Party. He simply says communists make good unionists."

Although some believed him, in 1992, the Communist International indicated Bridges had been an elected member of the Communist Party's National Central Committee in 1936. Bridges' background, as well as his involvement in unions, posed little surprise to the reason business officials tried every angle to get Bridges out of the country.

Since Bridges was not a legal naturalized citizen until 1945, the deportation effort continued until then. For over ten years Bridges fought off deportation, business leaders, public officials, and other union leaders outside, and within, the CIO. In 1939, the Secretary of Labor, Francis Perkins, ordered the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to determine if Bridges could be subject to deportation.

The hearing officer determined he could not. This triggered the House of Representatives, in 1940, to pass a bill, which specifically ordered his deportation. Since the bill was deemed unconstitutional and died in the Senate, the effort to get Bridges out of power and out of the country continued. In 1940, Attorney General Robert H. Jackson ordered the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to conduct an investigation of Bridges. From 1940-1956 Bridges' file grew to the size of thirty-eight thousand pages.

After viewing Bridges' background, ideology, and how both of those influenced his union positions in the West Coast, how he obtained the power of Western Regional Director of the CIO still must be addressed. The question still remains as to how he used each of the organizations to his advantage, to push the enhancement of his position of power within the labor unions of the sea and land.

For Bridges the road to the CIO proved long and arduous, yet it all began with the longshoremen and his push or, "inland march," by means of obtaining the warehouse workers under the longshoreman banner.

Bridges' goal to unite and bring solidarity to the Pacific Coast labor force of longshoremen and sailor unions took place in the early thirties. This ambitious goal of Bridges met some resistance due to conflicts of some cities' longshoremen represented by the AFL, yet overall Bridges brought the solidarity for which he hoped.

This movement to create a united formation of the Sailors' Union of the Pacific (SUP) and the Longshoremen, began when Bridges infiltrated his way deeper into the Seattle labor scene. In both 1934 and 1936, the Seattle longshoremen proved to be as militant in strike movements as Bridges had been.

In addition to Bridges' focused attempt at an alliance between the SUP and the Longshoremen, he also attempted to acquire the warehousemen's labor unions. In Bridges' biography, he stated, "And you know, if the union hadn't branched out into warehouse, I doubt if it could have organized Hawaii."

Bridges' rationale regarding the warehousemen unions of Hawaii correlated with his attempt at organizing the West Coast. He believed that had the union not obtained the warehousemen unions in Hawaii, then organizing the island could not have been accomplished. Therefore the warehousemen were necessary for his organization of the West Coast.

This belief of Bridges led to his infiltration into the land-based unions, coined as his "inland march" by labor reporters. This expansion to the sea and land forced Bridges to fight for expanding unions on both fronts.

Bridges began to expand his role as a serious player by expanding his influence into both the warehousemen's unions and the plan to solidify the unions of the waterfront under the Maritime Federation of the Pacific (MFP). The selection for the head of the MFP turned out to be Harry Lundeburg, union leader of the Sailor's Union of the Pacific (SUP).

The SUP had 8,000 members who made their headquarters in Seattle. Bridges merged his seventeen thousand longshoremen, sailors, and seventeen thousand members of nine other seagoing unions in 1935. This move to unite the unions represented the first step in his creation of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU). All that remained was to unionize the warehousemen's unions under the longshoremen's banner.

The attempt to obtain the warehousemen's union became Bridges' second step in his creation of the ILWU, as well as the enhancement of his position of power on the West Coast. In order to unionize the warehouse workers under the longshoremen's banner, Bridges considered it necessary to find a loophole. His rationale for induction of these workers into the industrial union consisted of one belief.

He believed that since the warehouse workers could hardly qualify as craft unionists because of their variety of duties in different industries of which they were employed, they were not using defined skills of a specialized job and in turn could fit into industrial unionism.

This notion appeared to be a stretch, yet Bridges pushed the "inland march" first in the bay area and then in other cities including San Pedro, Portland, and Seattle, based upon the notion. The movement caught many by surprise and drew enormous attention to Bridges.

