This post is part of the series 13 Ways of Looking at the Northwest. You can find the initial post here.
By Heather Lowcock, Project Archivist, NHPRC Grant – News Tribune Collection
In response to requests from his boss, the title character of Herman Melville’s short story “Bartleby the Scrivener” always replies, “I would prefer not to.” Bartleby’s statement is, in part, an act of passive resistance to the industrialized culture of work that denies the individual for the purposes of efficiency and production. While Bartleby’s end is not one to emulate, his muted refusals confound his employer and suggest the possibility of rejecting societal labor norms.
Our labor sustains life. It can pay our bills and put food on our tables. It can provide purpose and agency and hope to ourselves and others. However, to gain such life-sustaining work, perhaps, we sometimes have to say, “I would prefer not to.”
Longshoremen
In the early hours of March 22, 1886, forty-two Tacoma longshoremen stopped work at the Tacoma Mill Company wharf. They agreed to not return until issues of hiring and wages were resolved. Five days later, the men received recognition of their union and won a closed shop agreement, a wage increase from 30 to 40 cents, consistent loading crews, and permission to smoke. By the 1930s, the Stevedores, Longshoremen, and Riggers’ Union of Puget Sound had two local unions under the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA). In May 1934, the ILA joined with other unions and closed every major West Coast port for over 80 days, securing a wage increase and control of hiring halls.
George Miller was a longshoreman and checker for 32 years in Tacoma. He served in the leadership of the ILA for many years, including President of Local 38-97. Miller represented the workers during the 1936 92-day streamline strike. The workers failed to get a wage increase but maintained control of their hiring halls and gained coast-wide working rules. In 1940, at the Pacific Coast District ILA convention, George Miller advocated again for wage increases in his keynote address. Later that year, attempts to negotiate failed when employers stated that exclusive bargaining rights had been given to the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU) by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in 1938. After the 1934 strike, Tacoma longshoremen decided to remain with the ILA instead of joining the ILWU. In protest of the NLRB decision, which removed their ability to advocate for themselves, they went on strike. Tacoma longshoremen had bargained effectively on their own in the past, and they wanted those rights returned. After eleven days, they agreed to return to work with the understanding that NLRB hearings and an election would be initiated. In 1941, Tacoma was awarded the right to bargain and voted again to remain with the ILA. It wasn’t until 1958 that the local union voted to join the ILWU, which still represents many of the dockworkers and longshoremen at the Port of Tacoma today. However, it all began with the actions of forty-two men in 1886.
Additional books and archival collections on labor relations are available for research in the Northwest Room, including materials related to the Soldiers, Sailors, and Workmen Council, the Industrial Workers of the World (Wobblies), and oral histories of longshore unions and workers.
Farm Workers
When Hispanic and Filipino farm workers united in 1965 to strike and boycott the grape growers in Delano, California, they were seeking to not only improve wage and working conditions but also forge a civil and immigrant rights movement that would extend beyond California to farm workers across North America. As the movement gained support, the United Farm Workers (UWF) was established, and the grape boycott extended beyond the growers to table grapes sold in stores and other institutions. At the University of Washington, Erasmo Gamboa and other students established United Mexican American Students (UMAS) in 1968. UMAS advocated for the rights and needs of Mexican American students at the university. Soon after its creation, UMAS organized with other student groups to boycott table grapes on campus and around the state. In January 1969, Gamboa petitioned the administration to ban the sale of grapes in the university cafeterias. When the administration refused, UMAS called for a boycott of all food services on campus. The boycott lasted until February 17, 1969 when the administration declared that grapes would not be sold for “the balance of the season.” The students continued to support the boycott and the farm workers, picketing at local grocery stores. The Delano grape strike and boycott ended on July 29, 1970, when the grape growers signed contracts with the unions, establishing timely payment of wages, health benefits, and other protections. United Farm Workers (UFW) also organized and provided resources for farm workers in the Yakima Valley. Tomás Villanueva co-founded the UFW Co-op in the Yakima Valley in 1966 and established a farm workers clinic and service center. Villanueva and the UFW in Washington and other agricultural unions organized the Yakima hop strikes in 1969, 1970, and 1971 and further boycotts of grapes and lettuce. These efforts to provide resources and support farm workers' rights continue today.
Long before the grape boycott and hop strikes, farm workers helped shape Northwest agriculture and its labor movements. The Northwest Room has additional materials related to early Indigenous, Chinese, and European immigrant labor, the 1940s Bracero program, and farm labor unions, including an oral history of Jenaro Castaneda, the periodical Tacoma Independent, and the book, Of Forests and Fields: Mexican Labor in the Pacific Northwest.
Women at Work: Tacoma Boatbuilding Company
The News Tribune photographs reveal the work of women from their unpaid labor to their roles as telephone operators, firefighters, attorneys, women’s rights leaders, hydroplane racers, and shipbuilders. Gretta Pittman, whose mother was a World War II riveter, was interviewed several times by the News Tribune about her work at the Tacoma Boatbuilding Company. She started at the shipyard in 1974, and five years later, she was working as a shipfitter and had completed a journeyman training program. Pittman continued coursework at Bates Technical College, and in 1983, she was promoted to foreman. She told the News Tribune, “I love to look out there and see a bulkhead going up and know that I helped build that.”
Mrs. Patricia Quam and Mrs. Mildred Musgrave interviewed in 1969 were Tacoma Boatbuilding “lady welders." Musgrave worked for Todd Shipyards during the war. Before returning, Musgrave worked as a waitress. She described it as “one of the hardest and most thankless jobs for a woman.” Quam added, “We get dirtier [here], but there is less physical and mental strain. We can afford to buy soap.”
The Northwest Room archive includes materials from a variety of industries. We have records from architects, boatbuilders, geologists, doctors, and garment workers. The archive also has business records from Asarco, Astoria Iron Works, and the Cow Butter Store available for researchers to view. Make an appointment to discover a new way of looking at Northwest Labor.
The digitization and processing of the News Tribune Photograph Collection was supported by a grant from the National Historic Publications and Records Commission at the National Archives.
Sources:
Anderson, Willene. (1979, March 25). Women invading the shipyards. The News Tribune.
Anderson, Willene. (1979, September 30). ‘The dirt washes off.’ The News Tribune.
Dumovich, Eve. (1983, March 28). Pittman sails to a promotion in shipbuilding. The News Tribune.
Magden, R. E. (1991). The working longshoreman. International Longshoreman’s and Warehouseman’s Union, Local 23 of Tacoma.
News Tribune staff. (1969, September 14). Boat builders like their lady welders. The News Tribune.
Oldham, Kit. (2008, August 29). Tacoma Local 23 of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union is chartered on January 7, 1958.HistoryLink. https://www.historylink.org/File/8746
Rosales-Castañeda, Oscar, Quintana, Maria, and James Gregory. A History of Farm Labor Organizing 1890-2009. The Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project. https://depts.washington.edu/civilr/farmwk_history.htm
Sifuentez, Mario Jimenez. (2016). Of Forests and Fields. Rutgers University Press.
Tacoma Longshoreman, Local 23. (1986). Serving Tacoma’s waterfront: one hundred years. International Longshoreman’s and Warehouseman’s Union, Local 23 of Tacoma.
