The ILWU Story

Pensioners

Pension clubs, like the Auxiliaries, have been key to implementing ILWU programs in the community, and to focusing union power on pensioners’ issues such as medical care and the constant threats to the Social Security system. Pension clubs proliferated after 1952 as recently negotiated pension benefits were implemented in longshore and warehouse contracts.

The Pacific Coast Pensioners Association was founded in 1968. Although based in the longshore industry, the PCPA quickly appealed to all pension clubs in all industries and locals to affiliate, and many did. Most pension clubs in Hawaii are affiliated with the Hawaii State Pensioners Association, formed in 1962.

The strength of the pensioners was demonstrated in the early 1990s, when the PCPA organized a campaign to raise $1,000,000 to endow a Harry Bridges Chair at the Center for Labor Studies at the University of Washington. In less than two years 1,000 individuals donated $570,000 to the chair, and 90 pension clubs, ILWU locals, and other labor groups contributed another $490,000. The chair was formally endowed in 1992. PCPA members also led the effort to re-name the ILWU headquarters building in San Francisco as The Harry R. Bridges Memorial Building.

  Home