Harry Bridges Defense Committee Pamphlet

"Within a year after the general strike [1934 San Francisco General strike], not a single member of the ILA in San Francisco was on relief - an hitherto unheard of situation. The Maritime Federation of the Pacific Coast was organized, to provide a central body through which all maritime unions could cooperate in mutual assistance.

The second great strike, occurring in the winter of 1936-1937, was primarily occasioned by the need of the members of the seamen's unions, who had not benefitted commensurately in 1934 and desired to raise their pay scales and working conditions to comparable equality with shore workers. The strike actually started as a lockout, with the employers presenting a stubborn front against any improvements and deliberately closing the port. In the end the seamen won a reasonable victory, but the longshoremen, who went out with them, took slight losses in certain respects.

An outstanding feature of the 1936-37 strike, which lasted 99 days, was the total absence of violence. This time the employers played a "starve-out" game. They merely shut down, thinking to bring the workers to terms through poverty and hunger. They did not order police and vigilantes and the National Guard into action. A handful of police strolled up and down the waterfront, while the actual job of keeping the peace was performed by the Maritime Federation Patrol, an organization of strikers who were proud of the chance to demonstrate the law-abiding ability of working men when not provoked into self defense by trouble makers.

That strike settled once and for all the question of "force and violence" as far as Bridges and the maritime unions are concerned. They want none of it.

One by one, changes were taking place in the unions. Officials who were found guilty of attempting to block attempts to improve workers conditions, of improper collusion with employers, of double-dealing, dishonesty, and theft of union funds were ousted from office. Bridges was elected President of the Pacific Coast district of the ILA, in spite of the bitter opposition of International President Ryan.

The officials who had been sloughed off through this democratic "house-cleaning" among the maritime unions, and some who managed to stay on, turned naturally to their old, secret allies, the employers."