Take It Easy, But Take It

-ILA 38-79 San Francisco Longshore  - ILA 38-123 Portland Wheat/Cereal ILA 38-12 Seattle Longshore ILA 38 Sacramento Wheat/Cereal - ILA 38-78 Portland General Longshore - Save 28 Innocent ILA Men from Portland during the 1934 West Coast waterfront strike ILA 38-78-A Portland Super Cargos & Checkers

“DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES In our society of today there are two classes whose interests are directly opposed to each other. On the one side stands the propertied class, that owns almost all the lands, all the houses, the factories, the means of communication, all the machines and raw material, all the means of life. Compared with the nation at large this class is only a small minority. On the other side stand the workers, who possess nothing but their physical and intellectual labor power, and this they are compelled to sell to those who own the means of production. The workers number millions. It is to the interest of the propertied class to buy labor at the cheapest possible price; to produce as much as can be produced, and to heap up wealth. The few hundreds of thousands, who compose the propertied class take from the workers the greater part of the wealth they have created. Of all the product of their toil the millions of workers receive only just as much a...

In 1937, Harry Bridges was named West Coast director of the C.I.O. in exchange for the West Coast longshoremen joining the C.I.O. The International Longshoremen's Association Pacific Coast District joined the CIO just months before they broke off from the ILA and chartered as the International Longshoremen's & Warehousemen's Union C.I.O.  This pamphlet, advocating Industrial Unionism, comes out of Harry Bridges West Coast C.I.O. headquarters the year the ILWU was founded. This pamphlet holds the AFL leadership to account for their hypocritical stance on Industrial Unionism.

In 1937, members of the Sawmill & Timber Workers Union disaffiliated with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters & Joiners of America and formed the International Woodworkers of America. They chose to affiliate with the emerging Committee of Industrial Organizations. The logging industry was changing and logging trucks were beginning to be the new norm. Based on the craft structure of AFL unions, the Teamsters and AFL leadership asserted that the Teamsters should have these driving jobs. The "Timber Worker" the official newspaper of the Sawmill & Timber Workers disagreed. The CIO, which advocated industrial unionism was more in line with these lumber workers thinking. Many of them were ex-wobblies after all. Dave Beck was a ruthless Teamster boss. He was an arch nemesis of the ILWU's Harry Bridges and preached top down business unionism. At this point in his life, Beck was the West Coast organizer for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The CIO ...