Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism

Labor Radicalism on the Waterfront

Rutger Ceballos

University of Washington

Department of Political Science

June 2013 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism

Table of Contents

Introduction ...... 3

Literature Review and Historical Background ...... 6

The ILWU in Theory ...... 7

The Origins of the ILWU and Radical Labor ...... 11

External Constraints on ILWU ...... 16

The New Deal and the Great Maritime Strike of 1934...... 18

Craft or Industrial Unionism? ...... 21

World War II and the Question of Loyalty ...... 26

The State versus Labor...... 30

The ILWU Survives Despite External Conflict...... 32

Internal Factors that Preserved ILWU Radicalism...... 33

Union Democracy within the ILWU...... 34

Race and Civil Rights...... 37

Maritime and Longshore Culture...... 41

Conclusions – Internal Union Dynamics Account for the ILWU’s Robust Radicalism...... 44

Final Reflections on the Value of Radicalism ...... 44

Bibliography...... 46

This paper was made possible by the help and support of Prof. George Lovell and Alexander Morrow of the University of Washington, Department of Political Science and Department of History, respectively. Their dedication and passion in fighting for worker’s rights and social justice is an inspiration for all those involved in the labor movement.

2 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism

Introduction

While reflecting on the West Coast Waterfront Strike of 1934, lifetime union radical and President of the ILWU Harry Bridges remarked:

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.1

The sentiments expressed by Mr. Bridges should be seen as more than simple nostalgia. The 1930s have come to be recognized by labor historians as the defining decade of the modern United States labor movement.2 These so-called ‘turbulent years’ were characterized by widespread labor militancy, ideological radicalism, effective political mobilization and the most significant union gains in United States history. From 1933 to

1945, the number of unionized workers increased by a factor of five – by the end of the

Second World War more the 30 percent of American workers were in a union.3 In an ironic twist of fate, the worst economic catastrophe in history had forced workers to empower themselves, radicalizing the average laborer by necessity. For the first time since the end of the First Red Scare, laborers were once again rallying behind the banner of solidarity, union militancy, and .

Ultimately, however, the radical4 unionism of the 1930s was to be short-lived. The next twenty years would see a series of ideological shifts within the labor movement and

American society itself. After the tremendous economic growth in the wake of the Second

1 Schwartz, Solidarity Stories pg. 31 2 Lichtenstein, The State and the Union pg. 20 3 Lichtenstein, “From Corporatism to : organized Labor and the Eclipse of Social Democracy in the Postwar Era” pg. 123 4 Note: I will be using the term ‘radical’ in this paper to describe militant, highly democratic, and class- conscious union activity. In many ways, ‘radical’ may be synonymous with left-wing unionism but I will make a clear distinction in this paper when I am referring to political ideologies vs. ‘radical’ unionism. In other words, ‘radical’ unions are unions that repeatedly carry out agonistic contract negotiations and seek to fundamentally alter power dynamics between the workers and the employers.

3 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism

World War, labor leaders, threatened by the growing conservatism and anti- of the new Cold War era, purged their membership of left wing and radical unions, effectively ending any calls for radical economic and political reform.5 By the 1950s, labor unions across the country began to renounce militant organizing and abandon their calls for broad economic reform in favor of contractual negotiations and higher wages and benefits. By

1955, the merger of the left-wing Congress of Industrial Unionism (CIO) with the more conservative American Federation of Labor (AFL) signaled a decisive shift in labor movement from radical unionism to a more capital-friendly, of today.

These dramatic years, from 1934 to 1955, should therefore be at the center of any discussion of the modern American labor movement. Until recently, most histories and studies of this period have focused on ‘why’ questions – Why did unionism begin to decline?

Why was the labor movement unable to form the basis of a worker’s party? Why did labor radicalism, especially among the political left, decline after World War II? These questions, while both important and useful in understanding the history of the American , focus on a simplified narrative. However, as with any historical trend, the decline of unions and working class power had its outliers. This paper is the story of one such outlier

– the International Longshoreman and Warehouse Union (ILWU).

Originally formed in 1937 with the hope of creating “” 6, the ILWU quickly became known as one of the most left-wing unions in the country and were highly successful in securing victories for their own workers (higher wages, hiring halls, benefits, etc.) through large-scale strikes. Furthermore, unlike many other unions, the ILWU, and in particular its left-wing leadership was able to weather many of the political purges and

5 Kimeldorf, Reds or Rackets? The Making of Radical and Conservative Unions on the Waterfront pg. 4-5 6 Nelson, Workers on the Waterfront: Seamen, Longshoremen, and Unionism in the 1930s pg. 268

4 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism firestorms of the McCarthy era and was able to preserve its radical character. The history of the ILWU therefore makes it an interesting and unique case for a study on the changing roles of labor radicalism during the 1930s to 1950s.

In this paper, I seek to analyze the factors that allowed the ILWU to maintain its position as one of the most radical and left wing unions in the country, despite repeated and concentrated pressures on both its leadership and rank-and-file members. I argue that the primary factors that make the ILWU’s case unique are 1) its commitment to robust forms of , 2) the unique culture of maritime work, 3) the ILWU’s commitment to civil rights and racial equality and 4) the strength of the Communist Party and other leftist traditions among both the rank-and-file and the ILWU leadership. This is therefore an attempt to contribute to a social history of the ILWU and the role of radicalism within a union, by focusing on how internal and external factors affected the experiences of the individual workers and union leaders.

This study is divided into three major sections. The first section consists of a brief literature review along with some historical background that will serve to establish the historical and theoretical framework for this study. This section will draw heavily from previous studies on maritime workers and the ILWU. In particular, I will use the work of

Bruce Nelson, David Wellman and Howard Kimeldorf - leading scholars of radical waterfront unionism in the 1930s - to place my study firmly within the framework of the existing literature. The second section delves into the external factors influencing the labor movement during the 1930s – 1950s. This section explores the structural and systemic constraints affecting union radicalism and leftist working class politics during that time.

These factors include the conflict between and industrial unionism, legal

5 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism constraints (both state and federal), political persecution of socialist and communist union organizers, the effects of World War II and, lastly, the influence of the Communist Party and the factional politics of the American Left. The third and final section seeks to explain how the internal characteristics of the ILWU allowed it to withstand the political persecutions and inter-union factionalism that broke other left-wing unions. This section draws heavily on the personal accounts of both ILWU leadership and rank-and-file members with a special emphasis on the role of union democracy, racial equality and civil liberties, internationalism and traditions of within the ILWU. Together, these factors helped account for how the ILWU was able to both resist calls for de- radicalization and successfully obtain major victories during contract negotiations.

Literature Review and Historical Background

The studies of the history of the labor movement in the United States have often succeeded in producing more questions than answers. From the end of the Civil War to the end of the Second World War, most Americans considered the ‘labor question’ as the

“primal problem confronting the Western World”7. Questions about the relationship between labor and capital, between workers and employers, and about how democracy, freedom and equal opportunity are manifested in the workplace, dominated the political narrative. Therefore, to properly understand why the story of the ILWU and its place in the history is important and unique, it is necessary to first understand how the story of labor radicalism in the 1930s shaped the modern United States. While a truly comprehensive study would ideally begin with the origins of organized labor in the 19th century, the historical background presented in this paper will be limited in scope to the decades

7 Fraser, The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order, pg 55

6 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism immediately preceding the 1930s, with a special focus on the events surrounding radical labor before the Great Depression. To this end, this section will consist of a literature review of the existing studies of the ILWU and a brief history of radical labor. Combined, these will provide both the historical background and the theoretical framework that will help explain the creation of the ILWU’s unique brand of radicalism.

The ILWU in Theory

Nearly all of the scholarship and studies which explore the International

Longshoreman’s and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU) have one common thread running through them – namely, they agree that the ILWU’s experience both during and after the

1930s – 1950s constitutes an exceptional case. Exceptional, in the sense that the ILWU was able to survive the hostile anti-labor environment of the 1950s and retain its militant, explicitly left wing stance well into the present day.8 Therefore, what distinguishes existing studies of the ILWU and its brand of radical unionism, are not their conclusions, but rather their methods and research focus. The major studies that are reviewed in this section represent efforts to explain the ILWU’s unique case of radical unionism through analysis of its adherence to radical politics (Kimeldorf, 1988), the unique subculture of dockworkers

(Nelson, 1988), an ethnographic study of worker consciousness (Wellman, 1995). Each of these studies provides a critical element in explaining the radical tradition among waterfront workers. This section is therefore an attempt to bring together several different yet parallel theoretical frameworks and casual elements, to produce a convincing synthesis of explanatory factors.

