COVID-19 required a smaller ceremony: Far fewer were able to attend this year’s annual “First Blood” event in San Pedro, but the ceremony was just as dignified and heartfelt.
On May 15, ILWU members, pensioners, auxiliary and officers from Locals 13, 63 and 94 gathered at the Longshore memorial in San Pedro’s Gibson Park for the 18th annual First Blood Memorial to honor longshore workers who died while working at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
During the ceremony, Pacific Coast Pensioner (PCPA) President Greg Mitre read the names of each the fallen workers. A bell was rung following each name. This year’s ceremony also honored members from the Inlandboatmen’s Union, the ILWU’s Maritime Division, and Port Security Guards from ILWU Local 26, who were killed on the job.
First Blood in ’34
ILWU members gather each year in front of a bust of ILWU co-founder Harry Bridges and a plaque bearing names of ILWU members who have been killed while working on the docks. In addition to honoring ILWU workers killed on the job, the event commemorates the early struggles by West Coast longshore workers for fair wages, hours and working conditions.
The First Blood ceremony recalls a violent clash between dockworkers and company-paid strikebreakers on May 15, 1934.
Remembering Jose Santoya
This year, Mitre read a new name into the record after Jose Santoya became the 69th dockworker added to the memorial plaque. Santoya, a 58-year-old father and ILWU mechanic, was killed one-year ago on May 15th when a tire exploded, killing him and severely injuring his co-worker, Pedro Chavarin. Members of Santoya’s family were on hand to mark the anniversary. They wore white t-shirts with Jose’s registration number written on the back.
The First Blood memorial is an important tradition in Southern California that typically draws hundreds of ILWU members, pensioners and supporters. Mitre said that COVID-19 concerns made a large event impossible so the gathering was scaled-down. Participants were physically-distanced and all wore masks to ensure everyone’s safety. Mitre said it was important to hold the event this year, despite the pandemic, to underscore the dangers of waterfront work. Dockworkers are considered “essential” and have been required to work during the pandemic to keep the global supply chain moving.
Elected officers from the Southern California Pensioners Group were the only pensioners invited this year, in an effort to keep the gathering small and safe.
ILWU Local 13 President Ramon Ponce De Leon and Local 13 Vice President Jesse Enriquez both attended the event. As has been a tradition for many years, flowers were provided Locals 13, 63, and 94.
“I wasn’t going to let the tradition die on my watch, so I proposed a smaller, social-distancing event,” Mitre said. “It was especially important because our brother, Jose Santoyo, had been killed exactly one-year prior in the Fenix Marine terminal accident. His entire family contacted me to express their wish to attend and observe our putting Jose’s name on the stone plaque where Harry is located. Jose’s is the 69th name we’ve had to etch into the plaque, and his death was a real tragedy.”