Harry the Dragon Slayer
Harry Bridges and his litany of unionism

"Organization...rank and file control...unity of action...union democracy...solidarity among all coast ports...among all unions."

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 galleys 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 re-indicted 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.