“The most important word in the language of the working class is ‘solidarity.’”
Those inspiring words were spoken by labor leader Harry Bridges, who died on this day in Labor History the year was 1990.
Harry was born into a middle class family in Melbourne, Australia.
At the age of fourteen his father put him to work collecting rents in Melbourne slums, an experience that gave young Harry a heart for struggling people.
At 16 he joined the Merchant Marines, landing in the US three years later.
At the San Francisco docks he joined the International Longshore Association, which was organizing against the company union.
On May 9, 1934 he helped lead a strike of the west coast docks. Furious shipping company owners and politicians retaliated violently. On what became known as “Bloody Thursday,” police beat, shot and wounded longshoreman up and down the coast.
Employers offered Bridges a $50,000 bribe to win his support, but he refused.
The union’s leadership brokered a deal to end the strike, but the dockworkers roundly rejected it.
Instead of settling, Bridges contacted other unions at port cities, and convinced them to support a general strike.
The general strike lasted four days, and won the longshoreman an agreement including shorter hours, increased pay and safer working conditions.
Three years later Bridges split from the International Longshore Association, and helped found the International Longshore Workers Union, affiliated under the CIO.
Harry became the west coast director for the CIO.
Throughout his life he advocated for democratic unionism, including open mics at meetings, direct elections of union leaders by rank and file membership, and member referendums on contract proposals.
The US Government continually harassed Bridges, accusing him of Communist sympathies.
Despite this harassment the ILWU became one of the leading voices of the US Labor Movement.
Labor History in 2:00 brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and The Rick Smith Show