Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T18:25:19.474Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Labour Market, Work Mentality and Syndicalism: Dock Labour in the United States and Hamburg, 1900–1950s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 February 2009

Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

This international comparison firstly examines labour market organization, casual labour and work mentality in North American seaports and in Hamburg. By contrast to British ports, these ports finally dispensed with casual labour between the world economic crisis and the Second World War, and labour markets there were centralized. Secondly, the industrial militancy of mobile dockworkers without permanent jobs is examined through a consideration of syndicalist organizations (1919–1921), and interpreted as an interplay of experiences with power in the network of labour market, workplace and docklands. The study refers repeatedly to the decisive dividing line between regularly and irregularly employed dockworkers. National differences in trade union representation and dispute behaviour are analysed by reference to dockworkers' direct actions.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1997

References

1 On the theoretical basis for comparative studies, see Welskopp, Thomas, “Stolpersteine auf dem Königsweg. Methodenkritische Anmerkungen zum internationalen Vergleich in der Gesellschaftgeschichte”, Archiv für Sozialseschichte, 35 (1995), pp. 339367Google Scholar (quote on p. 361), and the articles by Christiane Eisenberg and Marcel van der Linden/Jürgen Rojahn in ibid., 34 (1994) and 35 (1995).

2 For case studies, see Welskopp, Thomas, Arbeit und Macht im Hüttenwerk. Arbeits- und industrielle Beziehungen in der deutschen und amerikanischen Eisen- und Stahlindustrie von den 1860er bis zu den 1930er Jahren (Bonn, 1994)Google Scholar; Tenfelde, Klaus (ed.), Towards a Social History of Mining (Munich, 1991)Google Scholar; Haydu, Jeffrey. Between Craft and Class. Skilled Workers and Factory Politics in the United States and Britain, 1890–1922 (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1988)Google Scholar; Haimson, Leopold and Sapelli, Giulio (eds), Strikes, Social Conflict and the First World War (Milan, 1992)Google Scholar; Haimson, Leopold and Tilly, Charles (eds), Strikes, Wars, and Revolutions in an International Perspective. Strike Waves in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (Cambridge [etc.], 1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a wider coverage of different trades, see Boll, Friedhelm, Arbeitskämpfe und Gewerkschaften in Deutschland, England und Frankreich. Ihre Entwicklung vom 19. zum 20. Jahrhundert (Bonn, 1992).Google Scholar

3 Older comparative studies are: Helle, Horst Jürgen, Die unstetig beschäftigten Hafenarbeiter in den nordwesteuropäischen Häfen. Eine industriesoziologische Untersuchung in Antwerpen, Bremen, Bremerhaven, Hamburg und Rotterdam (Stuttgart, 1960)Google Scholar; Jensen, Vemon H., Hiring of Dockworkers and Employment Practices in the Ports of New York, Liverpool, London, Rotterdam and Marseilles (Cambridge, 1964)Google Scholar; for more recent historical studies, see Grüttner, Michael, “The Rank-and-File Movements and the Trade Unions in the Hamburg Docks from 1896–7”, in Mommsen, Wolfgang J. and Husung, Hans-Gerhard (eds), The Development of Trade Unionism in Great Britain and Germany, 1880–1914 (London, Boston and Sydney, 1985), pp. 114129Google Scholar; Andersen, Svend Aage, Dockers' Culture in Three North European Port Cities: Hamburg, Gothenburg and Aarhus, 1880–1960 (Aarhus, 1990).Google Scholar

4 For the present state of research on the labour history of these countries, see in addition to the works listed in footnote 2 the special number of the International Labor and Working-Class History, 46 (1994)Google Scholar: “What Next for Labor and Working-Class History?”, and the supplementary volume of the International Review of Social History, 38 (1993)Google Scholar: “The End of Labour History?”.

