Display honors San Francisco General Strike anniversary

http://transitional.pww.org/article/view/16644/

Author: Marilyn Bechtel
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 08/06/09 10:26

SAN FRANCISCO ― The 75th anniversary of one of the most dramatic episodes in U.S. labor history ― the 1934 San Francisco General Strike ― is being celebrated this summer with a stunning exhibit commissioned by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, the union born of labor struggles that shook the West Coast in the 1930s.



“So much has already been done about the 1934 strike,” said photographer Richard Bermack, who designed and produced the display. “There have been films and books about it; it’s probably one of the most famous instances in American if not world labor history. So I wanted to do something that would be bolder, different, more contemporary.”

The result, “The Men Along the Shore and the Legacy of 1934,” is on display through this month at the main San Francisco Public Library. Here is a treasure trove of historic photographs, posters, murals, cartoons, paintings, front pages of newspapers including the Communist Party newspaper, the Western Worker (a predecessor of the People’s Weekly World) and other labor, left and commercial newspapers. Emphasis is on the visuals; a spare, crisp text sets the historical narrative.

Beginning with the history of dockworker organizing from the mid-19th century, the exhibit dramatizes the abysmal working conditions for longshoremen in the years before 1934. Here, too, are the galvanizing effect the Industrial Workers of the World had on West Coast union organizing in the early 20th century and the sharp, unrelenting corporate and government repression of the union movement during and after World War I.

Vividly portrayed are vigilante and Ku Klux Klan violence against unions, the demeaning and corrupt “shape-up” hiring system, the impetus given union organizing by New Deal labor laws, the violent police repression and workers’ fightback during the longshore strike and the General Strike that followed, and finally victory, as the strikers win all their key demands, including a union-run hiring hall and a coast-wide contract.

During the strike African American longshoremen were recruited for the first time into the International Longshoremen’s Association, which preceded the ILWU on the West Coast. Racial unity was crucial in winning the strike, and has been an ILWU guiding principle ever since.

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-Laelth

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