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Harry Bridges (28 July 1901 – 30 March 1990) was an
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n-born
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union Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Un ...
leader, first with the
International Longshoremen's Association The International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) is a North American labor union representing longshore workers along the East Coast of the United States and Canada, the Gulf Coast, the Great Lakes, Puerto Rico, and inland waterways. The ILA h ...
(ILA). In 1937, he led several chapters in forming a new union, the
International Longshore and Warehouse Union The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) is a labor union which primarily represents dock workers on the West Coast of the United States, Hawaii, and in British Columbia, Canada. The union was established in 1937 after the 1934 Wes ...
(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 Federal or foederal (archaic) may refer to: Politics General *Federal monarchy, a federation of monarchies *Federation, or ''Federal state'' (federal system), a type of government characterized by both a central (federal) government and states or ...
jury for having lied about his
Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
membership when seeking naturalization was overturned by the
Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
in 1953 as having been prosecuted untimely, outside the
statute of limitations A statute of limitations, known in civil law systems as a prescriptive period, is a law passed by a legislative body to set the maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated. ("Time for commencing proceedings") In m ...
. His official power was reduced when the ILWU was expelled by the CIO in 1950, but he continued to be re-elected by the California membership and was highly influential until his retirement in 1977.


Background

Bridges was born Alfred Renton Bryant Bridges in Kensington, Victoria, Australia.


Career

Bridges went to sea at age 16 as a merchant seaman and joined the Australian sailors' union. Inspired by
Jack London John Griffith Chaney (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to ...
to take to the sea, he took the name Harry from an uncle, who was a
socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
and an adventurer. Bridges entered the United States in 1920, where his American colleagues gave him several nicknames, including "The Beak" for his prominent nose, "The Limey," as they couldn't tell the difference between an Australian and an Englishman, "Australian Harry," and "Racehorse Harry" for his love of
horse racing Horse racing is an equestrian performance sport, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys (or sometimes driven without riders) over a set distance for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, as its basic p ...
. In 1921, Bridges joined the
Industrial Workers of the World The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines genera ...
(IWW), participating in an unsuccessful nationwide seamen's strike. While Bridges left the IWW shortly thereafter with doubts about the organization, his early experiences in the IWW and in Australian unions influenced his beliefs on militant unionism, based on rank and file power and involvement. Bridges left the sea for longshore work in
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
in 1922. The shipowners had created a
company union A company or "yellow" union is a worker organization which is dominated or unduly influenced by an employer, and is therefore not an independent trade union. Company unions are contrary to international labour law (see ILO Convention 98, Article ...
after the
International Longshoremen's Association The International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) is a North American labor union representing longshore workers along the East Coast of the United States and Canada, the Gulf Coast, the Great Lakes, Puerto Rico, and inland waterways. The ILA h ...
local in San Francisco was destroyed by a strike it lost in 1919. Bridges resisted joining that union, finding casual work on the docks as a "pirate". After he joined the San Francisco local of the ILA and participated in a
Labor Day Labor Day is a federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the first Monday in September to honor and recognize the American labor movement and the works and contributions of laborers to the development and achievements of the United St ...
parade in 1924, he was
blacklist Blacklisting is the action of a group or authority compiling a blacklist (or black list) of people, countries or other entities to be avoided or distrusted as being deemed unacceptable to those making the list. If someone is on a blacklist, t ...
ed for several years. Bridges eventually joined the company union in 1927 and worked as a winch operator and rigger on a steel-handling gang.