"The real stake in this war of Labor against Labor was jurisdictional possession of the West Coast warehousemen, who were ignored by Teamster Beck until Longshoreman Bridges in his 'inland march' started to organize them." 

Other than Beck, the main individual who watched was John L. Lewis. Lewis felt this sort of leadership and power must be assessed to determine if Bridges could be an asset to the CIO. To do so, Lewis sent one of his organizers to appraise Bridges and his methods in San Francisco.

After Bridges united the SUP and obtained the warehouse workers, he increased the speed of his formation of the ILWU and his succession to the Western Regional Director of the CIO.

As far as Bridges' positions in labor unions, after the MFP and ILA, he increased his status in 1937 when he led the Pacific Coast District into the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) as the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU). Bridges was the first president of the ILWU, he later became the CIO's Western Regional Director after appointment by CIO President, John L. Lewis.

Although the CIO's President John L. Lewis remained a capitalist Republican, his newly appointed Western Regional Director, Harry Bridges, had the opposite economic ideology. The public described the two men's ideologies as "…different as those of Trotsky and Stalin." Accusations against Bridges' affiliation with the Communist Party remained a reason for deportation, as discussed earlier, yet most laborers cared little about his alleged association.

According to interviewee, Bonnie Barber, Harry Bridges' personal friend, the laborers cared mainly about Bridges' ability to help.9 Throughout Bridges' career he always insisted fifteen percent of ILWU members be able to petition the recall of any officer, himself included.

Bridges also believed, and enforced, that his salary be no higher than that of the average longshoreman's wage. Bridges' ideology influenced his positions he held as a union leader, as well as his decisions.

Although Bridges' decision to take over the warehousemen's unions increased his position of power on the West Coast, it also became the spark in the controversy between the Seattle Teamsters with Dave Beck represented the AFL and Bridges' own affiliation of ILWU represented by the CIO.

The controversy between to whom the warehousemen union belonged, in respect to the CIO or AFL, will be discussed after the analysis of the other key player in the Teamsters v. Longshoremen, AFL v. CIO, capitalist v. communist controversy, Seattle's Dave Beck.

Born in Stockton, California, David Daniel Beck (16 June 1894-26 December 1993) was the son of Lemuel Beck, a carpet cleaner and part-time auctioneer, and Mary Tierney, a laundress. When Beck reached four years old, his father moved the family to Seattle. While living in Seattle the family lived in and out of chronic poverty, which forced Beck to drop out of school in order to help support his family at age sixteen.

Although financial situations caused his withdrawal from school, he still dreamt of becoming a lawyer. Later in life Beck attended night extension program courses in law, economics, and business administration through the University of Washington. America entered into World War I during the time Beck attended classes and worked as a truck driver for a laundry company, which employed his mother.

Beck enlisted in the navy in 1917 and saw action as a gunner in patrols of the North Sea on anti-zeppelin missions. While on leave, Beck married Dorothy E. Leschander of Seattle and had one child named Warren David, who out of respect and admiration later changed his name to Dave Beck, Jr.

After the war, Beck returned to Seattle in 1918 only to find his truck-driving job had been filled during his absence. He took another truck-driving job represented by the Teamsters' Union. Having already joined the Teamsters in 1914, Beck became route manager two years after he obtained the job. Later, after an argument with the head manager, Beck quit the job, yet still wanted to support the Teamsters' Union.

He gained employment in his previous job that had been filled when he returned from the war. Unfortunately, the company was not part of the Teamsters Union, which Beck felt was an excellent union.

To further the expansion of the Teamsters, Beck convinced hotel owners to deal only with truck companies whose drivers were part of unions. In essence, Beck began to persuade those truck companies not associated with unions to join the Teamster Union. This decision by Beck to push the Teamsters became the first turning point in his accession to become a major power within the AFL.

