Harry Bridges: Worker, Founder, Visionary
Victory in the 1934 Strike

ILWU Oral History Project
Volume IV, Part III 

Edited by Harvey Schwartz
Curator, ILWU Oral History Collection 

This is the third 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, a year after his retirement as ILWU International President.

In the first installment of the series Bridges portrayed conditions on the San Francisco waterfront during the Blue Book, or company union, era of 1919-1933. He then reviewed how he and his fellow activists in the Committee of 500 played a vital role in the revival of the Pacific Coast District of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA).

The Pacific Coast District, ILA, represented the longshore workers during the 1934 strike. This was the organization that became the ILWU three year later. In the second installment of the series, Bridges described the expansion of the ILA on the waterfront and explored key issues in the coming of the 1934 strike.

In this month's article Bridges emphasizes that the ILA resisted arbitration throughout the dispute. This was because Bridges and other longshore strikers feared that arbitration by a supposedly neutral third party would fail to deliver the ILA's main demand for a union-controlled hiring hall to replace the hated shape-up.

Things changed when the San Francisco Labor Council voted to end that city's four-day general strike called to protest the killing of strikers by police on Bloody Thursday, July 5, 1934. 

With pressure mounting to end the maritime strike, Bridges and the ILA were forced to accept arbitration. Fortunately, the federal National Longshoremen's Board that arbitrated the strike recognized the justice of the ILA's cause and established a joint-controlled hiring hall staffed by union dispatchers.

Bridges also mentions important developments that brought his union lasting fame for its progressive policies and its aid to other workers. He describes how the San Francisco longshore local took its initial steps toward the integration of Black workers in 1934, and he remembers how ILA members helped organize hundreds of other workers in the wake of the big strike. Finally, Bridges recalls the union's early anti-fascist stance.

Because of the '34 strike's bloodshed and the dramatic victory won by the workers, it is sometimes overlooked that the maritime unions struck again successfully in 1936. A major difference this time was that the strike was peaceful. The employers did not resort to the use of scabs or violence.

Bridges has some interesting things to say about building the broad-based unity that helped keep the employers in check in 1936. That unity was embodied in an organization called the Maritime Federation of the Pacific. It was short-lived, but it did prove useful during the 1936 dispute.

The main strength of the Bridges tape collection is the '34 strike. That is also the major focus of this article. So here we pick up Bridges' story five weeks into the big strike. It is mid-June 1934, and Bridges has just been elected chair of the Joint Marine Strike Committee (JMSC), a newly created body set up to represent the 12 striking maritime unions in negotiations with their employers.

Bridges' role as head of the JMSC ensured his status as an international figure. Sam Kagel, the long-time Coast Arbitrator for the longshore industry, is also the last surviving JMSC member. In an interview conducted for the ILWU Coast Committee last year, I asked him who really provided the most insightful and important day-by-day leadership on the JMSC. He answered in a word: "Harry." 

HARRY BRIDGES

The JMSC used to meet every morning for an hour. Then, right across the street from where the San Francisco Post Office Annex is now, not far from The Embarcadero, there was a vacant lot. So we called the lines together there and I'd get up on the soapbox and make a report to our guys before they scattered and went on picket duty along the waterfront. Maybe I'd take five minutes, a half-hour, whatever it was, and give 'em a day-by-day report from the strike committee.

Of course, by this time the whole idea of us being a Communist group and the whole thing being a Communist revolution was being picked up by the press. Then the strike committee, over my objections, would have drawn up--this is some of the reactionary guys on the committee--a resolution condemning Communism. This would then be introduced into the San Francisco Labor Council, again over my objections. As soon as it was adopted that was a good sign that the cops would move in and beat the shit out of us again.

I tried to tell the guys; I said, "Look, fellas, you're asking for it." I didn't know too much. I wasn't too politically apt, you see? But I knew damn well to avoid tryin' to appease the fucking press. The worst outfit then was the San Francisco Chronicle. And sure enough, as soon as we passed one of those resolutions and it was in the paper, the cops would come in and beat the shit out of us.

By and large, we were all greenhorn amateurs. The one who had a little actual past union experience was me. One time we were marching, and the attitude of the guys was the cops would never shoot us. I couldn't convince them otherwise, because they knew all the cops. Then they took all the old cops off the waterfront and sent some new ones down.

