The International Longshore and Warehouse Union, born out of the
1934 West Coast maritime and San Francisco general strikes under
the charismatic leadership of Harry Bridges, has been known from
the start for its strong commitment to democracy, solidarity, and
social justice. In this collection of firsthand narratives, union
leaders and rank-and-file workers - from the docks of Pacific Coast
ports to the fields of Hawaii to bookstores in Portland, Oregon -
talk about their lives at work, on the picket line, and in the
union.
Workers recall the back-breaking, humiliating conditions on the
waterfront before they organized, the tense days of the 1934
strike, the challenges posed by mechanization, the struggle against
racism and sexism on the job, and their activism in other social
and political causes. Their stories testify to the union's impact
on the lives of its members and also to its role in larger events,
ranging from civil rights battles at home to the fights against
fascism and apartheid abroad.
"Solidarity Stories" is a unique contribution to the literature
on unions. There is a power and immediacy in the voices of workers
that is brilliantly expressed here. Taken together, these voices
provide a portrait of a militant, corruption-free, democratic union
that can be a model and an inspiration for what a resurgent
American labor movement might look like. The book will appeal to
students and scholars of labor history, social and economic
history, and social change, as well as trade unionists and anyone
interested in labor politics and history.
Harvey Schwartz is an oral historian at the Labor Archives and
Research Center, San Francisco State University, and curator of the
Oral History Collection, ILWU Library.
"Harvey Schwartz is the dockworkers' Studs Terkel. "Solidarity
Stories" is right up there with the best of Terkel's books, an
inspiring account in their own words of how the men and women
working the Pacific Coast docks and beyond built a great union and
won dignity and fair pay on the job. Schwartz's oral history is so
well organized and fully annotated that it rises to the level of a
genuine history of the International Longshore and Warehouse
Union." - David Brody, professor emeritus, University of
California, Davis
"An engaging and revealing story about the 'making' of one of
our country's most democratic and progressive unions - a story of
the past that speaks powerfully to the challenges facing labor
today." - Howard Kimeldorf, University of Michigan
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