8 Kimeldorf, pg 5-6

7 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism

Perhaps the most well-known and universally cited study of ILWU radicalism is

Howard Kimeldorf’s book Reds or Rackets: The Making of Radical and Conservative Unions on the Waterfront (1988). Kimeldorf sets his analysis of the ILWU within the framework of a comparative study between the ILWU and its East Coast counterpart the International

Longshoreman’s Association (ILA). Trained as a sociologist, Kimeldorf uses historical studies to trace the origins of the ILWU’s radical unionism by framing the history of the union within a social movement theory. Kimeldorf makes it clear that his study is an attempt to combine the standard historical narrative of the ILWU, with a “more sociologically focused analysis of how such historical particularities were played out within the limits and possibilities established by existing social structural arrangements”.9

Kimeldorf’s study is an important foundational piece to this work, as it represents a synthesis of historical analysis and social theory. However, though these studies may be similar in their topic and analysis of certain ‘radicalizing factors’, my study argues that there additional internal characteristics of the ILWU helped form the basis of its radicalism.

Specifically, Kimeldorf has little to say about ILWU involvement in the struggles of blacks in the late 1940s to early 1950s. Additionally, Kimeldorf does not fully discuss the role of rank-and-file democracy within the ILWU. So while my study may agree with Kimeldorf on many levels, it is meant to help illuminate some of the less explored aspects of Kimeldorf’s work on ILWU radicalism.

In the context of my study, Kimeldorf provides the basis of what made the ILWU’s experience a unique part of the American labor movement. He convincingly lays out the primary factors that led to the independence of the ILWU and the preservation of their

9 Kimeldorf, pg. 17

8 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism radical traditions. That being said, our studies differ in that my study focuses more attention on the ILWU rank-and-file class consciousness and makes the claim that some of the factors which led to formation of longshoremen solidarity, also led to there isolation from the wider national labor movement.

Parallel to Kimeldorf’s work is Bruce Nelson’s Workers on the Waterfront: Seaman,

Longshoremen and Unionism in the 1930s (1988), a book length treatment of maritime workers during the 1930s. Like Kimeldorf, Nelson identifies West Coast maritime and dockworkers as occupying a unique position in the history of radical unionism. Nelson focuses the crux of his study on the working class subculture and the peculiar internationalist and syndicalist nature of maritime work and unions. The core of the study is focused on identifying what Nelson calls the “Syndicalist Renaissance” - the wave of radicalism and mass working-class consciousness that swept through the West Coast unions during the 1930s. While the study still largely reads as a celebration of working- class dockworkers and radicalism, it does highlight some of the drawbacks to the ‘turbulent years’. To this end, Nelson’s study is an appropriate counter to some aspects of Kimeldorf, in that it argues that the class-consciousness of the longshoremen grew gradually more parochial and craft oriented.

In opposition to the histories of both Kimeldorf and Nelson, stands the work of

David Wellman’s ethnographic study of ILWU Local 10 in San Francisco, his 1995 work The

Union Makes Us Strong: Radical Unionism on the San Francisco Waterfront. While this is not a study that deals in the historical terms that concern my study, Wellman’s work is unique in that it attempts to critique aspects of the theoretical foundations of both Kimeldorf and

Nelson. Wellman argues that the distinction between ‘radical’ unionism and ‘business’

9 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism unionism is simplistic, and that those who try to argue that radicalism failed or that class- consciousness never took shape among union members, are asking the wrong questions.

Wellman states, “both constructions (i.e., theories of labor radicalism) are based on what labor should do, not what workers and their unions actually do.”10 In this sense, Wellman is attempting to explain the actual conditions of union workers and develop a theoretical model that seeks to assess American unionism on its own terms rather than those of what

Wellman considers to a “socialist ideal”.11 In Wellman’s framework, the ILWU is not necessarily deviant or exceptional – rather the ILWU represent the legacy of participatory unionism that characterized the early CIO unionism. Rather than belonging to a radically left wing or socialist group of unions, the ILWU is treated as a living artifact, a survivor of the anti-communist purges after the Second World War. The continued, seemingly ‘radical’ nature of the ILWU, so the Wellman’s argument goes, was not the result of the ILWU moving away from mainstream ‘business unionism’, but rather that mainstream unionism moving away from the ILWU. In other words, the ILWU was able to maintain the militant and radical spirit of the 1930s, even after the CIO and other industrial unions traded politics for economics and union democracy for union bureaucracy.

In summary, Wellman’s argument is useful to the extent that it differs from the standard narrative of radical labor in America. It forces labor historians to reconsider the framework in which histories and theories about the ILWU and left-wing unionism are developed. His argument challenges the conventional wisdom that American unionism is essentially conservative in its nature and that American workers are “job-conscious”, not

“class-conscious”. In doing so Wellman breathes new life into the defeatist narrative of the

10 Wellman, The Union Makes Us Strong: Radical Unionism on the San Francisco Waterfront pg. 33 11 Wellman, pg. 35

10 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism radical labor and shows that in highly democratic unions, such as the ILWU, class-struggle takes place everyday on the shop floor. However, where this study differs, is that it attempts to show that a truly unique aspect of American labor radicalism was indeed lost after the 1930s. The following argument is one that attempts to show that for left-wing unions like the ILWU, the 1930s was a time in which class relations and struggle were at the forefront of the battle between labor and capital. The class relations identified by

Wellman are therefore evidence not of a continuance of class struggle, but rather the marginalization of class-consciousness to the realm of infra-politics.

If nothing else, the works of Kimeldorf, Nelson and Wellman lend significant weight to the choice of the ILWU as a case study in the transformation of radical labor politics, from the insurgent years of the 1930s, to the purges and conservatism of the 1950s. They show that a theoretical and historical framework can and should be developed around stories like that of the ILWU and its struggles to maintain its democratic and radical tendencies.

The Origins of the ILWU and Radical Labor

In order to properly understand the changing roles of radicalism within the ILWU during the 1930s to 1950s, it is crucial to establish short history of the origins of organized labor of the docks immediately preceding the Great Depression and the ‘turbulent years’.

This section offers a short history of longshoremen work and the forging of the ILWU during the Great West Coast Strike of 1934.

11 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism

The work of a longshoreman has long been hailed as “some of the most strategic of all maritime employment, indeed of any workplace in the economy”.12 Responsible for the loading and unloading of the bulk of trade goods that enter and exit the United States, longshoreman occupy a workspace at the heart of the national economy. Historically this has created a set of conditions that both empowered longshoremen, but also opened them up as targets of both corporate and state repression – a strike at the docks can dramatically affect both corporate profits and national foreign policy. For these reasons, the history of the organized labor efforts of longshoremen is characterized by the extreme nature of their triumphs and failures.

Beginning in the late 19th century, the rise of the United States as an industrial power and manufacturing center led to a rise in the trade goods passing through American ports. This in turn led to the rise of longshoremen as substantial part of the national labor force. However, despite the nearly constant traffic of cargo in and out of the ports, for much of its history longshore work was filled almost entirely by casual laborers. This meant that dockworkers were in a constant state of job insecurity and hiring was done in the form of a

‘shape-up’. At the beginning of every day, workers would crowd the dock gates waiting for the hiring foreman to call out the number of men needed for that day’s work. The foreman would then choose men from the mustered group. In theory, the hiring boss would select men at random and in theory, everyone had an equal chance at a day’s wage. However, in reality, hiring practices were highly corrupt. “Workers were required to ‘kick back’ a percentage of their earnings to the hiring boss as condition of employment”.13 The ‘shape-

12 The Waterfront Workers History Project - “Longshore Workers and their Union” http://depts.washington.edu/dock/longshore_intro.shtml 13 Kimeldorf, pg. 41

12 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism up’ was therefore one of the most despised realities of longshore work and one of the first demands made by the earliest longshore unions was an end its practice. In addition to the corruption and inconsistency of the ‘shape-up’, longshore workers also had to deal with harsh working conditions once they were on the docks. Among the most vilified impositions directed at the longshoremen was the “speed-up”. The ‘speed-up’ was the practice of forcing the longshoreman to unload and load cargo as fast as they could without rest or breaks of any kind. As one longshoreman vividly described in a 1933 except from the Waterfront Worker:

The feverish running around and exhaustion results in increased accidents. Working at such a fast pace and the bigger and bigger loads means that a ship will so much less time to load or to discharge and more than doubles the unemployment now on the waterfront. This not only means less work but amounts to a wage-cut and a huge one at that. A man puts out about three times as much work for 75 cents an hour as he formerly put out for $1 an hour. This means in an indirect way he is really working for 30 cents an hour. The shipowners know that when the lower costs of loading and discharging show on their ledgers in double profits.14

It is clear then that in the days before longshoremen were able to organize conditions at the docks were intolerable. Wages were low, work was dangerous, and the employers controlled every aspect of the job – the hiring, the firing, and the hours worked. Given these conditions, it should be rather unsurprising that the longshoremen were eager to wrestle some of the power away from their employers.