Suddenly shots rang out. One of our guys falls right down, and he's squirting blood. And, of course, my partner, who was a real anti-Communist guy, said, "Hey, he's been shot!" I said, "Of course he's been fucking well shot. I've been trying to tell you that."

Then my partner wakes up and says, "Let's go!" We break away and run across the vacant lot and around the corner. Just when we turned the corner, we heard shots go through the corner of the building. It missed us by about six inches. Just got around the corner. Then I was looking around over my shoulder and I could see the cop with the gun.

There were a lot of mounted cops back then, too. But we had a few tricks ourselves. One of our maneuvers was that when we had enough dried peas or marbles we'd scatter them around so that the horses would fall over. There was the horses scattering in every direction.

Of course, once that happened to a horse, he got extremely nervous, and he was scared to move. We also had something--I forget what it was--to hit the horse's belly with, and especially his prick if it was a male. They had geldings, see? So that's how we disarmed the horses.

We also developed a way of handling tear gas bombs. At first the cops didn't have tear gas guns like they had later. They threw round tear gas bombs that were glass. They'd break, and the tear gas would come out. So, we got brooms like you'd sweep the floor with. We was out there like a bunch of baseball players. When the bombs came, we'd smack them and hit them right back into the middle of the cops.

Hitting the glass tear gas bombs with the brooms didn't break them. But when they hit the deck they broke. We also had buckets of water so that when the bombs fell and broke on the cobblestones near us, we threw water on them. I don't know what good that did!

There was another thing we did. Right down there across from Pier 46, they had torn down a building. A big vacant lot was being built up there. There was small stacks of bricks all over this vacant lot.

It was just perfect, because you got in there, and then the cops couldn't charge. The horses couldn't come in. We were there with a ready made load of ammunition if we had to make a stand. It was made to order, you know? You didn't have to have many fuckin' brains to figure out how to handle that.

When we buried Nick Bordoise, the cook that got killed on Bloody Thursday, Sam Darcy made a fighting speech. I liked his tone. Darcy was the regional head of the Communist Party. He said, "We didn't come out here to cry, and Nick wouldn't want us to cry. What Nick wants is, `The fight must go on. We're just gettin' started.'"

This was Darcy's line. You bet your life. He said, "These are casualties, sure. But what Nick wants is, `No more casualties; we only want the casualties from the bosses, not from us anymore.'" That was no goddamn speech of here we're burying a martyr and we start saying prayers. Bull shit, no.

You see, in a small way, temporarily a strike is a small revolution. A strike is a very serious thing. The strike weapon should never be used except as a last desperate resort, when there's no way out. It simply means a form of revolution because you take over an industry or a plant owned by the capitalists and temporarily you seize it. Temporarily you take it away.

That's another way of saying to an employer or an industry--in this case, we said it to the shipowners of the whole world--"You might be worth millions or billions—we don't say you own this until we tell you to operate." But never do that unless you're sure you're able to do it. Therefore, we approach a strike, at least I do, as a very serious thing. I approach it from the point of it being a small revolution, and takin' over that industry or plant, we own it the while. We seize it until we get our price.

In late June of 1934 the National Longshoremen's Board was set up by President Roosevelt to mediate the strike, and then later on to arbitrate it. That's what they eventually did. We fought arbitration all the way down the line, 'cause one of our demands was that we shall not arbitrate. But the San Francisco general strike was settled with arbitration.

We went back to work at the end of July. The arbitration hearings took place, and the decision came down on Oct. 12, which was a big resounding victory. The union-controlled hiring hall we won officially went into effect around the spring.

We were the first union that called things together and took the position that nobody would shape up at the docks anymore. Of course, at first we didn't have a hiring hall, but by taking action, we forced hiring through the union hall near Mission Street and The Embarcadero.

After we returned to work there was an awful lot of activity. Half the time we'd be taking job actions over conditions and tying up ships to get scab seamen off.

All longshore strikebreakers had to be laid off, fired, but there was a distinction. Longshoremen that had been working before and didn't go on strike were called "loyal employees" and the order did not apply to them. They were officially longshoremen on the waterfront. The other guys were just called scabs.

