Book review Herb Mills: A Tribute (Euclid Avenue Press, 2021)
Former Local 10 Secretary-Treasurer Herb Mills is the subject of a biography published in 2021 that chronicles the life of this longshore leader and working-class intellectual whose activism embodied the radical tradition of Local 10.
Herb Mills: A Tribute (Euclid Avenue Press, 2021) is a collection of interviews, essays (by and about Mills), oral histories, and remembrances from those who knew him best. The book was edited by Mills’ long-time friend, Mike Miller.
Contributors to the book include ILWU International Secretary-Treasurer Ed Ferris; Harvey Schwartz, curator of the ILWU’s Oral History collection; Professor Peter Cole, author of Dockworker Power; former ILWU organizing director Peter Olney; and Sadie Williams, a member of the ILWU Local 10 pensioners Club.
Mills was a prolific and insightful writer. The book contains several of his essays on the changing nature of the working waterfront in the second half of the 20th century brought on by technology and its impact on the union and longshore culture. In his essay, Peter Cole dubs Mills the “Real Longshore Philosopher” for his keen analysis of the waterfront workforce and the ILWU.
Mills lived many lives: Auto worker, activist with the Berkeley student movement, dockworker, and elected leader of ILWU Local 10. In 1968, Mills was granted a leave of absence by Local 10 President Cleophas Williams so he could complete his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California-Irvine. Mills passed away on August 7th, 2018.
From the UAW to the Honor Roll
Mills was born on October 13, 1930, and raised in Dearborn, Michigan. After high school, he worked at the Ford Motor Company’s River Rouge plant – then the largest factory in the world. Mills became involved with the United Autoworkers Local 600, where he was inspired by militant trade unionists and political activists. He soon left to enroll at the University of Michigan where he graduated with top honors before attending the University of California, Berkeley.
Protesting HUAC
At Berkeley, Mills became active in student and community politics. He also served as picket captain at the historic protest against the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) meetings held at San Francisco’s City Hall during the summer of 1960. Following that protest, Mills became a spokesperson traveling to student and community groups across the country, explaining how citizens took action to successfully shut down HUAC, challenging the anti-Communist hysteria that was used against unions during the Cold War, especially the ILWU.
From UCB to the waterfront
In 1963 Mills made a decision that changed his life when he dropped out of graduate school to become a longshore worker. He traded his Ph.D. and promising academic career for a life on the waterfront, where his critical thinking skills served the ILWU.
Mills became active in the union and soon won support from fellow longshore workers who elected him their Shop Steward, Chair of the Stewards’ Council, Business Agent, and, finally, Secretary-Treasurer of Local 10.
Mills was an aggressive defender of the ILWU longshore contract. He helped workers organize job actions to secure their rights and oppose favoritism. As a Business Agent in the early 1970’s, Mills led efforts to protect workers from asbestos, a dangerous material that was being shipped on vessels where it frequently leaked, allowing loose residue to contaminate work areas. He led efforts to shut down operations on those vessels until the cancer-causing fiber was safely removed, and took similar actions to protect workers from dangerous pesticides.
Clash with Bridges
For those who follow ILWU history closely, Mills is most recognized for his conflict with ILWU founder and President Harry Bridges over the first Mechanization and Modernization (M&M) Agreement negotiated with longshore employers in 1960. Mills strongly opposed the aspect of the “grand bargain” that called for raising wages and benefits while reducing the workforce. Employers were demanding the right to hire “steady” workers of their choosing, instead of taking qualified workers assigned from the hiring hall. The issue became part of the controversial 1971 contract negotiations that sparked a strike that was authorized by 96.4% of workers – but was opposed by Bridges.
Mills was part of a new generation of longshore workers who felt that the founding leadership of the union, including Bridges, had lost touch with the rank-and-file membership and become too close to the industry. Bridges, in turn, believed that strike advocates, like Mills, were “reckless and unwilling to face new realities” of emerging technologies.
The resulting 134-day strike accomplished little that wasn’t on the table before the walkout – and the employers won their demand to continue hiring steady workers of their choice. Five years later, Mills campaigned for Local 10 Business Agent on a platform that included a call for Bridges and his rival, Lou Goldblatt, to both step down in the best interest of the union to make way for new leadership, which they did in 1977.
Internationalism
Mills was a committed internationalist who played a critical leadership role, in mobilizing ILWU members against shipments of military cargo to the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile and the armed forces of El Salvador during their 1980s civil war massacres. Mills also led efforts in the Bay Area to rally support for Local 37 officials Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes, who were assassinated by agents of dictator Ferdinand Marcos because they opposed his brutal regime in the Philippines.
He was also credited with helping to save the life of South Korean democracy movement leader Kim Dae Jung. When South Korea’s military government announced plans to execute Kim, Mills led an ILWU effort to boycott South Korean ships. Seventeen years later, after imprisonment and exile, Kim was inaugurated president of South Korea. Mills and then-ILWU International President Brian McWilliams attended as honored guests at the ceremony.
In 1990 Mills took an injury-related retirement and said that he “thanked God for the union.”
During his career, he wrote many articles and papers about longshore work and the ILWU. He also assisted other writers and researchers in their projects about the union and the work on the waterfront.
Immortalized at the Smithsonian
Some of Mills’ personal items and quotations are featured in an exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, and other materials of his are on display at the San Francisco Exploratorium. In January 2018, a lifetime achievement award was presented to Mills by members of Local 10 at their monthly meeting.
The ORGANIZE Training Center, at 442 Vicksburg Street, San Francisco, 94114 is filling orders for the book. (Send a check for $30 to the OTC at that address or through PayPal, using the email address: theorganizermailing2@yahoo.com.