2. Newspaper Coverage of the Dockworkers’ Strike

During the Great Depression years of the 1930s, even those lucky enough to have jobs struggled to survive, as attempts to raise wages or improve working conditions were routinely met by employers’ threats to hire replacements from among the millions of Americans who were hungry, unhoused, and unemployed.

In October 1935, dock workers of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) went on strike at nine Southern US ports, spanning nearly a thousand miles from Corpus Christi, Texas to Pensacola, Florida.

As Newsweek magazine reported, in the US South, where “conservatism and an abundance of cheap labor” often undermined union organizing efforts, “slugging and stabbing punctuated the strike’s first three weeks.”

Ship owners and their allies tried to break the dockworkers’ strike by recruiting replacement workers to load and unload the ships—and by calling upon police and other hired muscle to keep the ports moving. In Lake Charles, Louisiana, for example, the docks were re-opened by a force of seventy-five men armed with machine guns.

The strike’s many clashes—often open brawls between picketing strikers on one side and replacement workers and armed guards on the other—led to the deaths of perhaps a dozen people.

A) “Fear Strike to Tie Up All Sea Traffic,” Times-News (Hendersonville, NC), October 1, 1935

NEW ORLEANS, October 1: Union longshoremen struck four Gulf of Mexico ports at midnight, menacing the nation’s sea traffic. Pickets swarmed at New Orleans, Mobile, Pensacola, and Gulfport docks while police organized to prevent violence.

Edward F. McGrady, assistant secretary of labor, flew to Los Angeles to make an effort to prevent the strike from spreading to the west coast.

Union men are seeking union recognition and higher wages.

Federal officials are watching the situation in the Gulf of Mexico where trouble is expected in a few hours. The International Longshoremen’s Association ordered the strike of its members at all New Orleans docks which do not recognize the ILA as unit for collective bargaining.

Simultaneously union longshoremen in Houston and Galveston, Texas, will open a boycott against the ports of New Orleans, Gulfport, Mobile, and Pensacola. M. J. Dwyer of Galveston, district president of the ILA, said stevedores in other Texas ports would join in refusing to handle cargoes loaded by non-union workers.

The disputes in New Orleans and on the Pacific coast have been boiling for many weeks. In an attempt to restore peace, Joseph E. Ryan, international president of ILA asked the national labor relations board to hold an election of longshoremen in New Orleans. Ross Holt, district president, notified the board that the union workers would accept the result of such an election as final.

B) “Longshoremen on the Gulf Strike,” Henderson Daily Dispatch, October 11, 1935

Houston, Texas, Oct. 11—More than 3,000 members of the International Longshoremen’s Association in Texas and at Lake Charles, La., began a strike at 8 a.m. today.

The union dock workers said they will not return to work until operators contract with the I.L.A. at New Orleans and agree to include Lake Charles in the new contract for this district. Texas steamship men contend they have no control over conditions at New Orleans and Lake Charles.

Operators already have started preparations to handle cargoes with non-union labor. In some instances, however, ships probably will be tied up for a few days until steamship men have time to assemble non-union crews.

SOURCES:

United Press, “Fear Strike to Tie Up All Sea Traffic: First Violence in Dock Workers’ Walkout Comes At Mobile: Arrest 5 Men as Officer is Injured,” Times-News (Hendersonville, NC), October 1, 1935, www.chroniclingamerica.loc.gov

Associated Press, “Longshoremen on the Gulf Strike,” Henderson Daily Dispatch, October 11, 1935, www.chroniclingamerica.loc.gov

“STRIKE: Guns, Knives in I.L.A.’s Fight to Dominate Longshoremen,” Newsweek, November 2, 1935, 10-11

“Longshoreman is Slain in Fight Near Port Arthur: Strike Picket Found Shot in Back of Head,” Corpus Christi Caller, October 22, 1935