National ILA president Joe Ryan flew out from New York and quickly signed an agreement with the employers. The expensively dressed Ryan, a close friend of business leaders and government officials in the East Coast, didn’t have a clue about the desires of West Coast longshoremen. They had been developing a perspective of solidarity with the other maritime unions, best summed up in the old Wobbly slogan, “An injury to one is an injury to all.” They had also created a democratic coast-wide union structure with rank and file representatives elected from all the docks.

Ryan didn’t care about workers in other unions, and even less for union democracy. Accustomed to running his New York local and the national ILA as he pleased—often enforcing his will with gangs of hired criminals—Ryan viewed rank and file participation in union policies as “communistic.” (Twenty years later Ryan went to prison for using the union treasury as his personal bank account.)