5 Due to the unsatisfactory current state of socio-historical research it is not possible to distinguish here between radically left-wing Unionen and syndicalist directions or between organizations and movements. For stylistic reasons, only the term “syndicalist organizations” is used in what follows. For a survey, see van der Linden, Marcel and Thorpe, Wayne (eds), Revolutionary Syndicalism: An International Perspective (Aldershot, 1990)Google Scholar; Bock, Hans Manfred, Syndikalismus und Linkskommunismus von 1918–1923. Ein Beitrag zur Sozial- und Ideengeschichte der frühen Weimarer Republik, new updated edition with epilogue (Darmstadt, 1993; 1st. ed. Meisenheim, 1969).Google Scholar

6 See Seidman, Michael, Workers against Work. Labor in Paris and Barcelona during the Popular Fronts (Berkeley, 1991)Google Scholar; and idem, “Individualisms in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War”, Journal of Modern History, 68 (1996), pp. 6383Google Scholar; Phillips, Gordon and Whiteside, Noel, Casual Labour. The Unemployment Question in the Port Transport Industry 1880–1970 (Oxford, 1985).Google Scholar

7 See Weinhauer, Klaus, Alltag und Arbeitskampf im Hamburger Hafen. Sozialgeschichte der Hamburger Hafenarbeiter 1914–1933 (Paderborn [etc.], 1994), esp. pp. 248 and 309.Google Scholar The DTV was renamed as the German Transport Association (Deutscher Verkehrsbund). After its amalgamation with the Association of Local Authority and Government Workers (Verband der Gemeinde- und Staatsarbeiter), its name was again changed in 1930 to Joint Association of Employees in Public Enterprises, Passenger and Goods Transport (Gesamtverband der Arbeitnehmer der öffentlichen Betriebe und des Personen- und Warenverkehrs).

8 See Nelson, Bruce, Workers on the Waterfront: Seamen, Longshoremen, and Unions in the 1930s (Urbana and Chicago, 1988), p. 185f.Google Scholar In San Francisco, the United Labor Party candidate was unsuccessful in the mayoral election of 1935.

9 On previous research, see Montgomery, David, “Labor and the Political Leadership of New Deal America”, International Review of Social History, 39 (1994), pp. 335360CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zieger, Robert, “History of the CIO. A Symposium”, Labor History, 37 (1996), pp. 157188.Google Scholar

10 Breeze, Frank, “Militancy and Pragmatism. An International Perspective on Maritime Labour, 1870–1914”, International Review of Social History, 36 (1991), pp. 165200Google Scholar: Dieter Nelles is working on an extremely promising project on the resistance by German seamen; see e.g. Nelles, Dieter, “Ungleiche Partner. Die Zusammenarbeit der Internationalen Transportarbeiter-Föderation (ITF) mit den Westalliierten Nachrichtendiensten”, Internationale wissenschaftliche Korrespondenz zur Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung, 30 (1994), pp. 534562.Google Scholar

11 See Broeze, , “Militancy and Pragmatism”, p. 174.Google Scholar

12 See Nelson, , Workers on the Waterfront, p. 183 (quote on p. 8).Google Scholar See also, by the same author, “‘Pentecost’ on the Pacific: Maritime Workers and Working-Class Consciousness in the 1930s”, Political Power and Social Theory, 4 (1984), pp. 141182Google Scholar; and “Unions and the Popular Front: The West Coast Waterfront in the 1930s”, International Labor and Working-Class History, 30 (1986), pp. 5978.Google Scholar See Lovell, John, Stevedores and Dockers. A Study of Trade Unionism in the Port of London 1870–1914 (London, 1969), p. 156Google Scholar; Grüttner, , “Rank-and-File”, p. 119.Google Scholar

13 Sec also the critical remarks of Halpem, Rick, “Organized Labour, Black Workers and the Twentieth-Century South: the Emerging Revision”, Social History, 19 (1994), pp. 359383.Google Scholar

