Harry Bridges - Labor Radical, Labor Legend

Winner of a Silver Medal from the Independent Publisher Book AwardsWon 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.

List of contents

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 to July 4, 1934
5. The Big Strike: Bloody Thursday and After, July 5th to the End of 1934
6. Pursuing Maritime Unity, October 1934-January 1936
7. Founding the ILWU, 1936-1940
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, 1960-1966
16. Labor Statesman? 1960-1971
17. The Longest Strike: Relations with PMA, 1966-1977
18. Living Legend, 1971-1990

Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index

About the author

Robert W. Cherny

Product details

• Authors: Robert W. Cherny
• Publisher: University Of Illinois Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.01.2024
• EAN: 9780252088025
• ISBN: 978-0-252-08802-5
• No. of pages: 504
• Series: Working Class in American History
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature > Letters, diaries