To this end, the first organizing efforts among longshoremen were founded during these early days of organized labor in the late 19th century. On the Pacific Coast, the future home of the ILWU, several unions of longshoremen were formed with notable organizing efforts taking place in Seattle, Tacoma, and San Francisco. However, strong opposition from

14 ILWU Local 19 History - “The Speed Up” from the Waterfront Worker (1933) http://www.ilwu19.com/history/speedup.htm

13 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism the ship owners plagued these early organizing efforts and, lacking unity, these early unions were unable to make substantial changes to working conditions. Perhaps the most significant advance to come out of the early efforts was when the various longshoremen organizations began to affiliate themselves with the International Longshoremen

Association (ILA) in 1902.15 Bolstered by their national allies in the ILA, the Pacific Coast longshoremen were ready to flex their newfound muscle against the shipping companies.

The first major attempt to organize against the employers came in the summer of 1916.

Under the guidance of the ILA, Pacific Coast longshoreman went out on strike, calling for a , overtime benefits, and an increased wage scale.16 From June to October of

1916, tensions flared between striking union workers and hired by the shipping companies. Unable to effectively negotiate an agreement for a closed shop, the ILA finally gave in to employer demands and the longshoremen returned to work on October

4th. The failure of the 1916 strike led to the rapid decline in working conditions on the docks and resurgence of near-total domination of the docks by the employers.

The years of after the 1916 strike were some of the most oppressive in the history of organized labor. The combination of a hostile government, well-organized employers, and the public hysteria unleashed by the October in Russia, would nearly destroy organized labor during the next decade. On the docks, the defeat of 1916 empowered the shipping company owners to exercise even greater control over there workers. Originally, at around the same time that the longshoreman began to organize, the shipping companies also began to band together in order to maintain their authority on the docks. Formed in

15 ILWU Local 19 History - “The ILWU Story - Origins” http://www.ilwu19.com/history/the_ilwu_story/origins.htm 16 The Waterfront Workers History Project – “Timeline” http://depts.washington.edu/dock/timeline.shtml

14 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism

February 1915, the Federation of Waterfront Employers' Union (WEU) was one of the most effective anti-union forces on the West Coast. After the 1916 strike, the WEU set about creating its own and actively targeted ILA members. Every longshoreman was forced to carry a “rustling card”.17 The cards kept track of every individual’s membership in the ILA, any police record they may have, and whether they participated in the strike of

1916. In effect, it was a clear form of discrimination against union members.

All the while, the ILA remained ineffective in their efforts to counter and challenge the WEU. Increasingly frustrated by the in action of their union, many longshoremen began to turn to more radical alternatives. As labor historian David Saposs observed, “Whoever reaches…the unorganized masses first generally holds their confidence permanently”.18

This was certainly true for many of the longshoremen on the Pacific Coast who turned to leftist insurgents and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or Wobblies).19 In contrast to the conciliatory ILA, the Wobblies were aggressive and eager to fight for the rights of the longshoreman. The Wobblies pursued worker’s control over their own labor and used to fight state and employer oppression. The effectiveness of the Wobblies and other radicals was most evident during the last years of and culminated with the Seattle of 1919. From April 1917 to November 1918, more that six thousand work stoppages were recorded on the docks, despite the AFL’s no-strike pledge still being in effect.20 The labor unrest took its most radical turn during the five-day general strike in Seattle in February 1919. For five days union workers and leftist radicals

17 The Waterfront Workers History Project – “Timeline” http://depts.washington.edu/dock/timeline.shtml 18 Quoted by Kimeldorf pg. 19 19 Kimeldorf pg. 19 20 Kimeldorf, pg. 28

15 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism effectively ran the city.21 These successes however drew the attention of both employers and the government, both of whom wasted little time in actively crushing the IWW.

Empowered by the US government’s fear of the ‘Bolshevik threat’, the employers respond to Wobbly direct actions with strikebreakers and arrests of union organizers. By the 1920s, the shipping companies had regained hegemony over the docks.22

But despite their short-lived success, the Wobblies and other radical organizers of the late 1910s did manage to change the temperament of the longshoremen on the Pacific

Coast. They had shown the union world the power of militant actions and had sowed the seeds for the struggles and radicalism of the 1930s. As Kimeldorf states, “In fact, much of what the longshoremen sought to accomplish in later years was inspired by the IWW’s pioneering efforts. And as Rosco Craycraft, former ILWU international vice-president observed, “the Wobblies laid a hell of a good foundation on the West Coast”.23 With end of the radical agitation of the early 1900s, the longshoremen’s ‘syndicalist spirit’ would remain dormant until the Great Depression and the Great Maritime Strike of 1934. And it is in the dramatic events of the early 1930s that the once powerless ‘wharf rats’ would be transformed in the ‘Lords of the Docks’.

External Constraints on the ILWU Building a Radical Union During the Turbulent Years

The labor struggles of the first two decades of the 20th century ended largely in defeat and disappointment for organized labor. The combination of state and business repression of radical activities and labor unions blunted the enthusiasm and revolutionary spirit of the American Left. The labor movement that was once so vibrant was lost in the

21 Ibid. 22 Kimeldorf, pg. 37 23 Ibid.

16 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism economic boom of the 1920s. This brief period of economic prosperity soon gave way to the worst economic depression in the history of the modern world. In October 1929 the stock market crashed and the global economy plunged into an economic depression. For the next three and a half years, government inaction and a collapse of the banks led to massive unemployment – by 1932, 25% of the American workforce was unemployed. 24

But if the Great Depression brought with it unprecedented hardship and misery, it was also seen as an era of opportunity to those eager to turn working-class desperation into action.

Everyone with a stake in the ‘labor question’ seized the moment to mobilize the working- class and spur them to action. The next decade would witness craft unions, industrial unions, Communists, civil rights leaders, New Deal Democrats, and conservative capitalists, all vying for the title of champions of the working-class.

This section is devoted to examining how the national and macro-historical struggles over labor during the Great Depression influenced the formation of the ILWU.

Forged in the heat of the Great Maritime Strike of 1934, the ILWU emerged early on as a leading radical union with leftist tendencies. In the volatile political and economic context of the Depression years, the ILWU attracted national attention during the power struggles between labor and capital. Therefore, to understand the ILWU and its unique place in labor history, it is critical to understand how national struggles influenced its development. In this section, I argue that the combination of the national struggle between the AFL and CIO, the upheaval of the Second World War, state and legal persecution, and the fragmentation of leftist organizations, forced the ILWU into a unique position within the labor movement.

24 Kennedy, pg. 87

17 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism

The New Deal and The Great Maritime Strike of 1934

On March 4th, 1933 Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated as the 32nd

President of the United States.25 FDR’s optimistic and bold campaign had promised hope- starved American’s a chance at a ‘New Deal’ in which the nation’s economy and government would work for the average citizen. In his first hundred days in office, FDR followed a course of “ bold, persistent experimentation” establishing the institutional and programmatic foundations of his New Deal.26 Among the flurry of new programs that followed, perhaps the most significant to organized labor was the National Industrial

Recovery Act (NIRA), or, more specifically, Section 7(a) of NIRA. Section 7(a) stated:

…employees shall have the right to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and shall be free from the interference restraint, or coercion of employers of labor, or their agents, in the designation of such representatives or in self-organization or in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection…27

This meant that for the first time in the history of the United States, independent labor unions were federally protected. Combined with the earlier pre-Roosevelt labor legislation such as the Norris-LaGuardia Act which banned yellow dog contracts and the use of injunctions against labor, NIRA helped feed the labor radicalism now springing up in nearly every major industrial center.28 Citing Section 7(a) as a call to arms, thousands of workers across the country redoubled their efforts to organize. Labor unrest exploded. As historian

Philip Dray writes, “one and a half million new members joined the AFL between June and

25 Kennedy, pg. 104 26 Ibid 27 Kennedy, Freedom From Fear pg. 151 28 Dray, There is Power in a Union pg. 417

18 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism

October 1933, and 3,531 new locals were created”.29 Union membership was skyrocketing and with militancy on the rise, it was not long until the new spirit of unionism visited the docks. For the beleaguered longshoremen, the pro-labor atmosphere created by NIRA, whether real or imagined, spurred them to action.

