Harry Bridges said of The Big Strike, “We showed the world that united working people could stand against guns and tear gas, against the press and the courts, against whatever they threw at us”
By Dick Meister
(Dick Meister, formerly labor editor for the Chronicle and labor reporter for KQED’s “Newsroom,” has covered labor issues for half a century.)
It’s the 75th anniversary of what’s known in labor lore as “The Big Strike” — the remarkable event that brought open warfare to San Francisco’s waterfront, led to one of the very few general strikes in U.S. history and played a key role in spreading unionization nationwide.
It began in May of the dark Depression year of 1934 when longshoremen finally rebelled against their wretched working conditions in San Francisco, then one of the world’s busiest ports, and in the West Coast’s other port cities.
Longshoremen were not even guaranteed jobs, no matter how skilled or experienced they might be. They had to report to the docks every morning and hope a hiring boss would pick them from among the thousands of desperate job-seekers who jammed the waterfront for the daily “shapeup.” Hiring bosses rarely chose those who raised serious complaints about pay and working conditions or otherwise challenged them, but were quite partial to those who slipped them bribes or bought them drinks at nearby bars.