Beck's organizational skills were recognized and earned him a position on the executive board of the Seattle Laundry and Dye Drivers Local 566 in 1925. He eventually left his driving job to work primarily as the secretary-treasurer of the local.

By 1927, Beck became the president and started to be noticed by the Teamster's national leaders. During the same year, the Teamsters gave him the post of General Organizer of the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia. Ultimately, Beck's increased power within the Teamster organization, combined with the growing power of the Teamsters in Seattle, formed a scenario that allowed him to rise to the helm of Seattle's labor union representation.

Beck's personal power allowed him to make multiple investments in Seattle real estate, which resulted in his economic advancement to millionaire status. Beck's power and money led to allegations of involvement with organized crime. Like Bridges, Beck had charges of corruption, yet unlike Bridges, it was not for un-American communistic associations.

Beck pleaded the Fifth Amendment 117 times throughout hearings, in regard to his involvement with organized crime. Later in life during an interview, Beck told interviewer John Dennis McCullum he never had any connection with the Mafia. "Their business was narcotics, gambling, prostitution, and pornography.

I'm not saying they didn't have trucks or drivers in our union- I don't honestly know- but if they did, I never knew it." The Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field investigated Beck. No charges were brought against Beck by the Senate, yet he ultimately was released from the AFL-CIO executive council for his refusal to cooperate with the rackets committee.

Prior to being interrogated and released from the AFL-CIO executive council, Beck proved a powerful leader of the Teamsters with a strong capitalistic ideology. Unlike Bridges' communal ideology, Beck was strictly a businessman with capitalistic agendas. Throughout Beck's career as a union leader, he made little effort to hide his anticommunist ideology. 

During one of Beck's speeches when the Seattle Junior Chamber of Commerce asked him to speak at a meeting in early 1937, Beck shouted: "There is no place in the Teamsters for communists [sic] or bolshevists [sic]. I am for the capitalistic system!" Beck made reference to his alliance with business leaders and employers. Beck stated "some of the finest men I know are employers."

Due to Beck's ideology being so staunchly capitalistic, many conflicts occurred as a result of his unwillingness to work or be associated with union leaders or unions whose economic ideology represented less than 100 percent capitalistic beliefs.

After viewing Dave Beck's background, ideology, and how he became a powerful Teamster, the question still remains of how Beck spread Teamster sovereignty, which allowed him to create the platform of power he placed himself upon. Since the Teamsters were already an entity prior to Beck, how did he expand despite conflicts with judicial challenges and other unions?

For Beck, the road to the AFL differed from Bridges' in the sense that he expanded the Teamsters' union by engulfing other unions into the Teamsters, whereas Bridges' combined multiple unions to form new larger unions. Where would the Teamsters in Seattle be without Dave Beck? The key Teamster events that led to their established power under Dave Beck needs a thorough analysis to understand how Beck became the center of Seattle.

Beck's first expansion of his future union empire came from beer when he brought brewery drivers into the Teamsters. This expansion became the turning point for which the Teamsters were looking, because it enabled them to gain control of the transportation of beer.14 It, in essence, created new capital needed to further the expansion of Beck's new union empire.

To safeguard their new income, the Teamsters set up an embargo, via trucking, on all outside beer. This allowed them the luxury of a strangle hold on the market of beer in the area, which meant their profits and prices could be established as the Teamsters saw fit.

To compliment the Teamsters' brewery expansion, the Teamsters expanded their influence through the election of officials supportive of Beck and the Teamsters. Now the Teamsters had both the brewery and powerful friends in high local governmental positions of the Seattle Central Labor Council.

The Teamsters expanded into the United States Congress and the United States Senate, by the election of two Teamster members into these powerful positions in the government. Beck played a role in the City Civil Service Commission, the state parole board, and the police administration. After the increased amount of established ties into the government, the Teamsters neared untouchable status as their position of sovereignty grew at an exponential rate.

Beck's growth, aided further by two non-labor factors, consisted of friendly employers and reorganization within the Seattle Chamber of Commerce. Employers tended to perceive Beck as the man with the ability to silence the Post-Intelligencer and control political sentiment.