Tensions had been building on the West Coast waterfront throughout the early years of the Depression and calls for a large strike grew as longshoremen felt increasingly pushed to their breaking point by employer demands and wage cuts. Beginning in 1933, longshoreman began to hold a series of militant job actions including slow-downs and filing complaints against company foremen. Members of the Albion Hall group – a loose association of left-leaning longshoremen - led many of these insurgent actions.30 Albion

Hall, which included future ILWU radical Harry Bridges among them, worked hard to expand ILA membership and reinvigorate the old radical newspaper, The Waterfront

Worker. After several months of building support among the rank-and-file, Albion Hall members felt they were in a strong enough position to challenge the conservative ILA leadership for control of the union and in early 1934 leftist Albion Hall members were able to push through new union contract demands. The contract was among the most radical and militant ever seen in the industry – “union-controlled hiring, a thirty hour work week, a coast-wide contract and improved wages and conditions”.31 The employer response to the longshoreman was immediate and uncompromising. They refused to negotiate any of the terms. On May 9, led by Bridges and other Albion Hall members, longshoremen began to walk off the job on a coast-wide strike. In a strike that would last for 83 days and led to

29 Dray, pg. 421 30 Kimeldorf, pg. 88 31 Kimeldorf, pg. 89

19 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism the death of two longshoremen, the 1934 Waterfront Strike’s impact on the future ILWU and its radical spirit cannot be underestimated. As will be discussed later, the 1934 strike not only cemented the leadership of Harry Bridges as Director of the West Coast ILA but it also led to the rise of a kind of militant, industrial unionism previously unseen among longshoremen, culminating in the creation of the left-wing, Bridges-led International

Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) in 1937.

Meanwhile, as the longshoremen were consolidating there newly won strength in

1935, national politics once again shifted to the topic of labor. Similarly violent and lengthy strikes in the Midwest and the repeal of NIRA by the Supreme Court, led to the passage of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. More commonly known as the Wagner Act after its primary author Senator Robert Wagner (D-NY), the Wagner Act was meant to reorganize the relationship between labor and capital and clarify the federal government’s support of collective bargaining rights. Among its most important provisions, the Wagner

Act created the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The NLRB was intended primarily as a federal mediator, whose chief purpose was to avoid strikes and achieve balanced compromises for both labor and employers. On the surface Wagner Act seemed to be a significant win for unions and at first, the open and vague nature of the NLRB’s powers did favor the industrial unionism of the ILWU and the CIO.32 This can be seen by the NLRB’s rulings on several jurisdictional battles in which preference was giving to the industrial, left-leaning CIO instead of the AFL. However, this initial support for militant unionism rapidly shifted to apathy or outright anti-labor opposition after court decisions limited

NLRB powers and conservative forces began to take over the board.

32 Tomlins, The State and the Unions pg. 165

20 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism

Overall, the initial period of the 1930s was marked by two external events critical to the formation of the ILWU and the creation of its industrial, radical character. The 1934

Maritime Strike saw the rise of the leftist leadership under Harry Bridges that would eventually help found the ILWU in 1937. The 1934 strike also forged a unique and binding connection between the radical, leftist leadership and the rank-and-file members. As will later be discussed, this democratic bond between left-wing radical leadership and rank- and-file union members is one of the keys to understanding the unique nature of ILWU radicalism. In addition to the events of the 1934 strike, the impact of the New Deal and its accompanying legislation cannot be understated. The Wagner Act, and earlier NIRA, had essentially legalized unionism in the eyes of many workers. Although neither law was particularly radical or revolutionary in its language, the simple acknowledgement of organized labor was enough to bolster union militancy throughout the country. And in the case of the Wagner Act, the initial period of NLRB pro-labor stance in part led to the growth of industrial unionism. Its is this national labor civil war - the struggle between the craft unionism of the AFL and the industrial unionism of the CIO – that next helped shape the

ILWU story.

Craft or Industrial Unionism? The AFL and CIO Fight for National Supremacy

Unlike the labor history of the late 19th and early 20th century, which is often portrayed as a struggle between labor and big business or radicals and the state, the narrative that has developed around the ‘turbulent thirties’, pits two labor titans against each other: the industrial-oriented Congress of Industrial Organizations and the conservative, craft-oriented American Federation of Labor. This fight over the ideological

21 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism and political leadership of the national labor fights forced the embattled unions to chose a side or be marginalized. And ultimately, the results of this fight would largely determine the fate of the unions like the ILWU.

The differences between industrial unions and craft unions are almost as old the modern labor movement itself. In simplest terms, the distinction is an organizational one.

Craft unionism is perhaps the oldest form of unionism. In this system workers are organized in a fashion reminiscent of the earlier guild systems, with the unions being made up of skilled workers of a particular expertise. 33 Trade unions of this kind formed the bulk of the unions associated with the AFL. On the other hand, industrial unions aim to organize all of the workers in a single industry. This means that in an industrial union, skilled and unskilled workers are united in a single, large union. 34 But far from being a simple difference in organization, the schism between craft and industrial unions had radical implications in both an abstract and pragmatic sense. Industrial unionism differed in both spirit and philosophy from craft unionism. The organizing of workers based on their craft led to the creation of divisions and jurisdictional battles within industries, making effective strikes or collective bargaining increasingly difficult, as the economy shifted from the skilled artisan workers of the 19th century, to the mass proletariat of mixed labor of the 20th century. The advent of industrial production in the late 19th century and the creation of a large and diverse working class meant that craft divisions often weaken rather than empower worker solidarity. For this reason, industrial unionism, with its call for industry - wide solidarity, avoided the problems of craft division and jurisdictional battles. Aside from these pragmatic concerns, industrial unionism also had the power to clarify and simplify

33 Dray, pg. 442 34 Ibid.

22 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism complex labor politics into the language of class struggle – workers versus management, employees versus employers. As IWW leader Big once commented on the revolutionary nature of industrial unionism, stating that “ with its working clothes on”.35 The result of such explicitly revolutionary and militant language was that industrial unionism began to develop an association with socialist and anarcho-syndicalist traditions.

However, despite the potential radical class implication of industrial organization, the pragmatic demands of the changing nature of industrial production meant that by the

1930s, even the conservative craft-oriented AFL began to adopt industry-wide organizational practices. The 1934 strike wave in the longshore, auto, textile and trucker industries signaled the need for industry-wide organizing and by November 1935, industrial unionist John L. Lewis had convinced the AFL to establish a subcommittee with the goal of organizing unskilled mass production industry.36 Growing rapidly to include several of the largest mass production industries by 1937, Lewis broke with the AFL and established the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), directly challenging the hegemony of the craft unionism and the AFL.37 Forced to choose sides, many unions were split and fractured by the new AFL versus CIO rivalry. One such union born out of the split was the ILWU.

The success of the 1934 strike wave had greatly emboldened the left-wing leadership of the Pacific Coast division of the ILA. Militant job actions and strikes were resulting in real gains for the longshoremen and over the next two years, veterans of the ’34 strike such as Harry Bridges and his rank-and-file supporters, moved quickly to

35 Kimeldorf, Battling for American Labor, pg. 3 36 Milton, The Politics of US Labor pg. 76 37 Dray, pg. 444-45

23 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism secure their newfound power on the docks. By 1936, Bridges and his fellow left-wing organizers were ready to make their decisive move for control over the Pacific Coast

Division of the ILA.38 Running on a progressive and militant platform,, Bridges won the presidency of the Pacific Coast Division with 75 percent of the vote from the full membership of the union.39 Taking advantage of his victory, Bridges and the new left-wing leadership called for a new contract demands and in an unprecedented show of solidarity, called on all seven maritime unions to join against the ship owners. Beginning on October

30th, all West Coast ports went on strike. The strike lasted ninety-nine days, ending in a victory of Bridges and the longshoremen and maritime workers.40 The increasing success of radical actions and the left-wing leadership led Bridges and the rank-and-file members to question their association to the conservative ILA and the AFL. Tensions between the

ILA and the Pacific Coast division led by Bridges, centered on several controversial actions taken by the ILA. Beginning in 1937, the ILA had “started assigning the newly organized warehouse workers to other AFL unions, imposed a dues assessment to finance the fight against the CIO, and reaffirmed conservative AFL positions on social programs”, all of which deeply troubled the increasingly independent Pacific Coast division leaders and rank-and-file.41 By the summer of 1937, around the same time that Lewis and the CIO were breaking their ties with the AFL, a referendum was called by Pacific Coast longshoremen on the question of their ILA affiliation. Though the vote was not unanimous among all Pacific

Coast locals, the majority called for the formation of an independent union – the ILWU.

