Looking back at the 1948 strike

The ILWU was born out of the 1934 West Coast Maritime Strike, but strikes have been a rare occurrence for the union. The ILWU Longshore Division has exercised its right to strike only two other times in its history in 1971 and 1948.

The 1948 strike included a coalition of maritime unions including the ILWU, the Pacific Coast Marine Firemen, Oilers, Watertenders and Wipers Association, Marine Engineers Beneficial Association, Marine Radio Officers of the American Radio Association, and the National Union of Marine Cooks and Stewards. The 1948 strike was provoked by the Waterfront Employers Association (WEA), which utilized provisions of the newly passed Taft-Hartley law to try to undermine the strength of the ILWU and roll back the gains the union won for workers including eliminating the union-controlled hiring hall.

In 1947, Congress passed Taft-Hartley by overriding President Harry Truman’s veto. The act eroded the organizing strength of workers and tilted labor laws in favor of employers by outlawing many of the successful tactics that had been the building block of union strength. Taft-Hartley outlawed the closed shop, which employers claimed included the ILWU hiring hall, secondary boycotts, and strikes over jurisdictional issues.

Taft-Hartley also eroded the right of workers to strike by giving the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) the power to issue injunctions against strikes it deemed illegal and allowing the President to impose an 80-day “cooling-off” period during strikes deemed harmful to the “national interest.” The Act also required elected union leaders to sign affidavits stating they were not Communists before they could hold office; the ILWU later successfully challenged this provision in court.

Emboldened by these new anti-union federal laws, the Waterfront Employers Association entered contract negotiations with the demand that the ILWU give up the hiring hall because they said it was “illegal” under Taft-Hartley. The union countered with a demand to continue the hall as it was as well as a series of contract changes, including higher wages, shorter hours, revised vacation rules, and improved safety conditions.

Negotiations quickly reached an impasse. The employers’ attempt to eliminate the union-controlled hiring hall was rejected by the union outright. The union-controlled hiring hall was one of the key demands won in the just 14 years before during the 1934 strike. Longshore workers were not going to allow a return to the corrupt and abusive hiring practices of the shape up or the employer-controlled “fink hall.”

With no compromise in sight and the June 15th expiration of the contract approaching, the union took a vote authorizing a strike if the employers insisted on dismantling the hiring hall and staying out on strike until all other maritime unions reached a satisfactory agreement. The strike authorization vote was passed by an overwhelming majority of the membership.

The federal government soon intervened, declaring the potential strike a national emergency. It issued a series of restraining orders and invoked the Taft-Hartley mandated 80-day “cooling off” period.

The NLRB used Taft-Hartley for the first time to force workers to vote on the employers’ “last offer.” That offer included requiring the hiring hall dispatcher be chosen by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service rather than elected by the union. This was really an open shop with no preference for union members in hiring. There was also a rule that required agents of the union to notify the employers before going on the docks to inspect grievances.

The ILWU’s Coast Longshore Caucus recommended that the rank-and-file boycott the NLRB vote in protest of the government’s restrictions on the union’s bargaining power. The result of the vote after three days was an unprecedented show of union strength and solidarity. Every one of the 26,965 employees eligible to vote honored the union’s boycott and not one ballot was cast. This vote became part of ILWU legend. Then on September 2, after the 80-day government injunction expired, the ILWU struck, effectively stopping shipping along the West Coast.

After the rank and file unanimously rejected the “last offer,” employer tactics shifted. The WEA began leaning into Cold War and anti-communist sentiments as part of its public relations strategy to paint Harry Bridges and other ILWU leaders as “reds.” After working with the ILWU leadership for the past 14 years, the employers now refused to negotiate with the union’s elected negotiators because the ILWU leadership refused on principle to sign anti-communist affidavits. The ILWU responded to the employers’ demands by saying that it was up to the rank and file, not the employer, to choose who would represent the union at the negotiating table.

The employers spent thousands of dollars on advertisements hoping to shape public opinion about the strike. The WEA’s red-baiting attempted to play into public fears of communism and tried to link the ILWU to the Soviet Union.

One newspaper ad paid for by the employer included a carefully cropped photo of Bridges standing near Soviet official Vyacheslav Molotov at a public event. The ILWU responded with an ad of its own pointing out the event in question was not only attended by numerous U.S. government officials but also that the employers had been present at the event as well.

In addition to newspaper ads of its own, the ILWU countered the employer’s PR efforts with outreach by rank-and-file members who spoke at community events, including church groups, business associations, and political organizations. The striking unions also started a radio program in Seattle, Reports from Labor, hosted by Jerry Tyler of the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union as an outlet to inform the public about the strike and other labor issues. Although it was created as a tactic for the 1948 strike, it continued into the 1950s as an important source of information and commentary for organized labor in the Pacific Northwest.

The stalemate was finally broken when negotiators at the table were changed. However, it was the employers, not the union, that changed negotiators. The WEA announced a “new look” to the union shortly after Truman’s defeat of the staunch anti-communist Thomas Dewey in the 1948 Presidential election.

The WEA removed the union-busters and red-baiters. The employers’ “new look” signaled an openness to work with the union that had not existed in the previous 14 years. After 95 days, the ILWU and WEA reached an extended agreement that represented a new era of cooperation and stability in the industry. The ILWU won the closed shop with the hiring hall continuing as it was with a union-elected dispatcher; wages were increased, union security was reaffirmed and improvements were made in the hours and vacation provisions. A coastwise system of arbitration was created that included a jointly chosen arbitrator with the power to make decisions over any conflict. Sam Kagel was chosen for that position. When the contract went to the membership to vote all but four locals unanimously voted in favor of the contract.

