San Francisco Waterfront History
San Francisco Waterfront History
The San Francisco Waterfront
The Social
Consequences of Industrial Modernization
Part One; "The Good Old Days"
By Herb Mills
Page 29
NOTES
1. These men are members of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union, Local 10. Because the offices and the hiring hall of the local are located at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, they will be referred to as " San Francisco" longshoremen.
However, the geographic jurisdiction of the local extends throughout the San Francisco Bay region, i.e., from the Port of Redwood City in the south to thePort of Benecia in the north, and therefore includes the ports of Alameda, Oakland, and Richmond
At the present time, approximately 50% of the men live in San Francisco or on the San Francisco Peninsula. The remainder live in the "East Bay" Alameda and Contra Costa counties or "up country" (Marin, Napa. and Sonoma counties).
2. This is not to suggest that each and every job was liked, but rather that the men liked longshoring "as a line of work." It may be necessary to also note the obvious-the work was frequently tiring, dirty, hard, and dangerous.
3. Granted the optimism with which the new technology was initially viewed, it should perhaps be noted that with the termination of the second five-year contract under which that technology was introduced and utilized, the West Coast longshoremen went on strike.
As it happened, that 1971-1972 strike was also destined to be the longest maritime strike in the history of the nation. As for the ways in which their experience with the new technology underwrote the San Francisco longshoremen's support of that strike, that, too, will be the subject of a subsequent essay.
4. Except on "volunteer" cargoes (e.g., hides), a man who had below-average hours had to "take average" (i.e., a sign-in with average hours) if he refused a job or was not present when his work number was called by a dispatcher. A man who had above-average hours in these circumstances had to add six hours to his total hours when he again signed-in for work.
5. Men who stayed on different shifts for years routinely got acquainted through;
(1) the two monthly union meetings, one of which was a compulsory "stop-work" meeting during which only a few essential (and "excused from meeting") jobs would be worked
(2) the meetings of a considerable number of both permanent and temporary committees, all of which were always "open" to any rank-and-filer;
(3) the two monthly meetings of the volunteer Stewards* Council; and;
(4) the not infrequent overlapping of shifts. On any given day, night men and the day men who were not working frequently "went by the hall" to transact some union business, to inquire of some matter, to get the latest union bulletin, or to simply hear "the latest."
6. Part of a man's pride and "sense of masculinity" rested upon accomplishing the work at hand. This circumstance was also made collectively manifest in the work and posture of "a good gang." In this connection, it should perhaps be noted, too, that in any given operational circumstances a man might experience a certain tension between his "sense of masculinity" and a principled desire to secure a particular working condition.
By the same token, a conflict (which would generally remain good natured) could be generated when one man felt there was a genuine grievance against an employer, while another man felt that the grievant was "just bellyaching."
On the other hand, it was also understood that "militancy" on a conventional longshore operation could not routinely take the form of "not doing anything." Thus it could happen, as will presently be observed in the text, that the men who were most effective on behalf of the union (both on the job and elsewhere) were almost always very good longshoremen.
7. While the night work of the port may here be ignored, it will be discussed in the forthcoming article dealing with the port's labor-management relations.
8. The walking bosses were members of the longshore local until 1948, but were in that year chartered as a separate ILWU local. This development, with the effects which the modernization of the industry has had on the nature and functioning of the employer's operational chain of command, will also be discussed in the forthcoming article dealing with the labor-management relations of the San Francisco longshore industry.
