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This page is an introduction to the life and work of longshoreman Harry Bridges. Below you will find a brief biographical sketch and to the right are links to videos, photos, speeches and lectures, primary source documents and other resources.

Harry Bridges was one of the most influential labor leaders in US history. Frequently at odds with conservative elements in the labor movement, and often vilified by employers and government officials, Bridges made the International Longshore and Warehouse Union into a progressive pillar of US trade unionism.

Bridges’ most remarkable contribution to labor history comes through his involvement in the Great Maritime Strike of 1934. He was a much respected rank and file leader of the ’34 strike, a strike that shut down west coast ports, led to an unprecedented three-day general strike in San Francisco, and violent confrontations on the docks. It also established the ILWU as a largely democratically controlled union, a powerhouse able to confront employer transgressions. In subsequent years Bridges was hounded by accusations of Communist

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Harry Bridges

Australian-American union leader

Harry Bridges (28 July 1901 – 30 March 1990) was an Australian-born Americanunion leader, first with the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA). In 1937, he led several chapters in forming a new union, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), expanding members to workers in warehouses, and led it for the next 40 years. He was prosecuted for his labor organizing and designated as subversive by the U.S. government during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, with the goal of deportation. This was never achieved.

Bridges became a naturalized citizen in 1945. His conviction by a federal jury for having lied about his Communist Party membership when seeking naturalization was overturned by the Supreme Court in 1953 as having been prosecuted untimely, outside the statute of limitations. His official power was reduced when the ILWU was expelled by the CIO in 1950, but he continued to be re-elected by the membership and was highly influential until his retirement in 1977.

Background

Bridges was born Alfred Re

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Historical Essay

by Harvey Schwartz, a San Francisco-born labor historian

Next Stop #8: Carving Hills

Harry Bridges at a negotiating session during waterfront strike, 1934.

Photo: San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library, San Francisco, CA

Harry Bridges at the Longshore caucus, 1945.

Photo: ILWU Archive

Harry Bridges retired in 1977 amid the accolades of almost everyone associated with the West Coast shipping industry. Unionists, shippers, media people and government officials joined in a chorus of praise for the historic longshore leader, who had served as the first and only president of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU) for the preceding forty years and had led the coast's militant dock workers as they fought for their survival as unionists during the great maritime strikes of 1934