For these two reasons, employers viewed Beck with a hint of fear due to his power over business. This fear tended to entice employers to side with Beck before they had to square off against his power. The second reason consisted of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce being formed of individuals who wanted a closer cooperation between labor, the employers, and the Teamsters under Dave Beck.

When the new Chamber of Commerce became more liberal towards unions and labor, in comparison to the older conservative Chamber of Commerce, Beck had the advantage of an additional support from another political sphere. The Chamber of Commerce supported Beck due to the fear of the "supposedly communistic" CIO. Since the Chamber of Commerce believed Beck to be the lessor of two evils, the Teamsters became the best option.

The fear of communism also led to an animosity toward non-Teamster unions. Since the Teamsters were viewed as the remedy for communism, any efforts made any non-Teamster unions were believed to be communistic. Beck used this towards his advantage and squared off against unions that competed for the same labor as the Teamsters.

"Beck's public attacks on Communists and fellow travelers have also raised him in Seattle's esteem. In these he is perfectly sincere and they serve the double purpose of advancing his never-ending war on Harry Bridges." The non-communist public sided with Beck's Teamsters in conflicts, yet this would be challenged with the arrival of Bridges.

By 1936, the Teamsters influenced many of Seattle's industries and economic core institutions under Dave Beck. Seattle's Mayor, John Dore, told an interviewer, in Fall of 1936, how he felt with regard to the Teamsters; "I'm glad the teamsters' union is running Seattle. It had the brains, the money and the power." The reason for Dore's support for the Teamsters resulted due to Beck's assistance in his political career.

After a defeat in 1932, Dore "… ran in 1936 as 'Dave Beck's man.' In office again, the flamboyant Dore gaily admitted that Seattle was now a 'Dave Beck town,' and announced openly that CIO agitators would be 'put in jail, a hospital, or the morgue." Through the strategic events Beck had been engaged in, as previously discussed, he had become the center of Seattle.

Beck was reported in his biography as stating that, "The way we were organized- the way we were growing by leaps and bounds- we could launch a fight in every nook and corner of the 11 western states. I and my associates had fought and struggled and worked like hell to bring the Teamsters to that position."

Beck's uses of strong-arm methods and blackmail have been criticized by employers and other union leaders, yet whatever the method Beck used worked to increase the power of the Teamsters. Beck consolidated many previously independent local unions and members of other unions by inducing them to join the Teamsters.

By 1937 he organized the Western Conference of Teamsters, became the president and began to incorporate warehousemen and freight handlers into the Teamsters. These two forms of labor were originally not incorporated into the Teamsters because they were not considered specialized labor and many were part of Harry Bridges new press for the ILWU.

Beck eventually expanded the Teamsters Union's influence and power into almost every realm of Seattle labor. As a result of Beck's unmatched power throughout the unions of Seattle, many considered Beck a dictator of Seattle, while others praised him as a savior because of his ability to help labor.

Regardless of the opinion of the public, the fact remains that Dave Beck became the leader of the individual labor empire he created in Seattle. Beck's labor empire extended to include not only truckers but department-store workers, automobile salesmen, cannery workers, undertakers, cow punchers, dry cleaners, and filling-station operators to name a few. This example of the extent of Beck's influence and power in Seattle demonstrated the opposition Bridges faced.

The final event that transpired and caused Beck to move from statewide power to a larger role in the West Coast came with the death of San Francisco's Teamster International Vice President, Mike Casey. After Casey died, the power of the West Coast's American Federation of Labor (AFL) leadership position was then handed over to Dave Beck, who continued to expand.

This became another turning point for Beck and the Teamsters. "…Teamster Dave Beck, pudgy, aggressive 'Tsar of Seattle Labor' who is out to organize 'everything on wheels,' a definition broad enough to take warehousemen as well as restaurant help, newspaper circulation hustlers and already organized brewers."

