Harry Bridges: Worker, Founder, Visionary
The Union Takes Hold and the Coming of the Big Strike, 1933-1934

ILWU Oral History Project
Volume IV, Part II

Edited by Harvey Schwartz
Curator, ILWU Oral History Collection

This is the second of a three-part series featuring Harry R. Bridges' recollections of longshoring in the pre-ILWU 1920s and early 1930s, the origins of the union movement that ultimately became the ILWU, and the 1934 strike. The series is based on 20 hours of taped interviews conducted in 1978 by Bridges' wife, Noriko ("Nikki") Sawada Bridges, now Noriko ("Nikki") Sawada Bridges Flynn.

In last month's Dispatcher Bridges described conditions on the San Francisco waterfront during the Blue Book, or company union era of 1919-1933. He then reviewed a number of important deci­sions he and his fellow activists in the Albion Hall group made during 1932-1933 that were crucial to the union's early survival and eventual success.

The Albion Hall group called itself the Committee of 500, although its membership was actually about a tenth of that figure. When Bridges refers to "our rank and file group," he usually has in mind the Committee of 500 as opposed to more conservative unionists from San Francisco and other West Coast ports. He does, though, sometimes use the term rank and file in the familiar, general sense.

In this month’s installment Bridges at one point remembers calling for a rank-and-file convention for early 1934. This was actually the Pacific Coast District, International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) February 1934 convention. Bridges was seeking support, and the Committee of 500 did claim success because of the adoption of its demands at the meeting.

Another important point here is Bridges’ reference to the other maritime unions on strike in 1934. The longshoremen were joined in the big strike by thousands of sailors and other marine workers. The unions agreed to stick together, and Bridges saw this solidarity as crucial to victory for all. This is why he takes extra time to explore the longshoremen’s rejection of a separate peace offered in the infamous June 16 agreement.

The September 2000 Dispatcher carried Bridges' recollections of the 1933 revival of the Pacific Coast District, ILA, which would repre­sent waterfront workers during the '34 strike. This was the organization that would become the ILWU four years later. 

Here, we pick up Bridges' story again in 1933, when longshore workers were joining the revitalized ILA in San Fran­cisco, then the largest and most important port on the coast. In next month’s issue Bridges will reflect on the 1934 strike’s violent but victorious climax and on some of the implications of victory.

Edited by Harvey Schwartz
Curator, ILWU Oral History Collect

HARRY BRIDGES

In 1933 there was a hearing before a National Recovery Administration (NRA) board to listen to charges against the company union of the Port of San Francisco. This challenge was organized by our first local ILA officials. 

The ILA argument was that the company union was illegitimate. The board found in favor of the company union, saying it was a legitimate union and its contract with the shipowners was good. This, of course, was before the Wagner Act, which seemed to offer labor more.

Our Committee of 500 group was saying--and especially me, with my Wobbly background--that we should put all our reliance on the solidarity of the rank and file and strike clout, and that all those hearings were a lot of shit. The guys who were our early ILA officials had faith in the new NRA code. They thought, "All you had to do was take a vote, and when they took the vote the shipowners had to deal with you."

We took a position, "To hell with that." This is what we adopted. On a certain day, we'd go down to the docks--the guys used to gather at the docks in a shape-up--and we'd say, "All right. All those guys that are members of the ILA or support the union stand over here outside the docks. And all those that are not, go inside. That's the way we have an election; that's the kind of election we want."

Now, the biggest anti-union and pro-company union outfit at that time was Matson Navigation Company. The key issue there was whether we had to belong to the company union or not to go to work. Matson insisted that nobody could work there unless they were members of the company union. The NRA board had ruled that the company union was a legitimate union, but at the same time they had had to rule that we had a right to be joining the ILA.

So when Matson fired four guys for not being company union members, our rank-and-file group tied them up for five days. We were trying to spread the strike all over the waterfront. The NRA had to move in then and try to arbitrate it, and we got the four guys reinstated.

This battle really got us off the dime. We'd shut down Matson and won our right to have the ILA there. This killed Matson's idea that you'd have to be a member of the company union, called the Blue Book, to work there. Piss on that. So, in no time at all, as a result of this battle, everybody that worked in Matson was a member of the ILA.

After the Matson victory, the general line was to give credit to me, and not only me, but a whole group, our rank-and-file group that had a rank-and-file program. This was a program of action on the docks with dock stewards and dock committees, see?

I was working at this time in a steady gang, that crack gang down at the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company at Pier 26. American-Hawaiian used to have a big fleet of intercoastal ships. Pier 26 was the first pier we had completely organized. 

