|
The 1923 San Pedro Maritime Strike (also known as the Liberty Hill Strike) was, at the time, the biggest challenge to the dominance of the open shop culture of Los Angeles, California until the rise of the Congress of Industrial Organizations in the 1930s. The strike was led by members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, or the "Wobblies") which bottled up shipping in the harbor. One of the largest staged protest during the strike was led by author Upton Sinclair on a small plot of land called Liberty Hill where he would be arrested for reciting the First Amendment. It was eventually crushed by a combination of injunctions, mass arrests and vigilantism by the both the police force and the Ku Klux Klan. There would not be another waterfront strike of this magnitude until the 1934 West Coast Waterfront Strike. == Background == Labor relations in the Pacific coast maritime industry had been in almost constant turmoil since the turn of the century. The traditional craft unions of seaman and longshoremen, plagued by bureaucratic squabbles, the hostility of the ''Los Angeles Times'', powerful employers’ groups such as the Merchants’ and Manufacturers Association were not able to change the culture of open shops in Los Angeles.〔Zanger, Martin. “Politics of Confrontation: Upton Sinclair and the Launching of the ACLU in Southern California.” Pacific Historical Review 38, no. 4 (November 1969): 383–406.〕 One of the most effective weapons used by open shops to combat radical forces was “decausualization,” which relied heavily on the use of company-controlled hiring halls to weed out as many union sympathizers as possible from working in the docks. Even with all the preventative measures put in place, members of the IWW were able to still infiltrate a vast amount of the docks on the West Coast under the guise of other organizations used as a front.〔Perry, Louis B., and Richard S. Perry. A History of the Los Angeles Labor Movement, 1911-1941. University of California Press, 1963. Pg. 159〕 Although the IWW was able to gain access to the docks, they were not having too much success on the waterfronts of California until the start of World War I. The build-up leading to American involvement meant higher than normal output in all the ports, and a shortage of labor. In May 1916, the International Longshoremen’s Association began a dockworker’s strike for an increase in wages in Seattle, Washington. The dockworkers in San Pedro, totally about 1,600, came out on strike at the same time.〔Laslett, John H. M. Sunshine Was Never Enough: Los Angeles Workers, 1880–2010. University of California Press, 2012〕 The strike was quickly put down when the shop owners hired a special Los Angeles Police Department unit to work in the protections of strikebreakers to maintain an opened shop. In October 1919, the San Pedro Chamber of Commerce let it known of their intention to fully restore completely open shop conditions through the entire harbor, a decision that was supported by all the shops and companies in the area, sparking yet another small strike that was broken up quickly. The local unions were not strong enough to resist San Pedro in becoming a complete open shop city and most of the local union leaders gave up the fight, but the IWW members who were there in town did not.〔Stimson, Grace Heilman. Rise of the Labor Movement in Los Angeles. 1st edition. University of California, 1955. Pg. 181〕 Concerned with dwindling numbers in California the IWW’s general executive board in Chicago requested all remaining Wobblies on the West Coast to head down to San Pedro to help contest the open shop on the docks and the constitutional limits of California’s criminal syndicalism law.〔Perry, Louis B., and Richard S. Perry. A History of the Los Angeles Labor Movement, 1911-1941. University of California Press, 1963. Pg. 163〕 The Industrial Workers of the World quickly sprung into action, and disrupted the Local No. 31-18.〔Stimson, Grace Heilman. Rise of the Labor Movement in Los Angeles. 1st edition. University of California, 1955. Pg. 183〕 The actions did not do much in the attempt to displease the employers, but once the American Federation of Labor (AFL) was eliminated, the left-wingers became persona non grata. Efforts to keep Wobblies from dock employment were not successful. Although there were large amounts of IWW members under the new California criminal syndicalism law, there was still high levels of unrest on the San Pedro docks. There was a series of mini strikes in the early months of 1923 that kept several ships from sailing on time.〔Stimson, Grace Heilman. Rise of the Labor Movement in Los Angeles. 1st edition. University of California, 1955. Pg. 181〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「1923 san pedro maritime strike」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|