14 See Arnesen, Eric, Waterfront Workers of New Orleans. Race, Class, and Politics, 1863–1923 (New York and Oxford, 1991), p. 175Google Scholar; and on what follows, see ibid., pp. 176. 179 and 207. This problem is unfortunately passed over by Rosenberg, Daniel, New Orleans Dockworkers: Race, Labor, and Unionism, 1892–1923 (New York, 1988).Google Scholar See the summary in Halpem, , “Organized Labour”, p. 368f.Google Scholar

15 For further details, see Arnesen, , Waterfront Workers of New OrleansGoogle Scholar and also idem, “To Rule or Ruin. New Orleans Dockworkers' Struggle for Control 1902–1903”, Labor History, 28 (1987), pp. 139166Google Scholar; as a regional comparison, see also his contribution “‘It Ain't Like They Do in New Orleans’: Race Relations, Labor Markets, and the Waterfront Labor Movements in the American South, 1880–1923”, in van der Linden, Marcel and Lucassen, Jan (eds). Racism and the Labour Market: Historical Studies (Bern [etc.], 1995), pp. 57100.Google Scholar

16 See the following contributions by Kimeldorf, Howard: Reds or Rackets? The Making of Radical and Conservative Unions on the Waterfront (Berkeley [etc.], 1988)Google Scholar; “The Social Origins of Radical and Conservative Union Leadership”, in Zeitlin, Maurice (ed.). How Mighty A Force (Los Angeles, 1983), pp. 307369Google Scholar; “Sources of Working-Class Insurgency: Politics and Longshore Unionism during the 1930s”, in Zeitlin, Maurice (ed.). Insurgent Workers (Los Angeles, 1987), pp. 770Google Scholar; “Working-Class Culture, Occupational Recruitment, and Union Politics”, Social Forces, 64 (1985). pp. 359376Google Scholar; “World War II and the Deradicalization of American Labor. The ILWU as a Deviant Case”, Labor History, 33 (1992), pp. 248278.Google Scholar

17 See Kimeldorf, , “Working Class Culture”, p. 363f.Google Scholar

18 See the pioneering study by Grüttner, Michael, Arbeitswelt an der Wasserkante. Sozialgeschichte der Hamburger Hafenarbeiter 1886–1914 (Göttingen, 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and idem, “Das Konfliktpotential der Hafenarbeiter”, in Herzig, A. and Trautmann, G. (eds), “Der kühnen Bahn nur folgen wir…”, vol. 2, Arbeiter und technischer Wandel in der Hafenstadt Hamburg (Hamburg, 1989), pp. 153175Google Scholar: also Weinhauer, , AlltagGoogle Scholar, and idem, “Zwischen Betrieb und Straße: Arbeit, Konflikt und Organisation der Hamburger Hafenarbeiter 1918–1933”, Internationale wissenschaftliche Korrespondenz zur Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung, 31 (1995), pp. 624.Google Scholar

19 See Weinhauer, , “Zwischen Betrieb”, p. 23f.Google Scholar

20 See also Phillips, and Whitcside, , Casual Labour.Google Scholar

21 See Kimeldorf, , Reds or Rackets?, p. 83f.Google Scholar; Weinhauer, , Alltag, pp. 334 and 392.Google Scholar The switch of industrial militancy into political radicalism is discussed comprehensively by Geary, Dick in Arbeiterprotest und Arbeiterbewegung in Europa 1848–1939 (Munich, 1982), pp. 4571Google Scholar, and in idem, “Identifying Militancy: The Assessment of Working-Class Attitudes Towards State and Society”, in Evans, Richard J. (ed.), The German Working Class (London, 1982), pp. 220242.Google Scholar