One day we set aside, everybody would wear their union button on their hat. So, one day, we marched in there and the company didn't say boo. They didn't dare. This was after, I think, the tie-up in Matson.

One big thing a little before the Matson shut-down was to insist on the adoption of a set of bylaws and the election of officers for ILA 38-79, our longshore local in San Francisco. Lee J. Holman and a bunch of others who had applied for the ILA charter from the International in New York had set themselves up as temporary officers.

Holman and his people were conservatives who were putting all their faith in the new NRA code. Instead, we'd put together our rank-and-file group, the Committee of 500. When the elections were held, I was elected an executive board member for the local. The majority of the board members elected came from the Committee of 500. Lee Holman made it as president. We had three business agents--two were guys we were supporting.

At this point I spent all my time working and at union meetings. I went home to sleep, and that was just about all. So, home and family--they were just forgotten. I remember that. I'm saying it the way it was.

Just before the end of '33, we started a campaign at our local. We would call a rank-and-file convention of the whole coast, see? When I laid out the program, they--the rank-and-file group I was working with--thought I was crazy. This was way beyond what they were suggesting. They didn't understand the potential there.

So, we had a local meeting here in San Francisco, and we all showed up. We used to organize for the meetings to make motions and vote and so forth. We advanced our plan to have a coastwide rank and file convention. That was adopted. Two of us were elected to travel up and down the coast to line up the other locals. I was elected with Dutch Dietrich, who was another rank-and-file guy at that time, although later on he testified against me.

This trip was the first time I'd stepped forward and made public speeches outside of the San Francisco waterfront. We started off on the train. What we were paid was a day's pay, $6.80. That's all we got to pay our fare, the hotel rooms and everything. We had a meeting in Portland. They agreed to go along with the scheme. We went to Seattle, spoke at the regular union meeting, and got support.

We finally went to Tacoma, Washington. The ILA local up in Tacoma had kept going all the years since 1919. Tacoma was a union port where they had a union hiring hall. By now we were making headway and Tacoma's leader, Paddy Morris, had the reports. So, he's a conservative, but he's a smart guy; he went along with it. We went down south to San Pedro, too. The convention date was set for February 1934.

We went to our rank-and-file convention that February, right in the Building Trades Temple in San Francisco. We drew up a set of demands and came out with a program to set up committees, to negotiate and, if necessary, to strike.

Our demands were for a six-hour day, a wage increase and union hiring halls. We were pretty unanimous on that. There was no argument. Paddy Morris and the more conservative guys were smart, because they were all for these things. It was a matter of trade unionism, you see? So, we come out with a program, and then we set up a negotiating committee.

Bill Lewis, who was elected President of the Pacific Coast District ILA at the convention, was the head of the team to negotiate a contract. But the way Lewis' team did it, the owners agreed to meet with us, but only in San Francisco. The owners took the position that there was no coastwise organization of steamship companies. There was only port-by-port, see? And they refused to sit down with us on an industry-wide basis.

I was the one that drove the number one demand: We'd deal only as a district. That was the way we put it, but it meant we'd want one coastwise contract covering all the ports with the same wages set in, because wages and working conditions were different in each port. Like Pedro, wages for some were a dime an hour less.

I had also studied the background of the 1916 and 1919 longshore strikes, and one of the things that broke the strikes was the ability of the employers to play one port against the other. Ships are moving plants or warehouses that can pack the goods from one port to the other. It stands to reason that when one port is on strike, and the ship can move a few miles away and be worked by members of the same union, it's ridiculous.

So, it's a very simple thing, and I can remember one of our slogans: "One port down, all down." If we had to strike, strike all the ports at one time and all the ships at one time. That's why we wanted to have an agreement covering all ports.

The employers' position was they'd make an agreement for San Francisco and then urge the other employer associations to adopt it. That gave the other employer associations of the various ports like Portland, Seattle, and Pedro the right to reject it or to accept it with some exceptions. Now, we knew they were going to have certain exceptions, see?

So when the employers came out with this proposal for San Francisco, we said, "We don't want any part of that." We dumped that, and set a strike date. By this time, we'd been fighting Bill Lewis and our negotiating committee, too. We said they came up with a lousy program.

Then we got a telegraph from the White House urging postponement of the strike date so the govern­ment could do something. Well, the strike date was postponed from March the 23rd, the original date. They set up a federal mediation board at that time, and negotiations went on.

When we finally went on strike, May 9, 1934, we had four demands. I've got it written down on telegraph form. We'd deal only as a District. We wanted a six-hour day, a 30 hour week, $ 1 an hour, and the union hiring hall. We wanted the union hiring hall because of the shape-up.