I thought the loyal employees deserved another chance. I went and appeared before the gang bosses in San Francisco who'd stayed on the job and said, "You should be judged from what you do from here on in. You didn't understand, we weren't able to get to you the right way. Now, join the union and fly right from here on in. Everybody's welcome."

I went on, "You weren't the guys who actually came to break the strike. All the scabs were fired. At least you guys were already here. After this, we all work together. That's the name of the game from here on in."

But I also told them, "Now, if we want to get rid of you guys, we can. We can hard time you. So straighten up and fly right." Then I went and fought it out with the membership and got their agreement. And most of those guys turned out to be the best union men we ever had.

Same old principle--you're going to make mistakes. We can all make mistakes. We're not better than that. It was the same with the San Francisco Black guys who were loyal employees and stayed in, except I had a tougher time settling the membership thing.

I had to go into the whole question of Blacks. I said, "Look, fellas, the only way these guys ever got a job was as scabs. The bosses saw to that. Let's right now say, `You've got a job as a working stiff. No discrimination.'"

Same thing, see? But the Black guys had a hard time. We came to register as longshoremen one day down at the Ferry Building. These poor bastards had to show up to get registered too, and they dumped the hell out of them. The cops stood by there and didn't raise a finger.

The way we integrated our local was we had some Black gangs that we pulled out in the middle of the strike. So, we started off with a small number and built it up as we went along.

When the strike started all the Black gangs at certain docks stayed in. They didn't come out. Luckenbach dock and the Grace Line dock were the two main Black docks. These Black guys had been imported to break the 1919 longshore strike. That's how they come onto the docks in the first place.

So in 1934 we concentrated on getting them out. After we'd been on strike about a month, they'd come out. Some of them, not all of them. But by the end of the strike I think we had all the Black gangs out.

It was the same thing with many of the guys we organized later. Some licensed officers sailed all during the strike. When we set up the Maritime Federation of the Pacific in 1935 to get all the marine unions united, we had to say, "Look, we gotta count them in." That's how we put together the Federation. We said, "Forget what they did do from here on in."

That's why, in 1936, when the maritime unions struck again, it was solid as a rock. No trouble at all. It was the end for the employers. After '34, they never, never tried to use scabs again.

So after '34, this thing paid off. Giving those guys a chance meant they closed ranks and just served notice on the employers that they didn't dare operate in 1936. They couldn't get scabs in the area anymore, either. We made the rounds of the colleges and the unemployed down on the Skid Row and said, "Don't scab." We covered all those places, and we lined up the labor movement.

Don't forget, 35,000 workers joined the union movement during the four days of the San Francisco general strike in '34. And we organized the city's streetcar lines. There was the municipal line, and then there was a private Market Street railway. That was a line with a bad record, too. It was tough to organize, but we organized it.

We were organizing during the `34 strike and afterwards. The guys used to take time off to go into restaurants and organize, and into all kinds of places all over the waterfront. They used to ask, "Where's your union card?" at a bar, or at this, that or the other plant, like the American Can plant and various places like that.

We're the ones that organized and shut down the big store at 5th and Market Streets in San Francisco. That was Hale's back then. We were working with other unions and the Labor Council.

After the '34 strike we also held anti-fascist, anti-Nazi demonstrations. We started on the scrap iron beef where we boycotted exports to fascist Japan.

By this time the Nazis had taken over in Germany. A new German cargo ship came to Oakland. On every German ship there was a couple of storm troopers and they really run the ship. Now a lot of the crews were Communists on the QT. So, I forget the ship's name, but she sunk over there in Oakland.

She was fully loaded, and after we finished the job and got all our people off, she quietly went down alongside of the dock. She was a brand new ship on her maiden voyage. Fritz Wiedemann was head of the German consul in San Francisco. He screamed that we deliberately sabotaged her. We called it a complete accident!

My last time working on the waterfront was just before the '34 strike. When the strike was over, as chairman of the strike committee, I didn't go back to work. I stayed on negotiating, and elections took place, and I was elected president of the San Francisco longshore local.

In office I always felt that the ones that direct everything is the rank and file. And I'm its spokesman, that's all. The rank and file is the power of the union, see. They're the ones that can shut things down.

Everybody was pulling together in 1934. We had across the board unity of all kinds of guys that later on turned vicious and red baiting and so forth, but not then. We had a beautiful united front.