Today in Labor History April 17, 1944: The militant Lodge 68 of the International Association of Machinists (IAM), in San Francisco, began a ban against overtime work. During the ban, which lasted four months, all machinists refused to work more than eight hours per day, and on Sundays. They began this job action in protest of a wage freeze that had been in place throughout World War Two, as high wartime inflation eroded the value of their wages.

Roosevelt’s economic stabilization czar, Fred Vinson, said they had to “stamp out” this example of labor militancy and defiance of the government before it spread across the entire country. The bosses, as well as most of organized labor, including the Communist-oriented ILWU, agreed, and they collaborated to undermine and crush Lodge 68. During World War Two, Lodge 68 had more strikes than all the other unions in the Bay Area combined. Together with Oakland's Local 1304 of the CIO's Steel Workers Organizing Committee, they openly defied the National War Labor Board (NWLB), the FBI, the White House, as well as the CIO, ILWU and Communist Party.

Prior to WWII, the IAM and ILWU had been closely allied. In 1934, IAM members led the call for the San Francisco General Strike after the San Francisco police murdered two striking union members on the waterfront. During WWII, however, the ILWU took a much more collaborationist attitude toward the U.S. government. Harry Bridges felt that defeating Hitler took precedence over working conditions and working-class solidarity at home, and that wartime strikes undermined this goal. One of the loudest voices within the Regional War Labor Board calling for government against the machinists was ILWU vice-president Louis Goldblatt.

In September, 1944, the U.S. Navy took over control of most of the machinery industry in San Francisco and its industrial suburbs, suspending union contracts, grievance procedure, and collective bargaining rights. They fired machinists Martin Joos and Arthur Burke for continuing to do their jobs as union representatives in violation of their suspension of union rights and blacklisted them from other jobs. Just prior to their firing, the FBI interrogated them for violating wartime antistrike legislation. They also revoked ration cards for numerous other IAM members and referred others to the Selective Service for immediate induction into the military. At the same time, FBI agents fanned out through the Bay Area’s working-class communities, interrogating thousands of machinists in their homes. These heavy-handed tactics ultimately ended the overtime ban.

To learn more, see this article from libcom: https://libcom.org/article/class-conscious-machinists-stormy-petrels-west-coast-labor

#workingclass #LaborHistory #FBI #communism #union #strike #ilwu #hitler #fascism #nazis #machinists #solidarity #militancy

Today in Labor History March 30, 1990: Harry Bridges died at age 88. He helped found the ILWU (International Longshore and Warehouse Union) and led the union for 40 years. Bridges was born in Australia in 1901 and moved to the U.S. in 1920. He joined the IWW in 1921 and participated in an unsuccessful nationwide seamen’s strike. In 1922, he moved to San Francisco, to become a longshoreman. His militancy won him considerable support and he was soon elected a leader of the new longshoremen’s union. He helped lead the 1935 San Francisco General Strike. This was one of the last General Strikes to occur in the U.S. because the Taft-Hartley Act banned them in 1947 (in the wake of the 1945-1946 Strike Wave, with over 4.3 million U.S. workers going on strike, including General Strikes in Lancaster, Pennsylvania; Stamford, Connecticut; Rochester, New York; and Oakland, California). One of Bridge’s most famous quotes was, “The most important word in the language of the working class is solidarity.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #HarryBridges #IWW #ilwu #generalstrike #sanfrancisco #waterfront #solidarity #TaftHartley #longshore

"Was a reference to Renee Good spelled out on cargo ship in Tacoma?"

https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article314465172.html

#ReneeGood #ice #uspol #cargoShipping #ports #Tacoma #ILWU

The NDP leadership race just got a little more exciting.

Rob Ashton: "The federal NDP needs to build on what's already working."

#ndp #canpoli #cdnpoli #robashton #ilwu