IRSH 58 (2013), pp. 185–217 doi:10.1017/S0020859013000205 r 2013 Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis No Justice, No Ships Get Loaded: Political Boycotts on the San Francisco Bay and Durban Waterfronts* P ETER C OLE Department of History, Western Illinois University Macomb, IL 61455, USA E-mail:
[email protected] ABSTRACT: Using a comparative methodology, this essay examines how and why longshore workers in both the San Francisco Bay area and Durban demonstrate a robust sense of working-class internationalism and solidarity. Longshore workers are more inclined than most to see their immediate, local struggles in larger, even global, contexts. Literally for decades, workers in both ports used their power to advocate for racial justice at home and in solidarity with social movements globally. While such notions might seem outdated in the twenty-first century, as unions have been on the decline for some decades, longshore workers grounded their ideals in the reality that they still occupied a central position in global trade. Hence, they combined their leftist and anti-racist ideological beliefs with a pragmatic under- standing of their central role in the global economy. While not the norm, these longshore workers’ attitudes and actions demand attention, as they challenge the notion that workers in recent decades are powerless to shape their world. On 24 November 1984 the Dutch cargo ship Nedlloyd Kimberley docked at Pier 80 in San Francisco, on the Pacific coast of the United States. Rather than doing their job, the longshore workers – members of Local 10 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) – refused to touch the auto parts, steel, and wine from South Africa though they unloaded the rest of the ship’s cargo.