38 Milton, pg. 89 39 Cherny, "Harry Bridges, Labor Radicalism, and the State" pg. 2 40 Milton, pg. 89 41 ILWU Local 19 History - “The ILWU Story - Origins” http://www.ilwu19.com/history/the_ilwu_story/origins.htm

24 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism

Almost immediately afterwards, the rank-and-file voted to affiliate with the CIO, cementing the ILWU’s position as one of the most radical industrial unions in the country.

The ILWU decision to attach itself to the CIO and industrial unionism can largely be credited to two key features of the Pacific Coast Division – the influence of the ’34

Generation and its affiliation with the Communist Party. As Kimeldorf argues:

In the West, the 1934 strike gave rise to a distinct generation of workers whose loyalty to one another, including their radical contemporaries like Bridges, rested on their participation in the violent conflict that reestablished unionism on the Pacific Coast. This generation of “ ’34 men” forged in the heat of battle, was then tempered and politicized by a protracted struggle, under leftist leadership, to fundamentally transform class relations on the waterfront.”42

This suggests that the ILWU experienced the split between the AFL and CIO in a significantly different way when compared to other unions, including those with

Communist affiliation. The longshoremen who participated in the early strikes and who would later vote to separate from the ILA-AFL and join the CIO, inhabited a particular and unique identity. There was something distinctly different about the radicalism of the longshoremen. For the ’34 generation, class struggle and the importance of industry-wide solidarity, was not just an abstract concept or a way of gaining negotiating power – it was a matter of life or death. In other words, extreme circumstances had helped create radical responses and generated perhaps one of the most genuine ‘bottom-up’ understandings of class relations and struggle in the labor movement. In addition to the ‘organic’ nature of

ILWU rank-and-file radicalism, the ILWU’s close connections with the Communist Party encouraged its affiliation with the CIO. As Judith Stepan-Norris and Maurice Zeitlin show in their study on Communists and industrial unionism, Left Out: Reds and America’s Industrial

42 Kimeldorf, pg. 99

25 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism

Unions, one of the key factors in determining whether a union sided with the CIO during the split was whether it was Communist-led.43 They show that of the eighteen unions that seceded from the AFL through workers’ insurgencies (as was the case with the ILWU), 72 percent of them were Communist-led.44 Given this data, it is reasonable to suggest that part of the ILWU radical trajectory, beginning with its formation during the CIO-AFL split was due to both the unique and radical nature of the ’34 generation and its association with the

Communist Party. The national split between craft and industrial unionism was therefore the defining moment for the longshoremen of the 1930s. In this way, national labor struggles shaped decisions, forcing the longshoremen to officially break with the conservative craft unionism of the ILA and pursue the radical industrial unionism in the form of the ILWU.

World War II and the Question of Loyalty The ILWU Goes to War

If the events surrounding the ILWU’s formation and its defection to the CIO’s industrial unionism reveal how historical events reinforced radical tendencies within the longshoreman rank-and-file, then its conduct in World War II may show how historical events also marginalized the ILWU. The Second War World had a profound effect on the labor movement generally and in particular on the most militant unions. For the ILWU, the

Second World War would shake the foundations of its radicalism and militancy, not to mention its loyalty to the United States. Perhaps most importantly though, the Second

World War revealed the strength of the connection between Communist Party and the

ILWU leadership, causing the increasingly more conservative CIO to take note.

43 Stepan-Norris & Zeitlin, Left Out: Reds and America’s Industrial Unions pg. 40 44 Ibid.

26 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism

The ILWU, indeed maritime workers in general, had always had a strong commitment to international causes and foreign policy. As will be discussed in later sections, the internal politics of the ILWU favored taking significant political stances on matters of foreign policy.45 Almost immediately after its break with the ILA, the newly formed ILWU began to pursue a highly internationalist political agenda. In the spring of

1937, ILWU members declared their solidarity with the Spanish Republicans fighting against the Fascists in the . This policy was in express violation of both their newest union contract and the United States policy of nonsupport during the Spanish

Civil War.46 Soon after, the ILWU once again violated its union contract when the workers refused to load scrap metal onto ships bound for imperialist Japan. The ILWU argued that as long as Japan continued its war of aggression against China, no union worker would load

‘war materials’ onto a ship bound for Japan.47 It was tough political stances like this that often came to characterize the uncompromising nature of the ILWU political radicalism.

Unlike other leftist unions within the CIO, the ILWU’s militancy had a distinctly political character to it, suggesting that the ILWU members were willing to sacrifice wages for political causes.

But what would cause union members to wage such overtly political battles that often hurt union wages and threaten hard-won contracts? A potential answer would be revealed in the ILWU’s dramatic policy reversals during World War II. In the summer of

1939, the ILWU suddenly halted and seemingly reversed its fight against fascism. To many both inside and outside the union, the reason for the reversal lay with the ILWU’s

45 See section on Maritime Internationalism, for more details 46 Kimeldorf, pg. 116 47 Ibid.

27 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism

Communist commitments and the Communist Party’s change of policy after the signing of the Soviet-German Nonaggression Pact in 1939. Up until 1939 the Communist Party had been critical of the United States’ isolationist policies and sought a Popular Front strategy of organizing communists, socialists, and progressive liberals in a fight against fascism.

However, with the signing of the Nonaggression Pact, the Comintern reversed its strategy and began to suddenly advocate for a policy of nonintervention.48 This put the ILWU and its

Communist-affiliated leadership in a difficult position. Previously, during the Popular Front years of the 1930s, Communists and non-leftists were largely free to form political coalitions in support of anti-fascist and pro-labor leaders. This was largely the case in the alliance between the CIO and many of its Communist-led unions. Although CIO leadership was initially hesitate and disdainful of Communist-led unions, the alliance was mutually benefited in that the CIO gained the organizing skills and militancy of the left-wing leaders, while the Communists gained access to national labor politics. This fragile alliance of convenience was tested by rapidly shifting international situations brought on by World

War II. Given the discipline with which the ILWU followed closely behind the Communist

Party line, many within the CIO began to question the extent to which the Communists

‘dominated’ the ILWU. These suspicions were in a way confirmed by the second 180-degree reversal of both the Communist Party and the ILWU following the invasion of the Soviet

Union by Hitler in June 1941.49 With the Soviet Union threatened, the Communists and the

ILWU threw themselves into the war effort – calling for greater production and shipment of war materials. Over the next four years, the ILWU, led by Bridges, accepted and indeed encouraged the implementation of many of the practices that it had fought so hard to

48 Kimeldorf, pg. 119 49 Kimeldorf, pg. 129

28 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism eliminate. In order to keep up with wartime demands ILWU workers reinstated ‘speed-up’ practices, rejected calls for strikes and became slightly less antagonistic toward employers.50 And yet despite the chaos and contradiction that characterized Comintern

(The Communist International) and by extension the ILWU policies before and during

World War II, the war did enforce a kind of pragmatic solidarity between the CIO and its

Communist affiliates. As long as the Soviet Union and the United States were united against fascism, so too could the CIO and the Communist Party maintain a suspicious, but working partnership.

Ultimately, while the war revealed the extent to which the ILWU, and especially

Bridges, was inclined to follow the Communist Party line, it paradoxically also revealed the relative independence of the ILWU. As Kimeldorf argues, “the wartime ethic of personal sacrifice was held in check by the strong tradition of job control”.51 Unlike other unions with Communist Party ties, the ILWU maintained a many of its pre-war conditions and contract provisions and did not allow the Communist’s zeal of ‘increase war productivity’ dilute their working conditions. Whereas the Communist Party “officially subordinated the

‘class struggle’ to ‘national unity’ in the war effort”, the ILWU, especially the rank-and-file, proved much less willing to abandon their class antagonism. 52 In the first years of the Cold

War, the ILWU largely appeared to be just another ‘red union’ to outsiders like the increasingly anti-communist CIO leadership. However, what the CIO failed to realize and what the war helped reinforce, was the independence of the ILWU from both the CIO and

50 Kimeldorf, pg. 137 51 Ibid 52 Stepan-Norris & Zeitlin, pg. 145

29 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism the Communists. Ultimately, far from being a disciplined Communist union, the ILWU was powered by its own unique brand of waterfront radical leftism and class-consciousness.

