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The Big Strike
By Dick Meister
Special To The Examiner
IT'S the 67th anniversary of what's known in labor lore as "The Big
Strike" -- a remarkable event that brought open warfare to San
Francisco's waterfront, led to one of the very few general strikes in
U.S. history and played a key role in spreading unionization nationwide.
It began in May of the dark Depression year of 1934 when longshoremen
finally rebelled against their wretched working conditions in San
Francisco, then one of the world's busiest ports, and in the West
Coast's other port cities. Longshoremen were not even guaranteed jobs, no matter how experienced or
skilled they might be. They had to report to the docks every morning and
hope a hiring boss would pick them from among the thousands of desperate
job-seekers who jammed the waterfront for the daily "shapeup."
Bosses rarely chose those who raised serious complaints about pay and
working conditions or otherwise challenged them, but were quite partial
to those who slipped them bribes or bought them drinks at nearby bars. Even those who were hired often weren't sure how long they'd work. They
might be needed for only a few hours or for as many as 18, sometimes
even more, usually worked at top speed and without breaks. Serious
injuries were common.
For all that, they were paid a mere 85 cents an hour. That brought the
average longshoreman about $10 a week, low pay even by Depression
standards. What the longshoremen wanted above all was to end the indignity and
insecurity of the "shapeup." They wanted to decide for
themselves how the dock work should be allocated, with pay and working
conditions determined in negotiations between their union and employers.
The 32,000 dock workers and their leaders -- Harry Bridges, a young
Australian sailor-turned-longshoreman the most prominent among them --
were denounced by conservative union leaders, employers, politicians and
the press as Communists bent on violent revolution. But despite the heavy opposition, the striking longshoremen managed to
shut down every port along the 1,900 miles of coastline between San
Diego and Seattle.
After 57 days, employers, backed by state and local government
officials, issued an ultimatum: Call off the strike or they would bring
in strikebreakers under police escort, in trucks and by rail, to
forcibly open the ports. Which is what employers tried to do on July 5, 1934 -- a day known in
West Coast ports since then as "Bloody Thursday." The major
attempt was launched in San Francisco, where nearly 1,000 heavily armed
policemen battled several thousand longshoremen and supporters.
Acrid clouds of tear gas enveloped the combatants. Gunfire crackled.
Trucks were overturned and burned, boxcars set on fire. Shouting,
screaming men grappled, swung clubs, bats and sticks, tossed bricks and
stones. Dozens fell bleeding on the docks and nearby streets. At day's end, 2,000 National Guardsmen in full battle-dress, armed with
bayoneted rifles and machine guns, marched in at the governor's order to
occupy the battle zone. The fighting had ceased, but by then two men
were dead, killed by police bullets, and more than 100 were wounded or
seriously injured. Some 800 people were under arrest.
Three days later, more than 40,000 San Franciscans joined in a
two-mile-long funeral cortege for the men who had been killed on their
city's docks. They marched slowly up Market Street, eight to 10 abreast
behind the coffins laid on crepe-draped, flower-strewn flatbed trucks.
Nothing was heard save the scrape and shuffle of feet and a union band
playing Beethoven's funeral march. Public support continued to mount, until a week later it erupted into a
citywide general strike. Emergency services continued, but otherwise San
Francisco came to a virtual standstill.
The state was about to declare martial law, but after four days,
government officials and the conservative leaders of the American
Federation of Labor who controlled the city's union hierarchy prevailed.
San Francisco's Labor Council voted to call off the general strike even
though longshoremen remained on strike. The strikers nevertheless scored one of the most important victories in
U.S. labor history.
Victory came through President Franklin Roosevelt, who had ignored the
entreaties of employers and state officeholders to halt the supposed
insurrection. Certain it was waged in support of a legitimate demand for
union rights that employers had unfairly rejected, Roosevelt allowed the
general strike to run its course and then appointed an arbitration panel
to settle the dispute. The panel granted longshoremen almost all they
sought. Employers were required to formally recognize and bargain with the dock
workers' union, raise pay, establish a standard workweek and abolish the
"shapeup."
All hiring was to be done through union-operated hiring halls, with jobs
handed out in rotation so work could be shared equally.
Soon after that, the longshoremen merged with the warehousemen who
worked closely with them. Their International Longshoremen's and
Warehousemen's Union became one of the most powerful, democratic,
progressive and influential of all unions. The longshoremen's victorious struggle to create the union -- their Big
Strike -- was an extremely important signal to the nation. It showed what could be done by workers united in a common cause,
however powerful and violent the opposition. It showed that they could
bring a major city to a halt. And it showed that they could win the
crucial rights so long denied them.
Dick Meister, a San Francisco freelance columnist, has covered labor
issues for four decades as a reporter, editor and commentator |
