Labor
The labor history of the shipyards at Potrero is not well documented. Bethlehem Shipbuilding, like the Union Iron Works, fought hard to keep unionization out of the shipyards. Strikes, some of them protracted, occurred periodically throughout the active shipbuilding period, including during the war years and immediately after. One important strike in the spring of 1941 halted major naval shipbuilding for a month and a half, leading to the intervention of President Roosevelt in efforts to end the strike. Members of the machinist union's local resisted the federal government and their own national leaders and persisted in the strike. They succeeded for the first time in achieving a closed shop at Bethlehem.
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