This widespread belief proved true with regards to Beck's desire to unionize every labor position possible to help his Teamsters power grow, as well as increase his own power.

After Beck had gained power and unionized many forms of transportation, the conflict neared ignition with the CIO. Beck and the AFL began to expand rapidly which resulted in a push to connect, through alliance, the Joe Ryan's East Coast longshoremen with Beck's west coast Teamsters.

Since the alliance with Bridges rival was intended to force Bridges out of power allowing Beck and Ryan to take over the representation of the longshoremen on the West Coast as well as the East, this moved the AFL and Beck into open confrontation with the CIO and Bridges' longshoremen.

Although the alliance placed the CIO and AFL on the battlefield, the Teamsters movement into the established Bridges' warehousemen union became the spark that ignited the controversy between Bridges and Beck. The Saturday Evening Post referred to the two labor leaders' beliefs as being like oil and water.

It is with respect to philosophies, however, that the two leaders are in sharpest conflict. Bridges stands frankly for the socialization of business, and insists 'workers have nothing in common with the employers.'… Dave Beck, on the other hand, has no larger concern than wages, hours and working conditions. In the same breath that he charges Bridges with being a Communist, working to overthrow America's democratic institutions, he affirms his own faith in the capitalistic system.

Both labor leaders deemed one another as the thorn in the side of the labor movements progress, and with ideologies significantly diametrically opposed, the conflict could not be suppressed for long.

Prior to the vital conflict between the two union leaders, Bridges and Beck, a decision emerged that would attempt to settle the warehousemen's dispute in the courts. The delineation in the court had to determine if the warehousemen were in fact part of the jurisdictional report in the 1936 edition of the Handbook of American Trade Unions by Estelle N. Stewart. 

The report lacked any mention of who would control the warehouses or warehouse workers. However, in Stewart's report, it did mention the term warehouse twice. The first account made reference to marine warehouses and the other to cotton warehouses located in the ports. Both of which fell directly into the marine/ports, which were controlled by Bridges.

The foundation for Beck's argument relied upon the fact that these workers were not in the labor force of shipping, but rather transporting the goods from the ships to be distributed on land therefore the labor should be classified as land-based and not marine or port work.

Bridges still trying to solidify the Maritime Federation of the Pacific, of which he made his first bid for West Coast leadership, and Beck interested in expanding his power labor, set the stage of the ultimate conflict between the two powers of the CIO and AFL.

The conflict between Beck and Bridges came about with actions and challenges by both men after the battle moved more directly into Seattle over the warehousemen. As a result of Beck's mission to unionize "everything on wheels" and Bridges' "inland march," the clash came as Bridges moved more directly into the warehousemen labor unions.

"So [Bridges] went after the warehousemen, who stand economically between the longshoremen and the teamsters. There he clashed with Dave Beck in a violent struggle which is still far short of settlement." Mayor Dore wanted the two unions to compromise and work together for the good of Seattle.

If forced to choose between the two, Dore made it clear he would be forced to stay with the Teamsters, due to his earlier loyalty to Beck. Dore knew the battle over the warehousemen was rooted in the battle between the CIO and AFL. Since Dore did not have to choose a side, he remained neutral to insure not to suffer defeat if his support ended up being for the losing union in the battle.

Beck felt Bridges' move to obtain the warehousemen was more than an economic or political move, but rather a direct attack on the Teamsters. Beck stated later in life in his biography: Bridges'

…'inland march' [was] designed to add warehousemen and eventually, presumably, other categories of workers to his domain. I was not cognizant of his intentions, but I knew goddamn well what he was up to. It was a direct challenge to me and the Teamsters. The result was a limited but bloody civil war.

The situation quickly escalated after Bridges attacked employers and the class system in a speech addressing a Luncheon Club at the University of Washington. A portion of the speech by Bridges stated:

'We take the stand that we as workers have nothing in common with employers. We are in a class struggle, and we subscribe to the belief that if the employer is not in business his products still will be necessary and we still will be providing them when there is no employing class. We frankly believe that day is coming.'

