In San Francisco, a handful of waterfront Communists, a few ex-Wobblies, and fed-up rank and file longshoremen—including Bridges—had been producing an occasional mimeographed newsletter. The Waterfront Worker enjoyed a wide readership among the frustrated dockworkers because the ideas in its pages resonated with their experience. It urged longshoremen to create a militant industrial union that would not only stand up for them but act in solidarity with other maritime workers too.

The publication also insisted on democratic unionism, arguing that rank and file workers should debate policy and vote on all major decisions. The Waterfront Worker helped focus the attention of the ILA’s new rank and file members on a few key demands: sharing the available work equitably through a union-controlled hiring hall, a dollar an hour wage, coast-wide bargaining, and a six-hour day and thirty-hour work week.