The State versus Labor Legal Persecution of Radical Unions

Given the intensity of the battles fought by the forces of labor and capital during the

‘turbulent years’, it should be unsurprising that a reactionary wave would be swift in coming. Even in the early 1930s, when the Roosevelt Administration had been cautiously supportive of pro-labor legislation like the Wagner Act, the state had generally been more accommodating of business than it had been of radical labor. Conservative elements within both the Democrat and Republican parties were eager to take advantage of the shifting economic and political climate to strike blows against the most militant and leftist elements within organized labor. In a manner similar to the earlier, World War I and the First Red

Scare persecutions of labor radicals and leftists, the Second World War and Cold War gave anti-communist and anti-labor legislators an opportunity to crush left-wing organized labor. In the case of the ILWU, it was the passage of two major pieces of legislation that had the greatest effect on its radical tendencies – the Smith Act of 1940 and the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947.

Much in the same way that Socialist Party leader Eugene Debs had come to symbolize government suppression of radical labor in the 1920s, the ILWU’s longtime leader and radical stalwart Harry Bridges symbolized the anti-communist of the Second

Red Scare. Bridges, who was Australian by birth, was brought to trial four times in 1939,

1941, 1948 and 1953, each time being threatened with deportation. Accused of being a member of the Communist Party and a subversive, Bridges repeatedly denied his

30 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism membership while at the same time reaffirming his commitment to ‘left-wing unionism’. 53

The repeat charges against Bridges were bought under the auspices Smith Act of 1940 – a piece of legislation written largely as a means of targeting Bridges specifically.54 Much like the paradoxical effects of World War II on the ILWU, the relentless federal persecution of

Harry Bridges also produced two seemingly contradictory results. The more the government pursued the deportation of Bridges, the more the ILWU rank-and-file rallied around their embattled leader – in fact, in the middle of one of his hearing Bridges was reelected union president with 81 percent of the vote.55 On the other hand, his association with the Communists made him, and by extension the ILWU, a pariah among the increasingly anti-communist CIO leadership. In these ways, legal persecution both strengthened and isolated the ILWU from the increasingly conservative labor mainstream.

The initially pro-labor spirit of the Wagner Act and the original National Labor

Relations Board did not last long. The disruption caused by union strikes during World War

II, along with the wave of strikes immediately following the end of the war, in 1946 and

1947, led conservatives in Congress to pass the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. A devastating blow to organized labor, the Taft-Hartley Act limited and qualified many of the rights afforded by the Wagner Act. The Taft-Hartley Act declared certain activities by employers and employees to be illegal, outlawed closed shops, allowed employers to oppose the formation of unions, and required labor organizers to sign affidavits that they were not

Communist Party members.56 Perhaps most importantly, the Taft-Hartley Act was the first

53 The Waterfront Workers History Project – “Harry Bridges: Life and Legacy” http://depts.washington.edu/dock/Harry_Bridges_intro.shtml 54 Nelson, pg. 252 55 Cherny, pg. 2 56 Tomlins, pg. 284-5

31 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism time that the federal government was declaring that certain employee (i.e., union) practices could be considers illegal. In other words, employers were being empowered to combat union power, making the already unbalanced labor/capital relationship even more tilted in favor of the employer. The effect of the law was immediate and disastrous for organized labor. Union membership, which had previously been on the rise, stagnated and began to decline. Strikes, once the most powerful tool of major industrial unions, were greatly reduced in their effectiveness. And for the CIO, the anti-communist provisions in the Taft-

Hartley Act, heightened the tensions between the leftist and more conservative elements within the organization, eventually leading to the expulsion of eleven ‘Communist- dominated’ unions, the ILWU being one of them.57 This cost the CIO the loss of over one million members, numbers that it would never recover. And as for the expelled Communist unions, only the ILWU was able to maintain its position relatively stable and membership growing. 58 Thus, although cut off from national labor movements and limited by the growing state and legal opposition to radical labor, the ILWU weathered the Second Red

Scare with its radical spirit largely intact.

The ILWU Survives Despite External Conflict

The national and international events that surrounded the creation and formative years of the ILWU were extraordinary in their complexity and dramatic impact on the shifting political, economic and social atmosphere of the country. The Great Depression and

FDR’s New Deal had revived the radical spirit of the early 1900s and led to an exponential growth in union growth and militancy. Furthermore, the fight against Fascism had led to

57 Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin, pg. 17 58 Kimeldorf, pg. 6

32 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism the creation of a board Popular Front of working class Communists, socialists and liberals temporarily making Communist-sympathies among labor organizers an acceptable ideological choice. For the ILWU this meant that an entire generation of radical,

Communist-affiliated leaders and rank-and-file members, were able to entrench themselves in the union structure. It also meant that by the time that the political and economic environment had shifted to favor anti-communist policies during the Cold War and the Second Red Scare, Harry Bridges and other ILWU radicals were well established enough to weather the storm. Unique among the expelled CIO Communist unions the ILWU survived the 1950s with its membership intact and expanding and its Communist leadership largely unchanged.

Internal factors that Preserved ILWU Radicalism

The actions of individuals and groups are often shaped by the historical conditions in which they live and work. For the longshoremen and dockworkers that forged the ILWU in the midst of economic depression and political prosecution, the effects of the national and global conditions on their lives cannot be overstated. However, while external pressures may shape the conditions in which decisions are made and people are compelled to action, the way in which those decisions and actions are carried out are largely in the hands of the individual and community. Therefore, the final question in examining the

ILWU is concerned with understanding how its internal structure and culture influenced its radical positioning during the 1930s to 1950s.

For this task, it is critical not only to analyze the institutional structures and policies of the ILWU, but also the personal history of the members themselves. The accounts used here are not meant to be representative. Instead they are meant to help illustrate how

33 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism membership in the ILWU was characterized by democratic participation, racial equality and a commitment to internationalism. Together these qualities produced a radical union that was able to withstand the violence and repression of the thirties, the cultural and industrial pressures of World War II, and the red baiting of the Cold War.

Union Democracy within the ILWU “A lot of rank and file control”

The ILWU has long been recognized as having maintained one of the most consistent and strongest traditions of union democracy of any industrial union. The concept of union democracy is simple – it is the belief that the rank and file members should have control over all major decisions in the union and that union leaders should be accountable to member oversight. Unlike in many other unions, which often rely on forms of representation and a hierarchal system of leadership positions, the ILWU relied on a system of and referendums. However, this reliance on democratic practices can be problematic at times, as it can damage the ability of unions to wage the long and difficult contract negotiations against a less democratic management. Highly democratic union practices have traditionally been seen as unwieldy and inefficient. This is especially true in the years after the Second World War in which rank-and-file democracy was often ignored in favor of a more extensive union bureaucracy, capable of organizing the resources and money required to sustain union campaigns. But I argue that in the case of the ILWU, highly democratic practices strengthened, not weakened union power and solidarity. Avoiding much of the internal power struggles going on in other industrial unions, the ILWU provided its rank-and-file members with a substantial amount of political

34 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism agency and job control. It was the distinct strength and solidarity of the ILWU’s union democracy that provided the ILWU with its strength.

Recent studies have linked the ILWU’s successful contract negotiations and job control directly to their robust commitment to union democracy. Professor Margaret Levi at the University of Washington argues that the “ILWU possesses a strong and long- standing rank-and-file democracy and a demonstrated capacity for winning good contracts while also ensuring the competitiveness of the ports at which it operates”.59 For Levi and colleagues the key to ILWU success is that it practices a form of participatory rather than procedural democracy. The 1937 constitution of the ILWU grants significant rights and agency to individual members. These rights include “the autonomy of locals, one-person one–vote in all contract and strike negotiations via a secret ballot, and a 15 percent threshold for recall referenda on elected officers”.60 What this institutionalization of high levels of local autonomy and rank-and-file control over leadership means, in a pragmatic sense, is that the ILWU leadership and rank-and-file enjoy a degree of solidarity and mutual support unknown in unions with a history of oligarchic leadership traditions. This close bond between the rank-and-file and its leadership were critical to maintaining the radical traditions of the ILWU long after similar left-wing unions had forgone militant organizing.