22 See Weinhauer, , Alltag, p. 47Google Scholar; Düring, Carl von, Der Gesamthafenbetrieb des Hafens Hamburg (Hamburg, 1936), p. 43Google Scholar; on the high proportion of seamen involved, see Prüsse, Wilhelm, Der Seemannsberuf und die Problematik seines Arbeitseinsatzes und der Nachwuchslenkung (Rostock, 1940), p. 121Google Scholar; and on the US details, see Kimeldorf, , “Working-Class Culture”, p. 361Google Scholar; “Longshore Labor Conditions in the United States”, Monthly Labor Review, 31 (1930), pp. 811830 and 10551069, esp. p. 817Google Scholar; Amesen, , Waterfront Workers of New Orleans, p. viiiGoogle Scholar; Weir, Stanley, “Informal Workers' Control. The West Coast Longshoremen” (unpublished manuscript), p. 60.Google Scholar

23 For details, “Productivity of Labor in Loading and Discharging Ship Cargoes”, Monthly Labor Review, 32 (1931), pp. 255284, esp. 268, 273 and 278Google Scholar; Fairley, Lincoln, Facing Mechanization. The West Coast Longshore Plan (Los Angeles, 1979), p. 13Google Scholar; Rubin, Lester, The Negro in the Longshore Industry (Philadelphia, 1974), p. 10f.Google Scholar; Weinhauer, , Alltag, p. 55Google Scholar; Rosenberg, , New Orleans Dockworkers, p. 53Google Scholar; Amesen, , “To Rule or Ruin”, p. 146.Google Scholar

24 See Weinhauer, , Alltag, p. 55Google Scholar; Fairley, , Facing Mechanization, p. 13.Google Scholar

25 See Weinhauer, Klaus, “Unfallentwicklung und Arbeitsprozeß im Hamburger Hafen 1896/97–1936”, in Lauschke, Karl and Welskopp, Thomas (eds), Mikropolitik im Unternehmen. Arbeitsbeziehungen und Machtstnikturen in industriellen Groβbetrieben des 20, Jahrhunderts (Essen, 1994), pp. 107122, esp. 120f.Google Scholar

26 See Grüttner, , Arbeitswelt, pp. 4248Google Scholar; Arnesen, , Waterfront Workers of New Orleans, p. 226fGoogle Scholar; Rubin, , Negro in the Longshore Industry, p. 27fGoogle Scholar; Phillips, and Whiteside, , Casual Labour, p. 32Google Scholar; and from a contemporary viewpoint, see “Studienreise nach den nordamerikanischen Hafen 1929” (Hamburg, 1930) (manuscript).Google Scholar

27 See Fairley, , Facing Mechanization, pp. 5458Google Scholar; and the graphic interview extracts in Fazio, William Di, Longshoremen. Community and Resistance on the Brooklyn Waterfront (South Hadley, 1985), ch. 3.Google Scholar

28 Kimeldorf, . Reds or Rackets?), 29Google Scholar; see also Amesen, , Waterfront Workers of New Orleans, p. 43Google Scholar, and for a Canadian port Jessie Chisholm, “The St. John's Longshoremen's Protective Union (LSPU), 1890–1914”, Labour/Le Travail, 26 (1990), pp. 3759, esp. p. 59.Google Scholar

29 See Grüttner, , Arbeitzeit, p. 34Google Scholar; Prüsse, , Seemannsberuf, p. 75Google Scholar; Rosenberg, , New Orleans Dockworkers, p. 47Google Scholar; Kimeldorf, , Reds or Rackets?, p. 20fGoogle Scholar; Way, Peter, Common Labour. Workers and the Digging of North American Canals 1780–1860 (Cambridge, 1993), p. 271CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Babcock, Robert H., “Saint John Longshoremen during the Rise of Canada's Winter Port, 1895–1922’, Labour/Le Travail, 25 (1990), pp. 1546, esp. p. 23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Earle, Carville, “Divisions of Labor The Splintered Geography of Labor Markets and Movements in Industrializing America, 1790–1930”, International Review of Social History, 38 (1993), Supplement 1, pp. 537.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Earle argues for an intermediate level of investigation between national and regional analysis.