Albion Hall group

The ILA renewed its efforts to reestablish itself on the West Coast, chartering a new local in San Francisco in 1933. With the passage that year of the
National Industrial Recovery Act The National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA) was a US labor law and consumer law passed by the 73rd US Congress to authorize the president to regulate industry for fair wages and prices that would stimulate economic recovery. It also e ...
, which contained some encouraging but unenforceable provisions declaring that workers had the right to organize unions of their own choice, thousands of longshoremen joined the new ILA local. At the time Bridges was a member of a circle of longshoremen that came to be known as the "Albion Hall Group", after their meeting place. It attracted members from a variety of backgrounds: members of the
Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
, which was then trying to organize all longshoremen, sailors and other maritime workers into the
Marine Workers Industrial Union The Marine Workers Industrial Union (MWIU) was a short-lived union (1930-1935), initiated by the Communist Party of the USA (CPUSA). History In 1927, CPUSA member George Mink traveled to the USSR, attended the fourth congress of the Profintern, ...
(MWIU), as a revolutionary, industry-wide alternative to the ILA and other
American Federation of Labor The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL-CIO. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutu ...
(AFL) unions; former IWW members, and others with no clearly defined politics. This group had acquired some influence on the docks through its publication ''The Waterfront Worker'', a mimeographed sheet sold for a penny that published articles written by longshoremen and seamen, almost always under pseudonyms. These articles focused on workers' day-to-day concerns: the pace of work, the weight of loads, abusive bosses, and unsafe working conditions. While the first editions were published in the apartment of an MWIU member on a second-hand mimeograph machine, the paper remained independent of both the party and the MWIU. Although Bridges was sympathetic to much of the MWIU's program in 1933, he chose to join the new ILA local. When the local held elections, Bridges and fellow members of the Albion Hall group made up a majority of the executive board and held two of the three business agents positions. The Albion Hall Group stressed the self-help tactics of
syndicalism Syndicalism is a Revolutionary politics, revolutionary current within the Left-wing politics, left-wing of the Labour movement, labor movement that seeks to unionize workers Industrial unionism, according to industry and advance their demands t ...
, urging workers to organize by taking part in strikes and slowdowns, rather than depending on governmental assistance under the NIRA. It also campaigned for membership participation in the new ILA local, which had not bothered to hold any membership meetings. Finally, the group started laying the groundwork for organizing on a coastwide basis, meeting with activists from
Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...
and
Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...
and organizing a federation of all of the different unions that represented maritime workers. Under Bridges' leadership, the group organized a successful 5-day strike in October 1933 to force
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to reinstate four longshoremen it had fired for wearing ILA buttons on the job. Longshoremen at other ports threatened to refuse to handle Matson cargo unless the company rehired the four men.


1934 West Coast Longshore Strike

Early in 1934, Bridges and the Albion Hall group and militants in other ports began planning a coast-wide strike. The
Roosevelt Roosevelt may refer to: *Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), 26th U.S. president * Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945), 32nd U.S. president Businesses and organisations * Roosevelt Hotel (disambiguation) * Roosevelt & Son, a merchant bank * Rooseve ...
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 9 May. 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. They recruited 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 related events. A four-day San Francisco General strike took place after " Bloody Thursday" on 5 July, 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 other men 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 control the strike: over his strong objections, the ILA membership voted to accept arbitration to end the strike. Similarly, in 1935 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.


Growth and independence

Bridges was elected president of the San Francisco local in 1934 and president of the Pacific Coast District of the ILA in 1936. During this period the ILA commenced "the March Inland", in which it organized the many warehouses, both in the ports and those at a distance from them, which received the goods that longshoremen handled. Bridges led efforts to form Maritime Federation of the Pacific, which brought all of the maritime unions together for common action. That federation helped the sailors union win the same sort of contract after a long strike in 1936 that the ILA had achieved in 1934. In 1937, the Pacific Coast district, with the exception of three locals in the Northwest, formally seceded from the ILA, renaming itself as the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union, after the ILA tried to reorganize the existing locals, abandon representation of warehousemen, and reverse the unions' policies on issues such as unemployment insurance. Bridges was elected president of the new union, which quickly affiliated with the
Congress of Industrial Organizations The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. Originally created in 1935 as a committee within the American Federation of ...
(CIO). Bridges became the West Coast Director for the CIO shortly thereafter. The ILWU also established strong unions on the docks in Hawai'i during this time, and later among sugar and pineapple workers there. It encountered the concerted opposition of the employers, the military and most of the political establishment but the ILWU's work changed the political climate in Hawai'i. It broke the hold on power that the white landed elite had exercised for half a century. As a measure of his influence, Bridges was featured on the cover of ''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' magazine on 19 July 1937.