Beck counter attacked by once again addressing Bridges as a communist, in addition to making reference to the fact the economic or social life of the country has no need for communism. These two attacks launched the war between the two men.

After Seattle recognized the escalating problem between Beck and Bridges, Seattle Central Labor Council instructed warehouse workers employed inland not to recognize the longshoremen, but rather to recognize only the Teamsters. This was a striking blow to Bridges' plight to represent the warehousemen. The next move by the Teamsters and Longshoremen came out of the deliberation offices and onto the streets, or rather the docks.

Although the Seattle Central Labor Council wanted the Teamsters to have control, operations still took place in the forms of raids, picketing, and fights between the Teamsters and Longshoremen. For instance, after the negotiations, the Bemis Bag company tried to reopen its doors only to find Teamster pickets blocked the doorway.

Later on in the day 100 longshoremen picketers arrived at the company, expelled the Teamsters and opened the Bemis Bag company for business. After the Teamsters were evicted, a sedan that allegedly belonged to a well know Teamster official, drove down the sidewalk at high speeds through the longshoremen's picket line, then turned and drove once again down the sidewalk.

The event caused many of the picketers to be hospitalized with one in serious condition. After the incident on the sidewalk of Bemis Bag company, a pact of peace was signed.

The peace between the CIO and AFL would not ultimately last as the instigation between Bridges and Beck moved to San Francisco. Beck announced to San Francisco that the Teamsters would take the goods from the warehouses that the Longshoremen union represented. Bridges retorted this would be theft. 

Ultimately, Beck tried to blockade the whole San Francisco Bay in order to stop the movement of all freights, except those freights that carried perishable foods. The San Francisco embargo originated from the initial warehousemen- California Packing squabble, and moved into a colossal battle. This sort of diversionary tactic to solve the warehousemen- California Packing squabble was used by Beck as a sort of labor Sarajevo.

Beck's original goal to secure the possession of the warehousemen snowballed into a labor battle that threatened Bridges' headquarters of San Francisco and ultimately the whole Pacific Coast.

"'This,' cried [Beck], 'is a showdown fight. We'll close every port on the Pacific Coast where warehousemen are not teamsters.'" The stance by Beck left little to the imagination or to be misunderstood. Bridges reportedly replied to the statement to Time saying, "These gentlemen not only want a labor war but demand it."

The lines were drawn with Beck on one side and Bridges on the other. The AFL and CIO began to conduct talks of bringing the two organizations into a friendly agreement regarding the war between the CIO and AFL, yet "…the employers' general attitude was: 'The fat is in the fire now. Let it sizzle for a while.'"

The employers thought that if the two competing union leaders could tear each other down, there would be less pressure on the employers. In the short run this may have been true, yet in the end this belief would prove to be false.

The attempt at peace between the CIO and AFL left the question of the warehousemen up in the air, with Bridges and Beck still battling for labor. To answer the question of who would represent the warehousemen became a top priority due to the results of the battles between Beck and Bridges.

The decision by the Citizen's Committee allowed the warehousemen to vote on representation ultimately seemed to be the only diplomatic, somewhat non-violent method to end the conflict between Bridges and Beck, the AFL and CIO, and the Teamsters and Longshoremen over which union would represent the warehousemen.

The vote for representation of the warehousemen was cast by, and only by, warehouse companies on 17 February 1938. The votes resulted in a few warehouse companies being represented by the longshoremen, and many more were to be represented by the AFL.

The election outcome was clearly a victory for the AFL and a huge blow to the CIO. The CIO received 51 overall votes, whereas the AFL received 248 votes. The CIO had hoped to claim its original warehouses, but it actually received only the two smallest.

Neither the CIO nor AFL were happy with the outcome. The CIO refused to accept the vote because of the belief that Dore coerced the employees, causing the voter results to be skewed. The AFL was unsatisfied because it wanted all of the warehousemen to be represented by the AFL. Where there were a few for the CIO meant that others could later leave the AFL and return to the CIO via vote.

