By Herb Mills

Page 6

Having joined a gang, a man was required to stay in it for at least thirty days. Men also had the option of working either the day shift or the night shift. They could generally work in another port on a temporary visitor status. As a rule, a transfer to another port could also be arranged. 

Also, a leave of absence might be routinely secured, but even without one a man maintained his contractual right to employment simply by working one day out of thirty. In summary, the occupational satisfaction of the San Francisco longshoreman was partly a consequence of his options vis-a-vis the nature, time, and place of his labor. These options quite generally helped to underwrite a sense of individual worth and personal autonomy. It was with good reason that this most assuredly hard-working man could declare, "I really like the freedom of working on the front."

The Institutional and Social Roots of Community

A Pride of Union. The occupational satisfaction which these men enjoyed was also rooted in the pride and sense of camaraderie which they gained from their union with one another. By the late 1930s, the typical San Francisco longshoreman was fiercely proud of his membership in the ILWU.

The men were routinely proud (if not always satisfied) of the wages, hours, and conditions which they had won. For many, there was also a pride in the union's lengthening history of progressive militancy on public issues and in community affairs.

Such pride was more than justified, as it was rooted in a vivid remembrance of what had gone before, a deep appreciation of what was by then enjoyed, and a widely shared understanding of how things had been changed. For nearly one hundred years, the life of a San Francisco longshoreman had been as difficult, as dangerous, as unrewarding and as socially stigmatized as that of any waterfront worker in the world.

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