Legal battles

In mid-July 1939, hearings took place at the
Angel Island Immigration Station Angel Island Immigration Station was an immigration station in San Francisco Bay which operated from January 21, 1910 to November 5, 1940, where immigrants entering the United States were detained and interrogated. Angel Island is an island in S ...
to deport Bridges. Government witnesses included Major Lawrence Milner and ex-communist official John Lewis Leech. While Leech held fast to his testimony, Milner confessed to perjury, for which the Bridges defense team demanded indictment. The hearings found Bridges did not qualify for deportation because he was not ''currently''—as the Alien Act of 1918 required—a member of or affiliated with an organization that advocated the overthrow of the government. Because of this, the
Smith Act The Alien Registration Act, popularly known as the Smith Act, 76th United States Congress, 3d session, ch. 439, , is a United States federal statute that was enacted on June 28, 1940. It set criminal penalties for advocating the overthrow of th ...
of 1940 was written so that federal authorities could deport him. It allowed deportation of an alien who was a member or affiliated "at any time" since arriving in the U.S. with such an organization advocating overthrow of the government. A second round of deportation hearings ended after ten weeks in June 1941. In September, the special examiner who led the hearings recommended deportation, but the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) reversed that order after finding the government's two key witnesses to be unreliable. In May 1942, though the Roosevelt administration was now putting its anti-Communist activities on hold in the interest of furthering the Soviet-American alliance, Attorney General Biddle overruled the BIA and ordered Bridges be deported. Bridges appealed and lost in District Court and the Court of Appeals. But the Supreme Court overruled deportation, holding 5–3 on June 18, 1945, in the case of ''Bridges v. Wixon,'' that the government had not proven Bridges was "affiliated" with the CPUSA, a word it interpreted to require more than "sympathy" or "mere cooperation".FindLaw
Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U.S. 135 (1945)
accessed June 22, 2012. Wixon was an official of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Bridges became a
naturalized Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e., without any effort on the part of the in ...
U.S. citizen in 1945. With the goal of deportation, in 1948 the federal government tried Bridges for fraud and
perjury Perjury (also known as foreswearing) is the intentional act of swearing a false oath or falsifying an affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to an official proceeding."Perjury The act or an inst ...
, for denying when applying for naturalization that he had ever been a member of the Communist Party. The jury convicted Bridges and two co-defendants. He was sentenced to five years in prison and his citizenship was revoked. The Supreme Court in a 5-3 decision overturned the conviction in 1953 because the indictment on fraud and perjury charges did not occur within the three years set by the statute of limitations. The government dropped the criminal charges and pursued a case in civil court in June and July 1955, hoping to overturn Bridges' naturalization because it had been obtained by fraud. The trial judge ruled in Bridges' favor and the government did not appeal.


