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HOUSE OF LABOUR Bahamas: In July 1943 Joseph McKinney, the current president of our local Brotherhood of Longshoremen Union was perhaps still a young man. |
History Of The Longshoremen Are Assured
HOUSE OF LABOUR Bahamas: In July 1943 Joseph McKinney, the current president of our local Brotherhood of Longshoremen Union was perhaps still a young man. He would have, however, heard about and was inspired by the “big strike”- better known as one of the few general strikes in the United States history. This strike culminated in July 5th 1943 with what became known as “ Bloody Thursday”. Seven years later the Bahamas got its own Longshoremen’s union under the leadership of Joseph McKinney. This week Inside Labour would like to focus on the formation of the United Brotherhood of Longshoremen and the Big Longshoremen Strike in the United States longshoremen union.
According to President McKinney, “The United Brotherhood of Longshoremen Union (UBLU) was among the first Trade Union to be registered in the Bahamas. It was registered in March of 1950 but was not fully liberated and recognized until in 1968. UBLU later became the bulwark of providing labour representation for all dock workers from John Alfred Dock in the east to Clifton Pier in the west.
But for the last decade despite the liberalization and recognition of its achievements as a group, the careers of dockworkers have been jeopardized. The wide labour jurisdiction it once had is now impeded. Hence, labour is at its worse on the waterfront.
The cause of the current labour impediment is largely due to the lack of protection for vulnerable career employees affected by unfair competition allowed under the current system, containerization and the modern technology that is associated with it, and weakness and efficiency of the various groups as a result of exploitation. Under the current system any maritime transport carrier can register a new company and wage a fierce competition with a new shipping company with lower cargo rates over the established carriers employing union members.
Although lowering the rates is legal, it jeopardizes the survival of the employers and the well being of the employees. Following this trend will come downsizing which leads to redundancy at any cost for union’s negotiated rates, which are higher. Downsizing could come in so many different ways. Depending on the approach of management, redundancy could come by way of lay off, unfair dismissal even without redundancy pay. The employer can also incorporate a new company to circumvent or nullify a valid industrial agreement between it and the union, as it did recently with the UBLU. Disputes deriving from the action of such an employer could lead on and on and indefinitely” says President McKinney.
The Big Strike sparked longshoreman organizing in the Bahamas in the same way as the civil right movement of the sixty’s influenced the progressive political changes of that decade. According to Duke Miester, July this year marks the 70th 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 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 wounded or seriously injured. Some 800 people were under arrest.
Four others were killed, hundreds of others hurt and arrested at ports in the Pacific Northwest and Southern California. But it was San Francisco that drew the most attention and a great public outpouring of sympathy for the strikers.
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 through downtown, eight to ten 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.
As the Secretary General and Treasure of the local UBLU Deglanville Panza reaffirms for the UBLU to service another fifty years it must “Welcome all dockworkers to join us in what we term: The social and economic struggle of the century”. Each day without empathy, Bahamian dockworkers are faced with many anxieties. Even though men are employed on a casual basis on each dock, from time to time the roster becomes exaggerated as a result of shiploads of containers being carted away to consignee’s premises.
Because of containerization Panza says: “Rapid economic expansion and rapidly growing unemployment has coexisted for a long time; because the social system between management and employees to date is not working properly. It is the philosophy of the UBLU that collective action is the only way in which working practices and customary standards of living can be protected against growing pressure of technological change and profitability. Dockworkers are not earning enough to improve housing and health care”.
Charles Fawkes is President of the National Consumer Association, Consumer columnist for the Nassau Guardian and organizer for the Commonwealth Group of Unions, Editor of the Headline News, The Consumerguard and The Worker’s Vanguard. He can be contacted at his office in the House of Labour at 326-6620. His e-mail address is: fawkesmore@mail1.coralwave.com or foxmoore@hotmail.com
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