Major Strike

Occupy This!

1936     Today's the day! Maybe! Last week Occupy Oakland marked November 2 on its collective calendar, calling for that great white whale of the labor-oriented Left, the general strike. I suppose we'll see if early-21st century Americans are in a striking mood. (Really, I probably shouldn't be blogging; it's the closest thing to a job I have. Scab!) The Oaklanders' call for a citywide walk-off seems to lean heavily on the aura of the East Bay city's 1946 general strike. People are drawn to tidy historical parallels, which partially explains why the 1946 event is so often mentioned in the same breath as the today's planned event.

A less celebrated strike had its 75th birthday this week. The Bee's October 30 front page announces, "River Traffic Stopped as 75 Workers Quit." (It makes one nostalgic for the days when the riverfront, not to mention organized labor, actually mattered to Sacramentans.) "Obeying orders from San Francisco," nearly four score members of Bargemen's Union, Local 38,101 and Shipping Clerks' Union, Local 3,890 walked off their jobs on Sacramento's Embarcadero. The article makes no mention of the unions' complaints but stresses the inconvenience served to local businesses. The ballsy dock workers abandoned the Delta Queen at its pier, after unloading only half its cargo. Customers were free to collect their shipments at the dock, provided they had the truck, dray, team of porters, etc. necessary to move their goods. This was the third such interruption to Sacramento River traffic in as many calendar years. The first of these was associated with the better remembered 1934 San Francisco waterfront strike.

As hinted at above, the strikers ("obeying orders form San Francisco") took part in a wider Pacific Coast work stoppage. According to the article, at that point in the action, an estimated 37,000 workers had walked off the job. A sympathy strike took place in New Orleans, while major East Coast dock worker unions and at least one union in Honolulu discussed joining the cause.

Solidarity!