"1933 will be the beginning of a new year,'' the lead article in its first issue said, "and of a new agreement on the 'Frisco' waterfront. It has been decreed that wages will be 75 cents an hour -- a 10c wage cut. Coming at the time of the festive season, this wagecut is a regular Christmas present to the shipowners." The next issue reported that the same wage cut had been imposed in the northwest ports and in San Pedro. "Sheer necessity,'' Plant said later.

Longshoremen "had to" make their yuletide gift because, the paper said,

the Blue Book union had betrayed them. But what can be done about it? ... Some of us have got together, whats to prevent others from doing the same. If you ask this question of your partner the answer will be "Open your mouth and you will get blacklisted." We know this. Its nothing new. Whats to prevent us from organizing small undercover groups of those whom we know on each dock. This is the only way we can lay the basis of a real union and protect ourselves as individuals.

In its February issue the Waterfront Worker said it intended to fight: 'l. For a deep cut in the new working rules. 2. For more men in a gang. 3. For a real fight against further wage-cuts." And it urged again that longshoremen organize small groups to take the lead in dock action against grievances. Its goals were limited and defensive, only a distant approximation, as it turned out, of workers' expectations, far short of the trade union program it would later support.

The "real union" some of the editors had in mind was not a revival of the "Red Book" union, that is, the ILA, but the Marine Workers Industrial Union (MWIU), a small, active, but ineffective branch of the Red International affiliate, the Trade Union Unity League (TUUL). It pursued the TUUL policy of separate indus- trial unions, overlapping, duplicating, and competing with the mainstream AFL organizations, in this case calling for one union of longshoremen and seamen-of all marine workers. Later issues of the Waterfront Worker acknowledged MWIU help in publishing the paper. For about the first six months the paper touted-sometimes loudly, sometimes subtly-the MWIU as the union for longshoremen, but the longshoremen never responded. Sam Darcy, regional head of the Communist Party, later explained its failures. It had "not a single worker on the docks." As outsiders, the party fell victim to agitation "against our Union and our Party." "Militant phra- seology," though mouthed by "reactionaries . . . succeeded in turning the minds of the men."

In midsummer, 1933, the ILA was reborn on the San Francisco waterfront when ILA President Joseph P. Ryan appointed Lee]. Holman organizer. Henry Schmidt recalled, "We sort of streamed into the office and put down the so-called initiation fee, which was fifty cents, got a book, and it was the right time and the right place. It also had something to do with that thing that was called the National Recovery Act, NRA, Section 7a." 17

In December 1932, Senator Hugo L. Black of Alabama had introduced a bill embodying the American Federation of Labor's thirty-hour-week formula for halting the depression. It proposed to close foreign and interstate commerce to products from establishments in which any person was allowed to work more than thirty hours a week. On April 5, 1933, with growing public support, the Senate passed the bill, 53 to 30.

But Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a month in office and pushing vigorously for economic recovery legislation, was uncomfortable with the bill. He shared industry's conviction that it was both unconstitutional and unworkable. In its stead, in early May, he sent Congress the National Industrial Recovery bill. It called for the establishment of the National Recovery Administration (NRA) under which business itself, freed from anti-trust restraints, would regulate "unfair competition and disastrous overproduction" through codes of fair competition. At the same time, the codes would shorten the work week and establish minimum wages. To balance the generous grant of economic power to industry, each code would be required to include a guarantee of the right of work.

Union fever swept across the land in a contagious epidemic. [...]

In the end Section 7(a) proved to be a false dawn. It was often
and widely resisted by employers; it failed at moments when it was
most urgently needed; it often turned out to be weak and helpless.
It was finally knocked down in May, 1935 by the United States
Supreme Court. But for the moment, it gave new hope and courage
to millions. Its recognition of the right to organize and bargain
collectively gave them an effective tool and freed them from apathy,
hopelessness, and inaction. It gave rise to a new militance, directed
not at revolutionary upheaval but at down-to-earth matters of
wages and hours, of status and dignity.

Charges of "radical and communist" domination, a major theme in the employers' propaganda attack, often focused on the Albion Hall group. It was also the setting in part for Sam Darcy's claim that the 1934 longshore and general strikes were "our"-the Communist Party's-strikes, with "Communists and other militant elements" exercising broad, and sometimes decisive, influence. 28 Looking back, Darcy tells of a continuing, informal relationship with Bridges in which they discussed matters of tactics and goals, often reaching "a common view." Bridges would then present their judgement to the union leadership. 29 Bridges recalls working day and night during the period of intensive organizing: "The agenda came out of all of us, with big input from party people such as Darcy." 30 Party members for a time sat in meetings with the rankand-filers until the caucuses were restricted to working longshore- men. Though outside contacts and discussions continued, Bridges always maintained that the driving force, then and later, was the rank and file.

The revived Red Book union was clearly focused on the jobnot revolution. The tactics and strategy of its strike were drawn not from political theory, but from solid trade union precedent and waterfront tradition. They were radical only in their sharp departure from prevailing job practices. Militant, rank-and-file tactics and pragmatic goals, vigorously pressed by the caucus, fueled the longshoremen's drive. They left behind the timid, defensive program initially advocated by the Waterfront Worker. They forced the party to change its dual-union policies, abandon the MWIU as the union for longshoremen, and cast its lot with the ILA local. They looked, not merely to resistance, but to aggressive and affirmative steps to correct the evils they had endured. They repeatedly demonstrated, to anyone willing to see, that the cries of Communist domination, so loudly trumpeted by the employers, the press, and government officials, dealt with matters that were no part of the union's job program and aspirations.