Political battles

Bridges hewed to the Communist Party line throughout the late 1930s and 1940s. After the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was signed in 1939, the party attacked Roosevelt and
Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from 1 ...
as warmongers and adopted the slogan " The Yanks Ain't Coming." Bridges denounced President Roosevelt for betraying labor and preparing for war.
John L. Lewis John Llewellyn Lewis (February 12, 1880 – June 11, 1969) was an American leader of organized labor who served as president of the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) from 1920 to 1960. A major player in the history of coal mining, he was the d ...
, the head of the CIO, responded in October 1939 by abolishing the position of West Coast director of the CIO, limiting Bridges' authority to California. Bridges continued opposing the Roosevelt Administration, belittling the
New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...
and urging union voters to withhold their support from Roosevelt. He said they should wait to see what Lewis, who had now also split with the Roosevelt administration, recommended. That position proved highly unpopular with the membership; many locals had already endorsed FDR for a third term and several locals passed motions calling for Bridges to resign. He refused, noting that the union's constitution allowed for a recall election if fifteen percent of the membership petitioned for one. The ILWU executive board gave him a vote of confidence. After Germany attacked the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
in June 1941, Bridges urged employers to increase productivity in order to prepare for war. When the CIO later adopted a wartime no-strike pledge, Bridges supported the pledge. He proposed at the high point of the Communist Party's enthusiasm for unity—immediately after the
Teheran Conference The Tehran Conference (codenamed Eureka) was a strategy meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill from 28 November to 1 December 1943, after the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. It was held in the Soviet Union's embassy ...
in 1943—that the pledge continue after the end of the war. The ILWU not only condemned the Retail, Wholesale Department Store Employees union for striking
Montgomery Ward Montgomery Ward is the name of two successive U.S. retail corporations. The original Montgomery Ward & Co. was a world-pioneering mail-order business and later also a leading department store chain that operated between 1872 and 2001. The curren ...
in 1943—after management refused to sign a new contract, cut wages, and fired union activists—but also assisted it in breaking the strike, by ordering members in St. Paul, Minnesota to work overtime, to handle overflow from the struck Chicago plant. Bridges also called for a speedup of the pace of work—which may not have been inconsistent with the ILWU's goal of controlling the way that work was done on the docks. It had struggled with employers on this issue and the speedup was rejected by many ILWU members. Bridges later joined with Joseph Curran of the
National Maritime Union The National Maritime Union (NMU) was an American labor union founded in May 1937. It affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in July 1937. After a failed merger with a different maritime group in 1988, the union merged w ...
, which represented sailors on the
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, and Julius Emspak of the
United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), is an independent democratic rank-and-file labor union representing workers in both the private and public sectors across the United States. UE was one of the first unions to be c ...
, to support a proposal by Roosevelt in 1944, to militarize some civilian workplaces. Bridges' attitude changed sharply after the end of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. While he still advocated the post-war plan for industrial peace that the Communist Party, along with the leaders of the CIO, the AFL and the Chamber of Commerce, were advocating, he differed sharply with CIO leadership on
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
politics. He had his own opinions about the
Marshall Plan The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative enacted in 1948 to provide foreign aid to Western Europe. The United States transferred over $13 billion (equivalent of about $ in ) in economic re ...
and the application of the
Truman Doctrine The Truman Doctrine is an American foreign policy that pledged American "support for democracies against authoritarian threats." The doctrine originated with the primary goal of containing Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War. It was ...
in
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and
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, as well as participation in the
World Federation of Trade Unions The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) is an international federation of trade unions established in 1945. Founded in the immediate aftermath of World War Two, the organization built on the pre-war legacy of the International Federation of ...
, viewing every element from the point of how it would affect his constituents. Those foreign policy issues became labor issues for the ILWU in 1948, when the employers claimed that the union was preparing to strike in order to cripple the Marshall Plan. Emboldened by the new provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act, which required union officers to sign an oath that they were not members of the Communist Party, outlawed the
closed shop A pre-entry closed shop (or simply closed shop) is a form of union security agreement under which the employer agrees to hire union members only, and employees must remain members of the union at all times to remain employed. This is different fro ...
, and gave the President authority to seek an 80-day "cooling off" period before a strike that would imperil the national health or safety, the employers pushed for a strike. They hoped to rid themselves of Bridges and reclaim control over the hiring hall. As it turned out, their strategy was a failure. The employer group reached a new agreement with the union after replacing their bargaining representatives and enduring a ninety-five-day strike. At the same time,
Philip Murray Philip Murray (May 25, 1886 – November 9, 1952) was a Scottish-born steelworker and an American labor leader. He was the first president of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC), the first president of the United Steelworkers of ...
, Lewis' successor as head of the CIO, had started reducing Bridges' power within the CIO, removing him from his position as the CIO's California Regional Director in 1948. In 1950, after an internal trial, the CIO expelled the ILWU due to its communist leadership.


Coping with change

Expulsion had no real effect, however, on either the ILWU or Bridges' power within it. The organization continued to negotiate agreements, with less strife than in the 1930s and 1940s, and Bridges continued to be reelected without serious opposition. The union negotiated a groundbreaking agreement in 1960, that permitted the extensive mechanization of the docks. Its leadership agreed to significantly reducing the number of longshore workers in return for generous job guarantees and benefits for those displaced by the changes. The agreement, however, highlighted the lesser status of less senior members, known as "B-men." Bridges reacted defensively to these workers' complaints, which had additional sting because many of the "B-men" were
black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have o ...
and had worked hard to enter the union. The additional longshore work produced by the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
allowed Bridges to meet the challenge by opening up more jobs and making determined efforts to recruit black applicants. The ILWU later faced similar challenges from women, who found it even harder to enter the industry and the union. Bridges had difficulty giving up his position in the ILWU. He explored the possibility of merging it with the ILA or the
Teamsters The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), also known as the Teamsters Union, is a labor union in the United States and Canada. Formed in 1903 by the merger of The Team Drivers International Union and The Teamsters National Union, the u ...
in the early 1970s. He retired in 1977 after ensuring that Louis Goldblatt, the long-time Secretary-Treasurer of the union and his logical successor, was denied the opportunity to replace him. He opposed Goldblatt. On 28 July 2001, on what would have been Bridges' 100th birthday, the ILWU organized a week-long event celebrating the life of the union leader. This culminated in a march of more than 8000 unionists and supporters across the
Vincent Thomas Bridge The Vincent Thomas Bridge is a suspension bridge, crossing Los Angeles Harbor in Los Angeles, California, linking San Pedro with Terminal Island. It is the only suspension bridge in the Greater Los Angeles area. The bridge is part of State ...
from
Terminal Island Terminal Island, historically known as Isla Raza de Buena Gente, is a largely artificial island located in Los Angeles County, California, between the neighborhoods of Wilmington and San Pedro in the city of Los Angeles, and the city of Long Be ...
to
San Pedro, California San Pedro ( ; Spanish: " St. Peter") is a neighborhood within the City of Los Angeles, California. Formerly a separate city, it consolidated with Los Angeles in 1909. The Port of Los Angeles, a major international seaport, is partially located wi ...
. The longshoremen shut down the port for eight hours in honor of Bridges.


