On May 9, 1934, an 83-day strike by longshoremen started on the West Coast that would affect over 2000 miles of coastline and shutter dozens of ports. The workers were striking for recognition of their union and most importantly an end to the “shape up” which was the humiliating process of finding work on the docks. The longshoremen would show up and the hiring boss would pick and choose anyone he wanted, for whatever reason, including often petty and personal ones. Adding to the indignity of begging for a job, loading and unloading ships was brutal, physical work. Some dock masters would refer to the workers only as “human machines.”

The strike started off strong – in San Francisco, city truck drivers pledged not to cross the picket lines and slowly other unions in the shipping industry voted to join what was now shaping up to be the largest maritime strike in U.S. history. But it was by no means a sure victory as many within the labor movement were split on supporting the strike.

Area employers responded by organizing and raising thousands of dollars to enlist the help of local police and government officials. And so the clash was set in motion. Police would respond to legal picketers with tear gas, tensions grew. News media reported on the strike as nothing more than subversive activity led by communists.

On July 5, the owners group organized hundreds of trucks manned by scabs to head to the port in San Francisco. The police pledged protection. “The Battle of Rincon Hill” began at 8 a.m.. The police fired at strikers with bullets and tear gas. The picketers fired back with bricks, bottles and stones. At the end of the day, two laid dead, shot by a policeman who aimed his shotgun into the crowd at the intersection of Mission and Steuart Streets: Howard Sperry, a longshoreman and war veteran, and Nick Bordoise, a member of the Cooks Union and who was preparing food for the strikers.

Seeing the bodies of Sperry and Bordoise incensed the city. Workers throughout San Francisco demanded a general strike, and it union by union, workers stopped working. By July 16, 150,000 workers had walked off their jobs.

By July 20, the strike was over, done in by lack of support from elected officials, employer-run press stories that sought to turn the public against the strikers, squabbling among unions and a lack of unity around the objectives. The longshoremen returned to work with the promise of arbitration with the employers, and the employers’ associations declared victory. But the real outcome laid in the seeds planted in workers who saw a different possibility when they stood together. #UnionHistory #PROUAW ... See MoreSee Less