#bordoise — Public Fediverse posts

In memory of Howard Sperry and Nick Bordoise,
who gave their lives on Bloody Thursday, July 5, 1934,
so that all working people 
might enjoy a greater measure of dignity and security.

Sperry and Bordoise were fatally shot by San Francisco police 
at the intersection of Mission and Steuart Streets,

when longshore-men and seamen attempted to stop maritime employers from breaking their joint strike.

Community outrage at these killings 
sparked a general strike by all San Francisco unions. 

The maritime strike continued through the middle of summer, 
concluding with a union victory which brought decent conditions to the shipping industry
and set the stage for the rebirth of a strong and democratic labor movement on the west coast.

"An Injury To One Is An Injury To All"

https://readtheplaque.com/plaque/bloody-thursday#gsc.tab=0

#cio #afl #industrialunions #generalstrike #sanfrancisco #Bordoise #Sperry

Over the past few years the labor movement has taken a series of body blows which have sapped its strength and have put it on the defensive.
These attacks originate in the White House and trickle down to the lowest regional office of the National Labor Relations Board.

They begin in corporate offices of companies like Louisiana-Pacific and Phelps Dodge [that was the enemy that month] and work their way down to even the smallest employers.
We are concerned about the future of our jobs, the industries in which we work, the world that our children will inherit.
We are therefore inclined more and more to look in the past for some sort of anchor to discover our roots.
We don't want just a few names and dates, but a living, ongoing story in which we can see ourselves as actors as well as spectators.
So as we celebrate the General Strike of 1934, it's time for a fresh look.

Young workers in particular must look at 1934, and ask what relevance it has for them.
For the generation of west coast workers who went through the Depression the answers are self-evident.
The '34 Strike was the main event, their passage into first-class citizenship,
by establishing a solid union presence on the west coast waterfronts.
By doing away with the humiliation of the shape-up, the fink hall and the company union, the '34 Strike changed the face of the waterfront forever.

The same might be said for the generation which came on during and after WWII.
They may not have participated in the actual events of the strike, but their fathers and uncles did.
As kids growing up in the 1930s they had seen the changes, whether it was the growing stability of their family life, the increased self-respect of the adults around them or a little more meat on the table.

The generation of the '50s and '60s, the generation who put together the first pension and health and welfare programs, also understood that they were enjoying the payoff of the sacrifice of 1934.
The Big Strike remained a vivid memory and was clearly responsible for their being able to enjoy a degree of comfort and security undreamed of by their parents.

But what are we to say to the young people of today,
people who are separated from the '30s by the tremendous changes which have taken place in those years?
For them, 1934 is a heroic dream, a golden age, when the labor movement was fresh and young,
when things were simpler, a matter of right and wrong.
What was so unique and so instructive about 1934 and in fact about the whole CIO experience, was that it was a creative response to change in society.

Over the 50 years preceding the '34 strike, American industrial life had changed dramatically.
The village blacksmith became a steelworker in a huge plant, the assembly line diluted craft skills.
But we in the labor movement were still acting as if it were 1870 or thereabouts.
Our little craft unions, jealous about our own spheres of control, only about maintaining our jurisdiction, our burial societies, the world was passing us by.
So here we are again.

The creative part of the CIO ideas expressed on the waterfront was the unity of all workers.
That meant the end of the competition between the skilled man and the casual.
It meant the hiring hall and equal work opportunity.
It meant a coast-wide contract so that ports couldn't be played off one against the other.
It meant unity with the sailors.
Industrial unionism on the west coast succeeded so well because it fitted the circumstances of corporate development so well."
-- Jim Herman, ILWU president in 1984
#cio #afl #industrialunions #generalstrike #sanfrancisco
#Bordoise #Sperry

https://www.foundsf.org/50th_Anniversary_of_1934_General_Strike