30 The lifestyle of casual labourers in Germany has been critically examined by: Grüttner, , Arbeitswelt, esp. pp. 192201Google Scholar; idem, “Arbeiterkultur versus Arbeiterbewegungskultur. Überlegungen am Beispiel der Hamburger Hafenarbeiter 1888–1933”, in Lehmann, A. (ed.), Studien zur Arbeiterkultur (Münster, 1984), pp. 244282Google Scholar; and from a supraregional viewpoint, idem, “Die Kultur der Armut”, in Haupt, Heinz Gerhard et al. (eds), Armut und Ausgrenzung. Jahrbuch Soziale Bewegungen, vol. 3 (Frankfurt and New York, 1987), pp. 1232.Google Scholar

31 On Britain, see Phillips, and Whiteside, , Casual Labour, passimGoogle Scholar; Davies, Sam, “‘Three on the Hook and Three on the Book’. Dock Labourers and Unemployment Insurance between the Wars”, Labour History Review, 59 (1994), part 3, pp. 3443.Google Scholar On the quote, see Arnesen, , Waterfront Workers of New Orleans, p. 105.Google Scholar

32 See Phillips, and Whiteside, , Casual Labour, p. 227.Google Scholar

33 See Grüttner, , Arbeitzeit, p. 246fGoogle Scholar; and on the following, see ibid., esp. ch. IX; Weinhauer, Klaus, “Arbeitsmarktorganisation im Hamburger Hafen 1906–1951”, in Herzig and Trautmann, “Der kühnen Bahn nur folgen wir…”, pp. 269295, esp. pp. 270273.Google Scholar

34 See von Düring, Carl, Die Organisation der Arbeit im Hamburger Hafen (Hamburg, 1925), p. 16.Google Scholar

35 See Hamburger Echo, no. 63, 5 03 1923.Google Scholar

36 In his diaries on Californian itinerant workers for June 1914, Frederic C. Mills characterized the different lifestyles of relatively regularly employed and casually employed lumberjacks. See Woirol, Gregory, In the Floating Army. F.C. Mills on Itinerant Life in California, 1914 (Urbana and Chicago, 1992), p. 58f.Google Scholar

37 Svend Aage Andersen overestimates the continuity of the casual worker mentality, at least for Hamburg; see his Dockers' Culture, p. 24.Google Scholar

38 See Weinhauer, , “Zwischen Betrieb”, p. 16f.Google Scholar

39 Düring, , Gesamthafenbetrieb, pp. 68 and 70.Google Scholar

40 It is very much disputed in German research circles whether this organization is to be regarded as a trade union-like institution. See the summary in Mulot, Tobias, “Von der Betriebszelle zur Arbeitsfront. Die Hamburger NSBO auf dem Weg in die ‘Leistungsgemeinschaft’ des Dritten Reiches”, in Bajohr, Frank and Szodrzynski, Joachim (eds), Hamburg in der NS-Zeit. Ergebnisse neuerer Forschungen (Hamburg, 1995), pp. 203230.Google Scholar The NSBO began losing influence to the DAF by 1934 at the latest. For the relationship between NSBO and DAF. see ibid., p. 208f.

41 “Der erste Hafenbetriebsrat im Dritten Reich. Ein Bericht” (Hamburg, 1934), p. 27.Google Scholar On what follows, see Weinhauer, , Alltag, p. 340f.Google Scholar

42 Calculated according to the Statistisches Jahrbuch der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg 1932/33 und 1933/34 (Hamburg, 1933/1934), p. 80 in each case.Google Scholar

43 Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen im Bundesarchiv, Zentrales Parteiarchiv 1/3/16/66, sheet 130.

