The Box - Marc Levinson [169]
The ILA was not formally segregated in the Port of New York, but there were two identifiably “Negro” locals, Local 968 in Brooklyn and Local 1233 in Newark. The Brooklyn local never succeeded in controlling its own pier, and its leaders complained that employers discriminated against Negroes in hiring extra gangs; see the testimony of Thomas Fauntleroy, business agent of Local 968, “In the Matter of the Arbitration between ILA-Independent, and Its Affiliated Locals, and New York Shipping Association,” September 29, 1958, in Jensen Papers, Collection 4096, Box 5. In 1959, Local 968 merged into the large Local 1814. The Newark local fared better, because, unlike the situation in New York City, Newark custom did not give priority to any local or gangs. Individual gangs were identified in Waterfront Commission records by codes such as “I” (Italian), “N” (Negro), and “S” (Spanish). See P. A. Miller, Jr., “Current Hiring Customs and Practices in All Areas in the Port of New York,” Waterfront Commission, December 20, 1955, in Jensen Papers, Collection 4067, Box 14. On race relations on the New York docks, see Rubin, The Negro in the Longshore Industry, pp. 59–69, and Nelson, Divided We Stand, pp. 79–86.
3. New York Shipping Association, “Proposals for Renewal of the General Cargo Agreement Submitted by the New York Shipping Association, Inc., to the I.L.A. (Ind.),” October 29, 1956; ILA Locals 1418 and 1419 proposal, September 5, 1956; New Orleans Steamship Association counterproposal, October 1, 1956; Board of Inquiry Created by Executive Order No. 10689, “Report to the President on the Labor Dispute Involving Longshoremen and Associated Occupations in the Maritime Industry on the Atlantic and Gulf Coast,” November 24, 1956, all in ILA files, Collection 55, Box 1, Folder “Agreement, Negotiations, & Strikes, June-Dec. 1956, 1 of 2.”
4. McLean Industries, Annual Report, 1958, p. 4; Pacific Maritime Association, Monthly Research Bulletin, January 1959; “Hopes Dim for Accord between Dock Union, New York Shippers, Pacts Expire Tonight,” Wall Street Journal, September 26, 1959. Field comment in Jensen, Strife on the Waterfront, p. 228.
5. NYT, November 18, 1958; and November 27, 1958; Port of New York Labor Relations Committee press release, December 17, 1958, in Jensen Papers, Collection 4067, Box 13.
6. Jacques Nevard, “I.L.A. Demands Six-Hour Day and Curbs on Automation,” NYT, August 11, 1959; Ross, “Waterfront Labor Response,” p. 401.
7. Jack Turcott, “Pier Strike Ties Up E. Coast, Spurs Revolt,” New York Daily News, October 2, 1959; Jensen, Strife on the Waterfront, pp. 235–247.
8. Jensen, Strife on the Waterfront, pp. 247–250; “Dock Union, Shippers Sign Agreement on Labor Contract,” Wall Street Journal, December 4, 1959. Barnett’s comment appears in New York Shipping Association, “Progress Report 1959,” p. 5, and his views were echoed in Walter Hamshar, “I.L.A. Container Pact Gives N.Y. Cargo Lead,” Herald Tribune, January 3, 1960; Jacques Nevard, “Port Gains Noted in New Pier Pact,” NYT, January 3, 1960.
9. Jensen, Strife on the Waterfront, pp. 250–253. Industry concern about the long-term cost is reflected in the statement by New York Shipping Association chairman Alexander Chopin in New York Shipping Association, “Progress Report 1959,” p. 8.
10. For background on the ILWU, see Bruce Nelson, Workers on the Waterfront: Seamen, Longshoremen, and Unionism in the 1930s (Champaign, 1990); Selvin, A Terrible Anger; Larrowe, Harry Bridges; Howard Kimeldorf, Reds or Rackets? The Making of Radical and Conservative Unions on the Waterfront (Berkeley, 1988); Stephen Schwartz, Brotherhood of the Sea: A History of the Sailors’ Union of the Pacific, 1885–1985 (Piscataway NJ, 1986); Henry Schmidt, “Secondary Leadership in the ILWU, 1933–1966,” interviews by Miriam F. Stein and Estolv Ethan Ward (Berkeley, 1983); and ILWU, The ILWU Story: Two Decades of Militant Unionism (San Francisco, 1955). The number of stoppages is from Charles