Longshoremen's Union
 |
|
| Founded | August 11, 1937 |
|---|---|
| Legal status | 501(c)(5) labor organization |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, United States |
|
Members
|
33,270 (2014) |
| Robert McEllrath | |
| Subsidiaries | International Longshore & Warehouse, Pacific Longshoremen's Memorial Association |
| Affiliations | Canadian Labour Congress, International Transport Workers' Federation |
|
Revenue (2014)
|
$7,380,493 |
| Expenses (2014) | $5,980,052 |
|
Employees (2014)
|
33 |
| Mission | To unionize workers. |
| Website | 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 Alaska, and in British Columbia, Canada. It also represents hotel workers in Hawaii, cannery workers in Alaska, warehouse workers throughout the West and bookstore workers in Portland, Oregon. The union was established in 1937 after the 1934 West Coast Waterfront Strike, a 3-month-long strike that culminated in a 4-day general strike in San Francisco, California, and the Bay Area. It disaffiliated from the AFL-CIO on August 30, 2013. In 2014, the San Francisco Chronicle described the ILWU today as "the aristocrat of the working class; a top member can earn over well over $100,000 a year with excellent benefits", with vacancies receiving thousands or sometimes even tens of thousands of applications. Union officials claim that pay numbers are inflated because they do not include "casuals", part-time workers who are not registered ILWU members, do not receive benefits and earn less, with the minimum being $25.71 per hour.
Longshoremen on the west coast ports had either been unorganized or represented by company unions since the years immediately after World War I, when the shipping companies and stevedoring firms had imposed the open shop after a series of failed strikes. Longshoremen in San Francisco, then the major port on the coast, were required to go through a hiring hall operated by a company union, known as the "blue book" system for the color of the union's membership book.
The Industrial Workers of the World had attempted to organize longshoremen, sailors and fishermen in the 1920s. A number of former IWW members and other militants, such as Harry Bridges, an Australian-born sailor who became a longshoreman after coming to the United States, soon joined the International Longshoremen's Association, when passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act in 1933 led to an explosion in union membership in the ILA among West Coast longshoremen.
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