34 Facts About Harry Bridges

1.

Harry Bridges was an Australian-born American union leader, first with the International Longshoremen's Association.

2.

Harry Bridges was prosecuted for his labor organizing and designated as subversive by the US government during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, with the goal of deportation.

3.

Harry Bridges went to sea at age 16 as a merchant seaman and joined the Australian sailors' union.

4.

In 1921, Harry Bridges joined the Industrial Workers of the World, participating in an unsuccessful nationwide seamen's strike.

5.

Harry Bridges left the sea for longshore work in San Francisco in 1922.

6.

Harry Bridges resisted joining that union, finding casual work on the docks as a "pirate".

7.

Harry Bridges eventually joined the company union in 1927 and worked as a winch operator and rigger on a steel-handling gang.

8.

At the time Harry Bridges was a member of a circle of longshoremen that came to be known as the "Albion Hall Group", after their meeting place.

9.

Harry Bridges did not control the strike: over his strong objections, the ILA membership voted to accept arbitration to end the strike.

10.

Similarly, in 1935 Harry Bridges' opposition did not stop the ILA leadership from extending the union's contract with the employers, rather than striking in solidarity with the seamen.

11.

Harry Bridges was elected president of the San Francisco local in 1934 and president of the Pacific Coast District of the ILA in 1936.

12.

Harry Bridges led efforts to form Maritime Federation of the Pacific, which brought all of the maritime unions together for common action.

13.

Harry Bridges was elected president of the new union, which quickly affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations.

14.

Harry Bridges became the West Coast Director for the CIO shortly thereafter.

15.

Harry Bridges appealed and lost in District Court and the Court of Appeals.

16.

Harry Bridges was sentenced to five years in prison and his citizenship was revoked.

17.

Harry Bridges hewed to the Communist Party line throughout the late 1930s and 1940s.

18.

Harry Bridges continued opposing the Roosevelt Administration, belittling the New Deal and urging union voters to withhold their support from Roosevelt.

19.

Harry Bridges said they should wait to see what Lewis, who had now split with the Roosevelt administration, recommended.

20.

Harry Bridges refused, noting that the union's constitution allowed for a recall election if fifteen percent of the membership petitioned for one.

21.

Harry Bridges later joined with Joseph Curran of the National Maritime Union, which represented sailors on the East Coast, and Julius Emspak of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, to support a proposal by Roosevelt in 1944, to militarize some civilian workplaces.

22.

Harry Bridges' attitude changed sharply after the end of World War II.

23.

Harry Bridges had his own opinions about the Marshall Plan and the application of the Truman Doctrine in Greece and Turkey, as well as participation in the World Federation of Trade Unions, viewing every element from the point of how it would affect his constituents.

24.

The organization continued to negotiate agreements, with less strife than in the 1930s and 1940s, and Harry Bridges continued to be reelected without serious opposition.

25.

The additional longshore work produced by the Vietnam War allowed Harry Bridges to meet the challenge by opening up more jobs and making determined efforts to recruit black applicants.

26.

Harry Bridges had difficulty giving up his position in the ILWU.

27.

Harry Bridges explored the possibility of merging it with the ILA or the Teamsters in the early 1970s.

28.

Harry Bridges retired in 1977 after ensuring that Louis Goldblatt, the long-time Secretary-Treasurer of the union and his logical successor, was denied the opportunity to replace him.

29.

Harry Bridges divorced his second wife, Nancy Fenton Berdicio Harry Bridges, a onetime professional dancer, after eight years of marriage.

30.

Harry Bridges met Noriko Sawada in San Francisco, when introduced by her employer, Charles Garry, a civil rights lawyer.

31.

The Harry Bridges Institute in San Pedro, California, is a research institute that focuses on topics of international economics and how changes in political geography affect unions.

32.

The archives of the Harry Bridges Institute are held in the University Library at California State University, Northridge.

33.

In 1941, The Almanac Singers, including Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, recorded "Song for Harry Bridges" while working on their album Talking Union that defends Harry Bridges' work.

34.

In 2009, the nonprofit Harry Bridges Project produced From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks: The Life and Times of Harry Bridges, a one-man play that was directed and filmed by Haskell Wexler.