44 See Düring, , Gesamthafenbetrieb, p. 68.Google Scholar

45 See “Hafenbetriebsrat”, p. 28.Google Scholar

46 On the following quotations, see Düring, , Gesamthafenbetrieb, pp. 54 and 30.Google Scholar

47 See Statistisches Jahrbuch der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg 1937/38 (Hamburg, 1939), p. 76.Google Scholar

48 See the still important survey by Larrowe, Charles P., Shape-Up and Hiring Hall. A Comparison of Hiring Methods and Labor Relations on the New York and Seattle Waterfronts (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1955)Google Scholar; for a summary for the United States, see Montgomery, David, The Fall of the House of Labor. The Workplace, the State, and American Labor Activism (Cambridge [etc.], 1987), pp. 96116.Google Scholar

49 On the middlemen in New Orleans, see Arnesen, , Waterfront Workers ofNew Orleans, pp. 21f. and 40Google Scholar; Commons, John R., “Types of American Labour Unions: The Longshoremen of the Great Lakes”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 20 (1906), pp. 5985 and 61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

50 See Larrowe, , Shape-Up and Hiring Hall, p. 15Google Scholar; on San Francisco, see Nelson, , Workers on the Waterfront, p. 106f.Google Scholar See also Swanstrom, Edward E., The Waterfront Labour Problem. A Study in Decasualization and Unemployment Insurance (New York, 1938), p. 27fGoogle Scholar; and for Britain, see Phillips, and Whiteside, , Casual Labour, passim.Google Scholar

51 See Kimeldorf, , “Social Origins”, p. 344.Google Scholar

52 Quoted from Bonthius, Andrew, “Origins of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union”, Southern California Quarterly, 59 (1977), pp. 379426 and 380.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Cf. also a quotation by Harry Bridges, in Goldberg, Joseph P., The Maritime Story: A Study in Labor-Management Relations (Cambridge. 1958), p. 133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53 “Longshore Labor Condilions”, p. 1055.Google Scholar See also Larrowe, , Shape-Up and Hiring Hall, pp. 5459.Google Scholar In New Orleans cooperation between white and black dockworkers' unions helped at least at times to moderate the negative consequences of this division. Under the umbrella of the Dock and Cotton Council formed in 1901, work was distributed equally between members of the two organizations. However, these achievements were reversed by the employers during the post-war depression. See Arnesen, , Waterfront Workers of New Orleans, pp. 237252Google Scholar; Rosenberg, , New Orleans Dockworkers, pp. 170174.Google Scholar

54 Kimeldorf, , Reds or Rackets?, p. 92.Google Scholar

55 On the following, see ibid., pp. 120–125 and 152–156; quote on p. 152.

56 See ibid., p. 120f., and also Hutchinson, John, The Imperfect Union. A History of Corruption in American Trade Unions (New York, 1970), esp. pp. 93f.Google Scholar

57 See Larrowe, , Shape-Up and Hiring Hall, p. 55.Google Scholar The development of permanent job opportunities after 1953 is described by Jensen, Vemon H., “Hiring Practices and Employment Experiences of Longshoremen in the Port of New York”, International Labour Review, 77 (1958), pp. 342369, 35If. and 357.Google Scholar

58 On the following and on the quotation, see Kimeldorf, , Reds or Rackets?, p. 152.Google Scholar

59 On New York, see Larrowe, , Shape-Up and Hiring Hall, esp. pp. 184205Google Scholar; Jensen, , Hiring of Dockworkers, esp. pp. 3085.Google Scholar

60 See Kimeldorf, , Reds or Rackets?, pp. 5579.Google Scholar

61 See Grüttner, , Arbeitswelt, p. 222fGoogle Scholar; on Ballin, see Broeze, Frank, “Albert Ballin, the Hamburg-America Line and Hamburg. Structure and Strategy in the German Shipping Industry”, Deutsches Schiffahrtsarchiv, 15 (1992), pp. 135158Google Scholar; idem, “Shipping Policy and Social Darwinism: Albert Ballin and the ‘Weltpolitik’ of the Hamburg-America Line 1886–1914”, The Mariner's Mirror, 79 (1993), pp. 419436.Google Scholar