Personal life and death

Bridges divorced his second wife, Nancy Fenton Berdicio Bridges, a onetime professional dancer, after eight years of marriage. They had two children. Bridges met Noriko Sawada in San Francisco, when introduced by her employer, Charles Garry, a civil rights lawyer. They were attending a fund-raiser for mine, mill, and smelter workers. The two later became a couple. In 1958, the couple decided to marry in
Reno, Nevada Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada-California border, about north from Lake Tahoe, known as "The Biggest Little City in the World". Known for its casino and tourism industry, Reno is the ...
. At the county courthouse, the clerk refused the couple a marriage license because Sawada was ethnic Japanese and Nevada had an 1846 statute banning marriage between any white person and "any person of the Ethiopian or black race, Malay or brown race, Mongolian or yellow race, or American Indian, or red race." Bridges and Sawada asked the Federal District Court to order the marriage license be issued. Judge Taylor Wines granted the order and the couple married 10 December 1958. This order prompted the Nevada legislature to repeal the state's
anti-miscegenation laws Anti-miscegenation laws or miscegenation laws are laws that enforce racial segregation at the level of marriage and intimate relationships by criminalization, criminalizing interracial marriage and sometimes also sex between members of different R ...
on 17 March 1959.''New York Times''
Michael T. Kaufman, "Noriko Flynn, 79, Advocate For Unions and Civil Rights," 17 February 2003
accessed 23 June 2012
Harry Bridges died aged 88 on 30 March 1990.


Legacy

On the West Coast, Bridges still excites passions both for and against the labor movement.
The Almanac Singers The Almanac Singers was an American New York City-based folk music group, active between 1940 and 1943, founded by Millard Lampell, Lee Hays, Pete Seeger, and Woody Guthrie. The group specialized in topical songs, mostly songs advocating an ant ...
, including
Woody Guthrie Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (; July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967) was an American singer-songwriter, one of the most significant figures in American folk music. His work focused on themes of American socialism and anti-fascism. He has inspired ...
and
Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably ...
, recorded "Song for Bridges" in 1941 while working on their album ''Talking Union'' that defends Bridges' work. Rancid, a band from
Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...
, released a song titled "Harry Bridges" on their 1994 album '' Let's Go''. Rancid also sang about Harry Bridges on their 1993 '' Rancid'' album in the song "Union Blood."
California Governor The governor of California is the head of government of the U.S. state of California. The governor is the commander-in-chief of the California National Guard and the California State Guard. Established in the Constitution of California, the g ...
Gray Davis Joseph Graham "Gray" Davis Jr. (born December 26, 1942) is an American attorney and former politician who served as the 37th governor of California from 1999 to 2003. In 2003, only a few months into his second term, Davis was recalled and remov ...
declared 28 July 2001, Bridges' 100th birthday, as "Harry Bridges Day". On the same day, the City of San Francisco dedicated a plaza in Bridges' honor. The ILWU headquarters in San Francisco is called the Harry R. Bridges Memorial Building. The Harry Bridges Institute in San Pedro,
California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
, is a research institute that focuses on topics of international economics and how changes in political geography affect unions. The archives of the Harry Bridges Institute are held in the University Library at
California State University, Northridge California State University, Northridge (CSUN or Cal State Northridge) is a public university in the Northridge neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. With a total enrollment of 38,551 students (as of Fall 2021), it has the second largest un ...
. The Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies at the
University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...
(UW) in
Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
,
Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
, was established in Bridges' honor in 1992 by
ILWU The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) is a labor union which primarily represents dock workers on the West Coast of the United States, Hawaii, and in British Columbia, Canada. The union was established in 1937 after the 1934 Wes ...
past and current ILWU members. The center supports research, teaching, and community outreach by UW faculty and students and labor organizations. The nonprofit Harry Bridges Project produced ''From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks: The Life and Times of Harry Bridges'', a one-man play that was directed and filmed by
Haskell Wexler Haskell Wexler, ASC (February 6, 1922 – December 27, 2015) was an American cinematographer, film producer, and director. Wexler was judged to be one of film history's ten most influential cinematographers in a survey of the members of the Int ...
. It promotes Bridges' legacy and the influence of his work. The film was broadcast on some
PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
stations on
Labor Day Labor Day is a federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the first Monday in September to honor and recognize the American labor movement and the works and contributions of laborers to the development and achievements of the United St ...
Weekend in 2009. Harry Bridges Span School, in the harbor town of
Wilmington, California Wilmington is a neighborhood in the Harbor region of Los Angeles, California, covering . Featuring a heavy concentration of industry and the third-largest oil field in the continental United States, this neighborhood has a high percentage of Lat ...
, is named after him, as is Harry Bridges Blvd (also in Wilmington), which runs along the north side of the Port of Los Angeles. In 2010 the
Long Beach City Council The Long Beach City Council is the governing body of the City of Long Beach, California Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020 ...
renamed the Queen Mary Events Park to the Harry Bridges Memorial Park.