The conflict between Beck and Bridges was over the warehousemen, yet it represented much more than just a fight over representation of labor. Bridges attempted to expand his union and further his influence into the Pacific Northwest on his "inland march."

Whereas, for Beck, his need to stop Bridges represented another attempt to expand his power and stop a supposed communist from infiltration into the Seattle area. Either way, both had reasons founded in ideological, political, social, economic, and power struggles. Their reasons caused a shift from the traditional union to a more proactive, aggressive militant union. The consequences of the battles between Bridges and Beck helped shape their unions.

The conflicts between Bridges and Beck, and the CIO and AFL, are historically significant because the conflicts caused the evolution of the labor union. Without the competition and conflict between Bridges' representation of the CIO and Beck's representation of the AFL, the advancement of labor unions would not have taken place.

The conflict and competition led each union to become more efficient and effective by using militant and strategic strategies, becoming more in touch with the needs and beliefs of the labor, as well an increasing the role of the union in the everyday life of the people via the economy.

Through competition, just as in the market economy, the unions were forced to become more efficient and effective in order to avoid being eradicated by the other union. The capitalist ideology of competition actually encouraged the advancement of each union in their techniques and positions in the field of labor unions.

The evolution of techniques took a dramatic change with the formation of the CIO. When the CIO became a threat to the AFL, the tactics began to become more militaristic, involved, and strategic.

The main leftist tactic of the CIO came about with the emergence of the sit-down strike. Many business leaders resented the sit-down strike because of its implications of stopping production. The business leaders also detested the sit-down strike because they viewed it as an assault on personal property and believed the strikes represented revolutionary Bolshevik ideas, such as the coming of communism or socialism.

Many of those involved in the sit-down strikes had little intention of revolution yet their actions showed employers the power the workers had under the CIO to shut down businesses, temporarily or permanently. The Supreme Court ultimately outlawed the CIO's sit-down strikes in 1939 yet other tactics still existed.

Another tactic employed by the CIO appeared with the appointment of leaders who corresponded to the ideologies of those sections of labor represented by the CIO. For example, since the majority of laborers the CIO represented were ideologically placed on the left, Lewis, a staunch Republican, decided to place Bridges into power as the Western Regional Director of the CIO.

Many CIO laborers identified with Bridges' economic ideology. The fear of losing labor to the competition, especially after labor began to vote as to what union it wished to represent them, drove both the CIO and AFL to view their own actions with the highest degree of scrutiny due to the possible effects a single decision could have in driving labor into the enemy's camp.

The use of militant, strong-arm tactics of unions also became more prevalent under Beck and Bridges' competitive conflicts for labor. As each of the union leaders' unions began to grow, the use of militant tactics to increase power began to be used more prevalently.

Beck stated that "The longshoremen's favorite weapon was the cargo hook; we favored knuckles." Another account of the physical militant strong-arm strike and boycott tactics was described in The Saturday Evening Post.

In Portland more than a hundred men have been arrested and convicted for arson, bombing, window smashing and murderous assault; in Los Angeles small armies fight it out in the open streets with ball bats and tire irons, and in Seattle and San Francisco arm and leg breaking has come to be commonplace.

Other than the physical aspect of militant strong-arm competition, which Beck and The Saturday Evening Post described, the use of strategic tactics became more useful to strangle the opposition of the employers than knuckles or hooks.

Both Beck and Bridges moved away from using the strong-arm tactics to more of a productive strategic, manipulative authoritarian power role by having multiple sectors of labor being represented by either Beck or Bridges. Beck's main use of this tactic can be viewed by his dictatorial role as Seattle's Tsar. Since most of Seattle's labor was under his control, he dictated what businesses could and could not do.

His power reached further than the mayor or any other power official. By controlling the trucking, some warehouses and the majority of labor in an area, Beck soon discovered that he had control in the bargaining processes of most negotiations with employers.