62 Kimeldorf, , Reds or Rackets?, p. 78Google Scholar; on the British ports, see Phillips, and Whiteside, , Casual Labour, pp. 283286.Google Scholar

63 See Kimeldorf, , Reds or Rackets?, pp. 67f. and 78Google Scholar (on New York); Arnesen, , Waterfront Workers of New Orleans, p. 165 (on New Orleans)Google Scholar; Arnesen, , “Race Relations, Labor Markets”, p. 71f. (on Galveston).Google Scholar

64 Kimeldorf, , Reds or Rackets?, p. 77Google Scholar; on the following, see “Longshore Labor Conditions”, pp. 10591063Google Scholar; Pilcher, William W., The Portland Longshoremen. A Dispersed Urban Community (New York [etc.], 1972), p. 31fGoogle Scholar; Larrowe, , Shape-Up and Hiring Hall, pp. 9194Google Scholar (on Seattle); Kimeldorf, , “Social Origins”, pp. 332342Google Scholar; Nelson, , Workers on the Waterfront, pp. 103106Google Scholar (on the Blue Book Union).

65 Kimeldorf, , Reds or Rackets?, p. 32.Google Scholar

66 See Kimeldorf, . “Social Origins”, p. 338Google Scholar; Larrowe, , Shape-Up and Hiring Hall, p. 92f.Google Scholar

67 See Pilcher, , Portland, pp. 23 and 35f.Google Scholar

68 See ibid., and Torigian, Michael, “National Union on the Waterfront. Communist Politics and the ILWU during the Second World War”, Labor History, 30 (1989), pp. 409432, esp. 415.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

69 Until the summer of 1937 this was the ILA. When the locals on the Pacific coast then split from the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and joined with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU) was founded. See Kimeldorf, , Reds or Rackets?, pp. 4 and 117.Google Scholar

70 On the following, see Nelson, , Workers on the Waterfront, pp. 120f. and 128Google Scholar; Kimeldorf, , Reds or Rackets?, pp. 8491Google Scholar; on Harry Bridges, see Nelson, , Workers on the Waterfront, pp. 139142Google Scholar; Kimeldorf, , Reds or Rackets?, p. 163f.Google Scholar

71 On the following, see Kahn, Lawrence M., “Unions and Internal Labor Markets, The Case of the San Francisco Longshoremen”, Labor History, 21 (1980), pp. 369391 and 378383CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mills, Herb and Wellman, David, “Contractually Sanctioned Job Action and Workers' Control. The Case of San Francisco Longshoremen”, Labor History, 28 (1987), pp. 167195 and 174190CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kimeldorf, , Reds or Rackets?, p. 111f.Google Scholar The almost identical job distribution systems in Seattle and Portland are described by Larrowe, , Shape-Up and Hiring Hall, pp. 6265Google Scholar; Pilcher, , Portland, pp. 139153.Google Scholar Rotational hiring was not restricted to seaports; for the Memphis river docks, see Honey, Michael K., Southern Labor and Black Civil Rights. Organizing Memphis Workers (Urbana and Chicago, 1993), pp. 104113.Google Scholar

72 See Kahn, , “Unions and Internal Labor Markets”, p. 371.Google Scholar

73 For this system, see Mills, Herb, “The San Francisco Waterfront. The Social Consequences of Industrial Modernization”Google Scholar, Part One: “The Good Old Days”, Urban Life, 5 (1976), pp. 221250 and 229f.Google Scholar, and the same author's “The San Francisco Waterfront. The Social Consequences of Industrial Modernization”, in Zimbalist, Andrew (ed.), Case Studies on the Labor Process (New York and London, 1979), pp. 127155 and 131.Google Scholar