References

*


Further reading

*Howard Kimeldorf, ''Reds or Rackets, The Making of Radical and Conservative Unions on the Waterfront'', *Charles Larrowe, ''Harry Bridges, The Rise and Fall of Radical Labor in the U.S.'', *Bruce Nelson, ''Workers on the Waterfront, Seamen, Longshoremen and Unionism in the 1930s'',
Ward, Estolv Ethan, ''Harry Bridges on Trial'' (available at the Internet Archive)


Archives


Robert Duggan Papers.
1989–1992. 5 cubic feet (5 boxes). Contains records from Duggan's work of creating the Bridge's Chair in 1992. At th
Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington Libraries Special Collections

Raymond L. McAndrew Papers.
1934–1972. 2.5" liner. Contains some writings by Harry Bridges. At th
Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington Libraries Special Collections

Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies Union Charters Collection.
1903–1966. 0.06 cubic feet (1 oversize box). At th
Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington Libraries Special Collections

Ronald Magden Papers.
1879–2003. 28.27 cubic feet (34 boxes). Contains various writings and materials about Harry Bridges. At th
Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington Libraries Special Collections

David Olson Papers.
1915–2008. 6.06 cubic feet (6 boxes and one oversized folder). Contains materials related to the founding of Harry Bridges Chair of Labor Studies at the University of Washington. At th
Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington Libraries Special Collections

George E. Rennar Papers.
1933–1972. 37.43 cubic feet. Contains ephemera on the Harry Bridges Victory Committee. At th
Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington Libraries Special Collections

John Caughlan Papers.
1933–2003. 54.44 cubic feet (84 boxes, 3 oversize folders, 2 vertical files.). Contains bound volume of ILWU newsletters from 1949 to 1955. At th
Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington Libraries Special Collections

Anne Rand Library, International Longshore and Warehouse Union.
Contains a digitized collection of archival news sources related to the ILWU, Pacific Coast Maritime Labor, and Harry Bridges.


External links

*

accessed 23 June 2012
Harry Bridges: Life and Legacy
a multimedia section of the
Waterfront Workers History Project The Waterfront Workers History Project is a program of the University of Washington, which serves to document the history of workers and unions active on the ports, inland waterways, fisheries, canneries, and other waterfront industries of the wes ...

Subversives: Stories from the Red Scare
Lesson by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca at the Zinn Education Project (Harry Bridges is featured in this lesson). * Speech delivered by Harry Bridges to the Comstock Club of Sacramento, California on June 6, 1967 {{DEFAULTSORT:Bridges, Harry American trade union leaders Australian emigrants to the United States Industrial Workers of the World members Activists from San Francisco Trade unionists from California Trade unionists from Melbourne Australian trade unionists 1901 births 1990 deaths International Longshore and Warehouse Union people Naturalized citizens of the United States Australian waterside workers Australian sailors Members of the Communist Party USA Australian communists People from Kensington, Victoria