Working Class in American History

Labor Radical, Labor Legend

Robert W. Cherny

• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Year: 2023
• ISBN:
  9780252053795
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business generale
• Index: Business

• Winner of a Silver Medal from the Independent Publisher Book Awards
• Won Honorable Mention for 2023 ILHA Book of the Year (International Labor History Association)

The iconic leader of one of America's most powerful unions, Harry Bridges put an indelible stamp on the twentieth century labor movement. Robert Cherny's monumental biography tells the life story of the figure who built the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) into a labor powerhouse that still represents almost 30, 000 workers.

An Australian immigrant, Bridges worked the Pacific Coast docks. His militant unionism placed him at the center of the 1934 West Coast Waterfront Strike and spurred him to expand his organizing activities to warehouse laborers and Hawaiian sugar and pineapple workers. Cherny examines the overall effectiveness of Bridges as a union leader and the decisions and traits that made him effective. Cherny also details the price paid by Bridges as the US government repeatedly prosecuted him for his left-wing politics.

Drawing on personal interviews with Bridges and years of exhaustive research, Harry Bridges places an extraordinary individual and the ILWU within the epic history of twentieth-century labor radicalism.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• 1 From Australia to the San Francisco Docks, 1901–1922
• 2 San Francisco Longshoreman, 1922–1929
• 3 San Francisco Longshoremen Organize, 1929–May 9, 1934
• 4 The Big Strike, May 9–July 4, 1934
• 5 The Big Strike: Bloody Thursday and After, July 5 to the End of 1934
• 6 Pursuing Maritime Unity, October 1934–January 1937
• 7 Founding the ILWU, 1937–1940
• 8 Harry Bridges and the Communist Party in the 1930s: Evidence from the Russian Archives
• 9 Deport Bridges! 1934–1941
• 10 If at First You Don’t Succeed: Deportation, 1940–1945
• 11 World War, Labor Peace, 1940–1945
• 12 Cold War, Labor War, 1945–1948
• 13 Try, Try, Again: Deportation and Expulsion, 1948–1953
• 14 The Last Deportation Trial and New Beginnings, 1953–1960
• 15 Transforming Longshoring: The M&Ms, 1955–1966
• 16 Labor Statesman? 1960–1971
• 17 The Longest Strike: Relations with the PMA, 1966–1977
• 18 Living Legend, 1971–1990
• Epilogue
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index