Harry Bridges - The Big Strike

The Big Strike

Early in 1934, Bridges and the Albion Hall group and militants in other ports began planning a coast-wide strike. The Roosevelt administration tried to head off the strike by appointing a mediation board to oversee negotiations, but neither side accepted its proposed compromise. Bridges was elected chairman of the strike committee. The strike began on May 9. While the elected local officers were the nominal leaders of the strike at its outset, Bridges led the planning of the strike along with his friend Sam Kagel, the rank-and-file opposition to the two proposed contracts that the leadership negotiated and the membership rejected during the strike, and the dealings with other unions during and after the four-day San Francisco General strike after "Bloody Thursday" on July 5, when police aided the Waterfront Employers Association in trucking cargo from the pierheads to the warehouses through the union's picket line. Scores of strikers were beaten or wounded by gunfire during the battle. During a coordinated raid on the union mess hall at the corner of Steuart and Mission San Francisco Police shot and killed Howard Sperry, a striking sailor, and Nick Counderakis (AKA Nick Bordoise), member of the cook's union and a strike sympathizer helping out at the mess hall. Scores of others were wounded by police gunfire as well, including a number of bystanders as the ensuing battle quickly spilled into the nearby downtown area.

Bridges became the chief spokesperson for the union in negotiations after workers rejected the second agreement negotiated by the old leadership in June. Bridges did not, on the other hand, control the strike: the ILA membership voted to accept arbitration to end the strike over his strong objections. Similarly, Bridges' opposition did not stop the ILA leadership from extending the union's contract with the employers, rather than striking in solidarity with the seamen, in 1935.