In fact, in the case of the ILWU, external threats and pressures seemed to reinforce not weaken the rank-and-files commitment to social issues and left-wing radicalism. For the ILWU a commitment to union democracy and a commitment to left-wing causes, were complimentary. As Harry Bridges explained to a Congressional committee:

lt's [a left-wing union] also a union that believes in a lot of rank and file

59 Levi et al, “Union Democracy Reexamined” pg. 205 60 Levi et al, pg. 212

35 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism

democracy and control . . . It's a union that believes that its officers should be easy to remove and . . . [that] their wages and expenses [should be] no more than the . . . highest paid worker that's a member of the union. It's also a union that recognizes that, from time to time, it's got to stand up and fight for . . .civil liberties, racial equality, and things like that 61

Perhaps the best example of the close connection between union democracy and the maintenance of a left-wing tradition is in the ILWU’s reaction to the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act.

As mentioned before the Taft-Hartley Act introduced a number of restrictions on unions, in particular it forced the screening of union organizers for ties to the Communist Party. The screening infuriated ILWU rank-and-file membership and they turned out in record numbers to oppose both Taft-Hartley and the screening of Communists. As the longshoremen famously stated during the Second Red Scare and the persecution of Harry

Bridges, “He may be Red Harry, but he is our Red Harry”.62 In other words, at a time when radical, particularly communist leadership was being isolated and purged within the labor movement, the ILWU closed ranks and stood in solidarity with their leftist leadership.

Union democracy, especially the highly participatory democracy practiced by ILWU, was therefore one of the keys to the robust radicalism and workplace militancy that characterized the ILWU. As David Wellman wrote in his study of the political culture of

IWLU Local 10 in San Francisco:

The sense of community experienced by Local 10’s membership and the radical democracy practiced by the union have produced a vibrant political culture…the principles enunciated by the community are also resources for insubordination as well as self-actualization…[and] as weapons in their continuing battle for shopfloor control.63

Every ILWU member is brought up in this culture of participatory democracy and class-

61 Cherny, pg. 1 62 Kimeldorf, pg. 169 63 Wellman, pg. 124

36 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism consciousness. This ability to rely on the solidarity and capability of the rank-and-file member to direct union policies meant that unlike other leftist-led unions of the time, the

ILWU was strengthen and its activist spirit enhanced by state oppression and jurisdictional battles with other unions. The democratic spirit also prevented the widespread factionalism so devastating to other Communist-led unions. Together, these factors guaranteed an internal unity and strength rarely seen in other unions.

Race and Civil Rights Fighting Segregation on the Docks

Closely linked to the ILWU’s internal commitment to participatory democracy were its commitment to racial equality and the integration of black workers. Starting in the

1940s and 1950s, several locals and key figures in the leadership including Harry Bridges began to take significant steps toward racial equality on the waterfront. The struggle for civil rights and racial equality would be perhaps the most difficult fight ever waged by the left-wing ILWU leadership. Unlike earlier struggles, talk of racial integration was not universally accepted among all ILWU locals and the handling of race relations on the waterfront came to define much of the struggles of the ILWU after the Second World War.

Furthermore, racial divisions often pitted left-wing members against more conservative union members. This makes understanding ILWU racial equality not only important to understanding the general history of the period, but also to understanding how the influx and eventual acceptance of black worker’s helped preserve the left-wing traditions in the union. This section argues that the battle to integrate black workers into the ILWU, preserved the union’s radical tradition by creating bonds between the old leftist labor leaders and the new left civil rights leaders within the union. This was a critical period in

37 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism

ILWU history, in which the union became more than a fighter for worker’s rights and extended its activism to include a wide range of social justice issues.

Traditionally, unions had a troubled relationship with black and other minority workers. Blacks had often been used as strikebreakers and scabs by the ship owners and longshoremen were quick to associate minority workers with anti-union activities. It was only during the Second World War that the racial compositions of unions began to change dramatically. This was especially true of the ILWU. With the demands of the war effort dramatically accelerating the shipping demands on the West Coast ports, thousands of black workers from the Southern Gulf ports flooded into West Coast ports.64 Their reception on the docks divided many of the white longshoreman, often times along ideological lines. As black ILWU member Cleophas Williams recalled:

I didn’t feel any hostility from the white longshoremen, although some were very indifferent. You were kind of a nonperson to them. They’d walk by and wouldn’t speak to you. Those who were more active in expressing concern, I later found out, were considered to be left-wingers. They were the ones that would come over and speak to you and ask you about your housing and your transportation.65

From the very beginning of dock integration, the battle lines were drawn along racial and political lines – left-wing longshoremen found common cause with the blacks, while more conservative union members opposed integration. But while the influx of minority workers may have divided the docks, black longshoremen also reenergized the radical and leftist elements within the union. In other unions, the Second World War and later the Second

Red Scare purged much of their leftist membership and the radicalism that once existed was largely lost on the post-war generation of workers. This, however, was not the case in

64 Kimeldorf, pg. 147 65 Schwartz, pg. 47

38 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism the ILWU. As early as the late 1930s, white progressives and leftist within the ILWU were calling for the full integration of black workers into the union. This support continued through the war and into the post war era. A particularly notable act of solidarity between the white leftists and the black newcomers came in 1945, as the end of the war brought news of dramatic layoffs. At the time, conservative members of the union wanted to organize the layoffs by way of seniority.66 This would have meant the firing of nearly every black worker, most of who had signed up during the war. On the other hand, Bridges and the leftists argued for a more equal cuts and the preservation of the new black workers.67

In this way, the old left element among the ILWU gained a new generation of supporters in the ranks of the black workers. In addition to the rhetorical support for black workers, the left also provided substantial educational resources for the new workers. The ILWU, and in particular the San Francisco Local 10, also started a political socialization and education program to train new union members in union organizing and labor politics.68 This fostering of socially and class-conscious union members, especially among blacks, created a new generation of militant union members right when other unions were becoming increasingly conservative.

Furthermore, in addition to replenishing the ranks of the leftist elements within the union, the introduction and acceptance of black, and later Hispanic workers, into union ranks also encouraged the union to expand its activism to boarder community concerns.

Black union members brought with them a unique sense of social justice and began to use the power and influence of the ILWU to champion civil rights and boarder socio-economic

66 Kimeldorf, pg. 148 67 Kimeldorf, pg. 148 NOTE: it was during this debate that Bridges famously argued that if it were up to him and work slowed down so much that only two workers were left on the docks, one of them should be black 68 Kimeldorf, pg. 147

39 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism justice for minorities. The willingness to stand in solidarity with non-labor social movements has long been a key characteristic of the ILWU and one of the primary reasons that they have continued to gain national recognition as militant, left wing union. ILWU members were involved in sit-downs, protests and petitions throughout the civil rights era.

In regards to the ILWU’s involvement in non-labor politics, union leader Bill Chester, the northern California regional director for the ILWU in 1951, stated:

We found that, in a sense, the union is the community. Therefore, a labor leader in modern times could no longer confine all of his activities just to collective bargaining and not take the responsibility of following that worker to his community to see that he had the same protection there that he had on the job.69

Community outreach created a sense of solidarity between the union members and their local communities. This meant that throughout the 1950s and 1960s, as national union politics grew more conservative and bureaucratic, the ILWU retained a sense of militancy and was strengthened in its isolation.

Given their vast contributions to the stability of the ILWU during the trying decades following the Second World War, it is difficult to understate the contribution of the black and minority longshoremen who joined the ILWU. They reinvigorate the radical spirit of the union and expanded the reach of the union into a number of civil rights and social justice causes. Just like the ’34 generation had produced leaders like Harry Bridges, the post-war generation, especially the black and Hispanic longshoreman, produced men like

Bill Chester, Cleophas Williams, Curtis McClain and LeRoy King – all of who bravely carried the tradition of left-wing unionism and social activism into the second half of the 20th century.

69 Schwartz, pg. 42

40 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism

Maritime and Longshore Culture Internationalism, Insubordination and Radicalism

Dockworker and maritime labor has been described as one of the oldest working- class subcultures in the world.70 As long as people have taken to the sea, men have toiled and lived off of the work along the shore. Unlike other unionized workers, longshoreman and maritime workers can trace their cultural traditions to before the advent of the industrial revolution and mass production. Seaman and dockworkers have long shared close connections and the men of the ILWU were often either ex-sailors or otherwise closely associated with the seafaring traditions. Therefore to understand the culture of the

ILWU is to also in part understand the cultural traditions of maritime workers. This section argues that the unique and well-established culture of maritime work with its internationalist character, rebelliousness and solidarity helped breed and sustain the radicalism of the ILWU.

