The Box - Marc Levinson [168]
43. Ellen M. Snyder-Grenier, Brooklyn! An Illustrated History (Philadelphia, 1996), pp. 152–163; “Red Hook,” in The Columbia Gazeteer of North America, 2000 on-line edition; Finlay, Work on the Waterfront, p. 61; Richard Harris, “The Geography of Employment and Residence in New York since 1950,” in Dual City: Restructuring New York, ed. John Mollenkopf and Manual Castells (New York, 1992), p. 133; New York State Department of Labor, Population and Income Statistics; Brian J. Godfrey, “Restructuring and Decentralization in a World City,” Geographical Review (thematic issue, American Urban Geography) 85 (1995): 452.
Chapter 6
Union Disunion
1. New York Shipping Association, “Proposed Revision of General Cargo Agreement for the Period October 1, 1954 to September 30, 1956,” October 20, 1954, and “Proposed Revision of the General Cargo Agreement for the Period October 1, 1954 to September 30, 1956,” December 28, 1954, both in ILA files, Robert F. Wagner Labor Archive, New York University, Collection 55, Box 1.
2. Information on the ILA’s relations with McLean comes from author’s interviews with Thomas W. Gleason, New York, September 29, 1992, and with Guy F. Tozzoli, New York, January 14, 2004. For background on ILA concerns during this period, see Jensen, Strife on the Waterfront, pp. 173–83; Philip Ross, “Waterfront Labor Response to Technological Change: A Tale of Two Unions,” Labor Law Journal 21, no. 7 (1970): 400; and “General Cargo Agreement Negotiated by the New York Shipping Association Inc. with the International Longshoremen’s Association (IND) for the Port of Greater New York and Vicinity, October 1, 1956-September 30, 1959,” in Jensen Papers, Collection 4096, Box 5.
The Waterfront Commission was seeking to change hiring procedures in the port to eliminate the corruption that came from shape-up. In general, employers hired twenty-one-man gangs rather than individual workers. Each pier (or each employer in Port Newark, where there were no traditional piers) had one or more “regular” gangs that had first call on work. If additional men were needed on a given day, the employer would call for “extra” gangs, with the rules for determining assignment of extra gangs varying greatly in different sections of the port. Pan-Atlantic, for example, had eight “regular” gangs, four Negro and four white. As there was not enough work for all regular gangs every day, a “regular” gang on one pier might also be a “regular extra” gang at another pier if work was available. Employers wanted the ability to choose among available “extra” gangs, but the ILA objected that employers would favor younger workers, leaving gangs with older longshoremen without work. The issue was an extremely difficult one for the union. Newark and parts of Brooklyn had arrangements to equalize earnings among gangs, and union leaders in those areas objected strongly to any attempts to standardize hiring throughout the port, as the Waterfront Commission sought. Manhattan, Jersey City, and Hoboken locals appear to have been much more willing to reach agreement with the commission. Despite the intensity of concern, the ILA does not appear to have had much success in equalizing earnings; of the six gangs that worked for Pan-Atlantic between October 1956 and September 1957, one had average earnings of more than $6,000, two had average earnings of $4,500 to $4,999, and one had average earnings of less than $3,500. See transcript of Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor union-management conferences on seniority issues in ILA District 1 Papers, Kheel Center, Catherwood Library, Cornell University, Collection 5261, Box 1. Wage data are in New York Shipping Association,