Harry Bridges and the formation of the ILWU



Harry Bridges and the formation of the ILWU

Throughout his life Harry Bridges was many things: a seaman, a longshoreman, a union organizer, a world-renowned labor leader; and in his later years, a San Francisco Port Commissioner and President of the California Congress of Seniors. Throughout it all, Harry never lost his passion for democracy and his commitment for a better world for all people. It is unmistakable how large his accomplishments were, how singular his character and integrity [1]. There is also no mistaking how strongly the spirit of Harry Bridges animates the heart and soul of San Francisco, the city he adopted as his home, and the city he loved. For it was Harry and the working men and women of 1934 who laid the foundations that built San Francisco into the progressive city it is today. Twenty tons an hour

A native Australian, Bridges left his Melbourne home at the age of fifteen for a life at sea. In 1920, he came ashore for good in San Francisco. At that time, San Francisco was known as the most productive port in the world. The waterfront held 17 miles of berthing space; 82 docks capable of berthing 250 vessels at one time. It was a port of call for more than 118 steamship lines, with more than 7,000 ships arriving and departing yearly. In 1929, freight tonnage in and out of the Golden Gate amounted to more than 31 million tons. San Francisco shipping and stevedoring companies took pride that San Francisco had one of the most cost-efficient longshore workforces in the country. A gang of sixteen men could move -- by hand -- upwards of twenty tons an hour, and a crew of a hundred men could load a three-thousand ton steamer in just two days and a night, stowing enough cargo to fill a train of freight cars five miles long[2]. The American-Hawaiian Steamship Company calculated that during the years 1927-1931 their agents paid, on average, $0.99-1.03 per ton for loading in San Francisco, compared to $1.85-1.99 in New York and $2.17-2.43 in Boston. But the port of San Francisco was also known for the worst working conditions in the world -- and the deadliest.

By 1919, the waterfront and maritime unions which had first organized in 1853 and made San Francisco the premiere union port in the world had been violently suppressed. Legal protections for maritime workers were non-existent. For centuries law and custom had regarded maritime workers as less than human, more chattel slaves or pack animals. As late as 1897, the Supreme Court had denied seamen the protections of the 13th Amendment banning slavery and involuntary servitude. The court ruled that they were "deficient in that full and intelligent responsibility for their acts which is accredited to ordinary adults."

With the employers now firmly in control, working conditions declined to their lowest point in history. Longshoremen were selected like cattle in the humiliating ritual of the "shape-up" where ...