Bridges interview on the 1948 strike  

On November 16, 1948, ILWU International President Harry Bridges appeared on Radio KPOJ, in Portland, Oregon with Matthew Meehan of ILWU Local 8, as part of the series, Voices from the 1948 Maritime Strike. The following is an excerpt from Bridges’ interview. 

Bridges: The demand of the shipowners is both contrary to the law governing collective bargaining and the whole basic principle of collective bargaining. It’s really a demand for company unionism. It’s a demand for shipowner control over the union instead of union control by the membership. Anyone affected by the strike, or anyone who is concerned with its settlement should seriously study what the shipowners are asking as a price for resuming negotiations.

They say quite openly to the union, change your union leaders and negotiators to satisfy us.

Give us people who we believe can be influenced or intimidated into accepting a contract with inadequate wages and working conditions. In almost the same breath, the shipowners pretend they are not engaged in union busting. Well, any union person or any fair-minded person can judge for themselves.

Meehan: What reasons do they give for this demand to select the spokesman for the union? Has a union made any proposals to select the spokesman for the shipowners association?

Bridges: On the first question as to their reasons. They have charged the union’s present spokesman with many things, ranging from communist plots to destroy the merchant marines to ordering an illegal strike without strike issues. These accusations are purely window dressing to conceal what they are actually trying to do, namely, choose the pitchers on the union team.

Just imagine if the Boston Braves had refused to play the Cleveland Indians in the World Series unless the Braves could say who would pitch for the Indians. Why sports fans would have raised a holler that would be heard around the world. Our union membership was hollering plenty about the shipowners trying to dictate who shall be on both sides of the bargaining table. They know it’s plain union-busting and company unionism. Any fair-minded person will agree in our opinion that the union should say who shall pitch for the union team.

Meehan: Hasn’t the union already made a big concession along the line of changing its negotiators?

Bridges: Yes, a big concession. We offered the shipowners a union negotiating committee composed of strikers only elected by secret ballot right from the picket line. No union officers, including myself would be on such a committee. The union has offered the shipowners a choice of two committees, both elected by a vote of the union membership.

Meehan: But doesn’t that make it seem that they don’t want to sit down and talk across the table about settling the strike?

Bridges: The facts speak for themselves, we think. They refuse to negotiate with the present union committee, which includes national and local union offices, and they refuse to deal with the committee of striking longshoremen who must work and live under any agreement negotiated. It adds up to the shipowners wanting to choose who shall sit on the union side of the table as well as their own.

Meehan: How about the ship owners demand that any committee that they meet with must sign the anti-communist affidavits called for by the Taft-Hartley law?

Bridges: Compliance with these provisions of the Taft-Hartley law, that is the signing of the anti-communist affidavits, is necessary only if the union wishes to use the facilities of the National Labor Relations Board. The provisions are purely optional. There is no violation of any law involved by the union’s refusal to sign these statements as demanded by the shipowners.

Meehan: What is the reason for the union’s refusal other than the exercise of its clear legal rights under the law?

Bridges: It’s simply a matter of trade union policy and principle. And after all, again, we think that it’s the union’s right to determine what its policies and principles shall be. There’s nothing political about it. Our union, like every single labor organization in the country, regards the Taft-Hartley law as a wholly unfair anti-labor measure. Not a single labor officer in the whole country believes otherwise. Even the President of the United States says the same thing. Many labor unions and many labor union officials are bypassing the optional sections of the law. Prominent among them are John L. Lewis and Philip Murray.

Meehan: Well, in the case of yourself, doesn’t it seem that matter of an anti-communist affidavit is a perfect excuse for refusing to do business with you as a union spokesman?

Bridges: Yes, to me it does. After all, I had 10 years of investigation by the FBI, government agencies, police departments, and three deportation trials that eventually resulted in a decision by the United States Supreme Court on the issue of communism and communist membership. If the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States can’t satisfy the shipowners, I frankly don’t see what got an anti-communist affidavit will do.

However, again, as I have said, It’s purely a matter of union policy. Remember, up until midnight September 1, the shipowners—the same ship owners that are now complaining about the leadership—were more than anxious to have the committee of which I am spokesman sign the contract which they, the shipowners, proposed. Now that contract was a sellout of the longshoremen that work for their wages and pay me my salary. When the committee instructed by the membership rejected the sellout contract, then the shipowners screamed communism. This to us proves that they don’t care who they deal with, as long as the deal goes their way.

Meehan: You say that despite the fact the ship owners are publicly professing to want waterfront peace, they only want any new contract negotiated to run until next June, which is only a little over eight months away?

Bridges: Yes, they made that proposal just before the strike took place. And they made it on a take it or leave it basis, meaning take it or strike. The union wants the contract run until June 1950, or even longer. This would be the best guarantee that there would be no waterfront tie-up for two years or more. But the shipowners rejected our program on that matter….Our membership wants such a contract. Dozens of businessmen have written us and phoned us and approved the idea. Only the shipowners do not seem to want it. They wish to have the threat of a waterfront tie-up with us every year.

Meehan: How can the strike be settled?

Bridges: Well, the various ways can be spelled out. First, the shipowners’ way: let them decide who shall pitch for the union. We just cannot go for that and we won’t. Second, also a shipowners’ way right and their real program: starve the strike out, break the strike and bust the union. Now let me say very frankly, before the union surrenders to either of these methods, it will go down fighting every inch of the way. However, there are others.

Third, the shipowners to resume negotiations immediately with a committee selected only by the union and fourth except the office of third parties such as for example, Elmer Robinson, Mayor of San Francisco, Senator Wayne Moore of Oregon, or the United States Conciliation Service, all of whom have offered to act as mediators in the strike. The strike can only be settled by negotiations. The last two methods will get negotiations going through discussions and bargaining across the table. All the strike issues can be settled or compromised, including all the complaints of the shipowners against the union and against this leadership.