When the strike started, we just worked day and night to get things in shape. The main thing was to get everybody out. The other side was all prepared, and they started to recruit strikebreakers. They had big ads. And "Navy" Bill Ingram, the football coach at Cal, organized all the young men. He said he'd train the football team workin' on the waterfront. Cal was one place they went for scabs, see? They recruited not just from the football team, but from the student body as a whole, and from other places.

The shipowners had a big boat tied up down near Pier 18. That's where the scabs used to live, on there. Our guys patrolled, 'cause the strikebreakers used to sneak ashore, get off the docks, and come uptown. We had squads that used to lay in wait for them. They'd find 'em uptown and dump 'em and roll 'em.

We had a hell of a time because picketing was illegal. One of the reasons is the waterfront was state property. We'd get out there with our flag, our union banner, and I think we had a couple of drums to march along. Then the cops would move in and beat the shit out of us.

The first big battle with the cops was May 28. But before that, a few days after we was on strike, we fought over the so-called longshore hiring hall of the waterfront employers. It was right down there on Mission Street just a couple of blocks from the waterfront. We marched up there and raided that place. And of course, the cops were there. That was our first clash with the cops. It was very small.

The big battle of May 28 started when we had a long mass demonstration parade from the Ferry Building down toward Pier 46. We had it all fixed to break into Pier 38. Somehow I think the word got out to the cops. We marched along in front of Piers 18 and 20. There was maybe 1,000 of us in a long line, three or four abreast marching with our flags and everything.

In the middle of the parade was me and a handful of guys, and on the end was another bunch of guys. Now the scheme was that as we marched past Pier 38, the middle of us would charge into the dock, kick the doors down, and scramble over the dock. Then both ends would close in and follow us in, see?

I'm in the middle of the parade to lead the break-in. When we get down to pier 18, the cops get out in front of us and utter an order, "Stop, no further." So the guys in front sent word--John Schomaker was in command in front--asking, "What do we do?" I said, "Let's go, move. Just ignore them. No trouble, keep on marching, go right ahead." When we started up, then the cops charged us and started to beat us up and dump us. That was the first real brawl on the waterfront.

In June of '34, with the strike a month old, Joe Ryan from New York seized his authority as the ILA International President to meet with the shipping companies and the mayor of San Francisco. He tried to settle the strike by himself. Ryan was a conserva­tive union leader who became a prisoner of the mob. In terms of money sell-outs, he got certain payoffs in one way or another.

Ryan signed an agreement in the office of the mayor, Angelo Rossi, known as the June 16 agreement. It was supposed to settle for the longshoremen only. If the agreement was adopted, we'd all go back to work and leave the other maritime unions that struck with us behind.

So that would've meant breaking our agreement with the other unions to all stick together and win the strike. This essentially was the reason that the terms of the agreement were made fairly attractive, like acceptable wages, a joint hiring hall, and the discharge of scabs.

Ryan went to a special meeting we called in San Francisco on June 17. It was at the Eagles' Hall on Golden Gate Avenue. I was chairman of the meeting, and I had a hell of a struggle. I insisted upon Ryan's right as International President to be heard, saying it wasn't a question of whether we agree with him or not, it was the fact that he was the International President of the union. We at least owed him the courtesy of letting him have the floor.

So, Ryan took the deck. He droned on and on--he had a way of talking endlessly. And the longer he talked, why, the worse things got. Guys kept running up to me on the platform to com­plain. Sam Kagel, our advisor from the Pacific Coast Labor Bureau, says, "How long are you going to let this go on?" I kept on gaveling the guys down. Then, of course, an uproar would break out in the membership, with hootin' an' hollerin'. I'd have to gavel 'em to silence and say, "Look, fellas, the President's gonna have his say."

The meeting ran to a close and a vote was taken. I insisted upon a secret ballot. I was rejected by an overwhelming vote. I think there was something like 2400 opposed and a couple of hundred fors. Coastwise, the June 16 agreement was rejected in all ports except one. That was Los Angeles, or the port of San Pedro. They voted for it, in a referendum, by a small margin.

Practically all the locals outside of San Pedro voted the June 16 agreement down in special meetings by refusing to take a referendum. They said it was so lousy they wouldn't waste the time and the money. Anyway, this killed the famous June 16 agreement. That was when Ryan left San Francisco. He left town with a blast, too, saying that the Commies had taken over the strike.

Right after Ryan left town, we set up the Joint Marine Strike Committee (JMSC) for the 12 unions on strike. I was elected chairman. With the June 16 agreement repudiated, we served notice on the employers that they'd have to meet with us and negotiate. So then we took over the negotiations. I was the chief spokesman.