The seafaring tradition and by extension the longshoremen subculture, has been widely recognized for its internationalist character. The connection between seafaring, maritime work and dockworkers may be self-evident, but it is useful to unpack this concept in order to understand its connection to longshore radicalism. Some of the leftist leadership that led the worker insurgency of the 1930s, started out as sailors, cooks or stewards on merchant ships before settling into jobs as longshoremen. Men like Harry

Bridges and Whitey Kelm both served as sailors before becoming longshoremen. The experience of traveling around the world and witnessing first-hand a wide range of poverty, class struggle and corruption led many to adopt leftist political beliefs. Harry Bridges often

70 Nelson, pg. 11-12

41 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism recalled how his travels on a merchant ship had helped spark his commitment to social justice - “I kept traveling around, and the more I saw the more I knew that there was something wrong with the system”.71 And it was not just the ILWU leadership that had history as sailors. The labor force that constituted the ’34 generation was

“disproportionately recruited” from former seamen and loggers.72 The result was that large segments of Pacific longshoremen were made up of a distinct group of well-traveled, class conscious and cosmopolitan workers who understood economic struggles in agonistic and radical terms. This is not to say that all sailors or maritime workers were predisposed to radicalism and militancy, but it is to say that many workers had not be socialized in the same way as other workers in the mass production industries. Furthermore, the particular cosmopolitan or internationalist nature of their radicalism meant that longshoremen were in a position to see themselves in a global rather than just a parochial or nationalist context.

This internationalism was repeatedly displayed in ILWU refusal to load or unload fascist ships in the late 1930s and in their opposition to American interventions against left-wing regimes in Latin America during the 1970s and 1980s. In other words, the radicalism that developed as part of the longshore worker culture was a principled and cosmopolitan radicalism, which went beyond a simple ‘bread and butter’ trade unionism.

The second prominent feature of longshoremen culture was their willingness and acceptance of shopfloor militancy and ‘principled insubordination’. This rebellious spirit may have its origins in the difficult and highly authoritarian nature of management hierarchies that existed on the docks and at sea. The history of exploitation and authoritarianism produced a culture of ‘principled insubordination’ on the docks. In David

71 Nelson, pg. 27 72 Kimeldorf, pg. 20

42 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism

Wellman’s study of ILWU Local 10 he observed this phenomenon first-hand. Wellman argues that longshoremen use their commitments to fraternity, liberty and equality as basis for their resistance to managerial oppression and class relations.73 The longshoremen of Local 10 practice a form of shopfloor dissidence and rebellion nearly everyday. This kind of subversion of management is a key aspect of many working class jobs but in the ILWU it is a central part of longshore culture. And crucially, this willingness to dissent does not only extend to rebellion against management but also toward the “centralizing, bureaucratic tendencies in the union”.74 This last cultural point ties back to the highly democratic nature of the ILWU. Union members are socialized into a subculture that encourages engagement and dissent, including dissent toward union polices. Solidarity is therefore not achieved through centralization and union control but instead through participation is democratic decision-making. Longshoremen can thereby claim greater individual stake in all union activities since individual voices count and oppositional opinions are actively encouraged.

Taken together, the combination of the maritime tradition of internationalism and the longshore culture of solidarity built around democratic participation, and ‘’principled insubordination’, help create the conditions under which ILWU radicalism was able to flourish. Unlike many other leftist unions, in which left wing or radical tendencies were only surface deep, political radicalism and class-consciousness is an integral aspect of longshoremen culture. The upheaval of the 1930s was therefore not just a simple consequence of severe economic conditions or a historical anomaly. For the ’34 generation of ILWU members and the longshoremen who came after them, the worker insurgency and the radical spirit it produced has been absorbed into the already militant longshore culture.

73 Wellman, pg. 81 74 Ibid.

43 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism

Conclusions – Internal Union Dynamics Account for the ILWU’s Robust Radicalism

The internal political culture of the ILWU is central to understanding how the ILWU managed to survive the tumultuous years following the Second World War. The ILWU’s emphasis on rank-and-file democracy, commitments to racial equality, and a maritime culture that values dissent and ‘principled insubordination’, are all contributing factors to the ILWU radical tradition. As David Wellman reflects at the end of his study:

The ILWU is radical, then, not because it permitted communists to join in the 1950s, or because its founding leaders were sympathetic to socialist causes, or because it supported unpopular foreign policy issues…It is radical because it promotes values…based on the principles of solidarity, equality and democracy.75

This passage captures the essence of the ILWU’s radicalism. The ILWU’s internal dynamics are based on solidarity, equality and democracy, not because of abstract ideological commitments, but on ideals that are reinforced on the dock every day. Militancy and radical politics are not just a way to force better contract agreements or preserve union power - instead they constitute a kind of ‘everyday radicalism’ that is a way of life for ILWU members.

Final Reflections The Value of Radicalism – The ILWU and the Contemporary Labor Movement

What can the contemporary labor movement learn from the ILWU’s story? The story of the American labor movement is often told in terms of its decline and the extinguishing of working-class social activism. But ILWU stands as a prominent exception to this historical trend. The ILWU battled its way through depression, world war, and government

75 Wellman, pg. 306

44 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism repression. It has faced stiff opposition from organized capital and still managed to win a series of significant contractual victories. And it has managed to accomplish all of this while maintaining a rather remarkable record of union democracy and racial equality. All of this is not to suggest that the ILWU record is not without flaws, but overall it has been highly successful – as a union and as a social justice organization.

If studying the success of the ILWU provides the contemporary labor movement with anything, it should be that democratic participation and solidarity with non-union causes are essential to the success of the labor movement. At a time when unions have become more bureaucratic and centralized than ever before, the ILWU continues to practice an energetic form of participatory democracy. In moving forward, organized labor has the opportunity to emulate the ILWU and seek solidarity with causes outside of the parochial interests of trade or craft concerns. The contemporary ILWU has stood with the

Occupy movement, undocumented workers, and the anti-war movement. This is an example worth emulating. Ultimately, the greatest value of the ILWU and its radicalism may be it preservation of the oft-forgotten working-class values of equality, democracy, and solidarity.

45 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism

Bibliography

Cherny, Robert W. "Harry Bridges, Labor Radicalism, and the State." "Harry Bridges and the

Tradition of Dissent Among Waterfront Workers.” University of Washington, Seattle.

28 Jan. 1994. Reading.

Communism in Washington State. University of Washington,

.

Dray, Philip. There Is Power in a Union: The Epic Story of Labor in America. New York:

Anchor, 2011. Print.

Fraser, Steve, and Gary Gerstle. The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order, 1930-1980.

Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1989. Print.

ILWU Local 19 Seattle Washington. .

Kennedy, David M. Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-

1945. New York: Oxford UP, 1999. Print.

Kimeldorf, Howard. Battling for American Labor: Wobblies, Craft Workers, and the Making of

the Union Movement. Berkeley: University of California, 1999. Print.

Kimeldorf, Howard. Reds or Rackets? The Making of Radical and Conservative Unions on the

Waterfront. Berkeley: University of California, 1988. Print.

Levi, M., D. Olson, J. Agnone, and D. Kelly. "Union Democracy Reexamined." Politics & Society

37.2 (2009): 203-28. Print.

Lichtenstein, Nelson. State of the Union: A Century of American Labor. Princeton, NJ:

Princeton UP, 2003. Print.

Milton, David. The Politics of U.S. Labor: From the Great Depression to the New Deal. New

York: Monthly Review, 1982. Print.

46 Rutger Ceballos Wharf Rats, Communists and Industrial Unionism

Nelson, Bruce. Workers on the Waterfront: Seamen, Longshoremen, and Unionism in the

1930s. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1988. Print.

Schwartz, Harvey. Solidarity Stories: An Oral History of the ILWU. Seattle: University of

Washington, 2009. Print.

Stepan-Norris, Judith, and Maurice Zeitlin. Left Out: Reds and America's Industrial Unions.

Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003. Print.

Tomlins, Christopher L. The State and the Unions: Labor Relations, Law, and the Organized

Labor Movement in America, 1880-1960. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1985. Print.

Waterfront Workers History Project. University of Washington,

.

Wellman, David T. The Union Makes Us Strong: Radical Unionism on the San Francisco

Waterfront. Cambridge [England: Cambridge UP, 1995. Print.

47