If [Beck] thinks that there are too many restaurants or too many filling stations, he warns newcomers that they may not expect service from the Teamsters' Union; he maintains price levels by cracking down on cut-rate stores, and when he reaches the conclusion that Washington products suffer from outside competition, his 'boys' let stuff from the East collect dust in warehouses.

Beck's "vertical monopoly" of the unions proved to be more effective for the control of a city, whereas Bridges "horizontal monopoly" of the unions proved to be more efficient for control of a larger area, mainly the West Coast. Instead of controlling the majority of different types of labor in one city, Bridges began to control certain sectors of labor, such as shipping and warehouses, along the entire West Coast and inland as well.

Bridges' 'inland march' has been described as his way to have "…a finger in nearly every labor pie in the three states except the territory around Seattle under control of Dave Beck. Even there, of course, Bridges rules the port labor."

The common link between the two labor union leaders came with their uses of militant tactics to increase power for each union. Once they achieved enough power to use their different sectors of labor to their negotiating advantage, the use of militancy to negotiate became less effective in comparison with the use of the strategic power tactic.

This transformation from strong-arm tactics to strong strategic tactics emerged one way the union evolved during this competitive struggle between Beck and Bridges, another way unions changed was through the personable aspect of the union image.

The element of competition led the traditional union to transform from an abstract out of touch entity to that of an involved tangible force in the labor union of the 1930's.

The first union to take this step out of the shadows and into the ring to fight a more military style for the worker was the CIO. One CIO leader had recollected that the unions during the AFL days, "had only meant pot bellied grafters with diamond stickpins- little cliques of gravy train snobs with a corner on cushy jobs- high initiation fees, long apprenticeships, rituals, all sorts of tricks to avoid sharing the goodies." When the CIO came on the scene, this image of union non-interactive, exclusionary, superiority, and elitists was broken.

A new form of union rose in its place, demonstrated by a union Western Regional Director of the CIO, Bridges, who would not accept wages any higher than the average longshoreman's wages. This new union, in touch with the people, caused the idea of the traditional union to shatter.

Another form of staying in touch with the people, which the unions began to utilize, came with the orientation of economic ideologies. Beck, for instance, used communism as a scare tactic to align the people of Seattle with the Teamsters. Unlike Beck, Bridges did not publicly declare he was a communist yet he did say he supported their efforts.

Since the unskilled labor usually were more leftist, this tended to align certain labor under Bridges and the CIO. Both Beck and Bridges became experts at staying in touch with the beliefs, needs, and happiness of the labor under their different unions.

As labor unions became more directly involved in the workings of their labor as well as increasing their use of militant tactics, Beck's and Bridges' changes in their unions began to affect the economy of certain areas.

When Beck took control over Seattle's economy and the workings of the most industries, the AFL, Teamsters, and Beck had an enormous influence on the union members and nonmembers' lives through the economy. Beck's economic vertical union monopoly allowed the union to move directly into the economic workings of the Seattle economy.

The role of a new form of union took power and became in charge of the interactions of businesses. Bridges used a similar approach with his "inland march" and his efforts to influence different unions to join the CIO. Overall, both unions began to become more directly involved in people's lives via the unions' influence on the economy.

The series of events that transpired to open the door of opportunity for Bridges and Beck to come to power in the CIO and AFL, were situational solutions to immediate problems each union faced.

Each labor leader viewed these events and utilized reactionary solutions, as answers to the independent problem; neither labor leader thought their solutions would ultimately change the face of each of their unions. The conflict and competition led each union to operate more efficiently and effectively by using militant and strategic strategies, becoming more in touch with the needs and beliefs of the labor, as well an increased the role of the union in the everyday life of the people via the economy.

As each union had competed for labor, the use of capitalistic ideals forced the unions to adapt and change to meet the needs of the union and labor represented. Without labor leaders like Beck and Bridges and their conflicts, competition, and personal vendettas against each another, the expansion and evolution of their unions would not have taken place in the 1930s.

Source - Joshua Sage Zarling a student of Western Washington University. An excellent telling of The March Inland.