74 Mills, , “The San Francisco Waterfront”, p. 228.Google Scholar

75 See Mills, and Wellman, , “Job Action”, pp. 175177 and 183189Google Scholar; Kimeldorf, , Reds or Rackets?, p. 112fGoogle Scholar; Nelson, , Workers on the Waterfront, p. 159f.Google Scholar

76 For surveys, see Fairley, , Facing MechanizationGoogle Scholar; Hartman, Paul T., Collective Bargaining and Productivity. The Longshore Mechanization Agreement (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1969).Google Scholar

77 Kahn, , “Unions and Internal Labor Markets”, p. 383Google Scholar, comes to the same conclusion: “[…] after the 1934 and 1937 agreements, longshoring in San Francisco had been transformed into a high-income, steady job for union members”.

78 See Weinhauer, , Alltag, pp. 209212.Google Scholar

79 Pilcher, , Portland, p. 23.Google Scholar

80 Wellman, David, The Union Makes Us Strong. Radical Unionism on the San Francisco Waterfront (Cambridge, 1995), p. 183.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

81 See Mills, and Wellman, , “Job Action”, p. 185.Google Scholar

82 Larrowe, , Shape-Up and Hiring Hall, p. 162.Google Scholar

83 See Nelson, , Workers on the Waterfront, p. 15fGoogle Scholar, and the graphic description of the communications structures in British docklands in the inter-war years in Tabili, Laura, “We Ask for British Justice”. Workers and Racial Difference in Late Imperial Britain (Ithaca and London, 1994), pp. 135160.Google Scholar

84 See Kimeldorf, , Reds or Rackets?, p. 13f.Google Scholar; and on housing conditions in some streets of the Manhattan harbour district in New York, see Ogg, Elizabeth, Longshoremen and Their Homes. The Story of a Housing “Case” Study Conducted Under the Auspices of Greenwich House (New York, 1939), esp. pp. 4048Google Scholar; Dock and Harbour Authority, 10, 120 (1930), p. 387Google Scholar; also Jones, Gareth Stedman, Outcast London (Oxford, 1971)Google Scholar; on Hamburg, see Grüttner, , Arbeitswelt, ch. V.2Google Scholar; Weinhauer, , Alltag, ch. 1.6Google Scholar; on forms of action in workers' residential areas, see also Weinhauer's, Konflikte am Arbeitsplatz und im Milieu: Perspektiven einer sozialgeschichtlichen Erforschung von Arbeitskämpfen und Konsumentenprotesten im 20. Jahrhundert”, Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, 38 (forthcoming, 1998).Google Scholar

85 Hamburg State Archive (StAHH), Polizeibehörde II works signature 674, report of the Altstadt district. Precinct 8, 26 October 1928 (copy). The way in which Parisian cafés used to bring together groups of workers from separate workplaces is described by Magraw, Roger, “Paris 1917–20: Labour Protest and Popular Politics”, in Wrigley, Chris (ed.), Challenges of Labour (London and New York, 1993), pp. 125148, esp. 140Google Scholar; also Nelson, , Workers on the Waterfront, p. 24.Google Scholar

86 See Grüttner, , Arbeitswelt, p. 248Google Scholar; Weinhauer, , “Zwischen Betrieb”, p. 19f.Google Scholar

87 See Winslow, Calvin, “On the Waterfront: Black, Italian and Irish Longshoremen in the New York Harbour Strike of 1919”, in Rule, John and Malcolmson, Robert (eds), Protest and Survival. The Historical Experience (London, 1993), pp. 355393, esp. 361, 384 and 387.Google Scholar

88 See “Longshore Labor Conditions”, p. 813.Google Scholar

89 Mills, and Wellman, , “Job Action”, p. 192.Google Scholar On the New York port of Brooklyn, see Di Fazio, , Longshoremen, ch. IVGoogle Scholar, and also his “Hiring Community on the Brooklyn Waterfront”, in Boggs, Vernon, Handel, Gerald and Fava, Sylvia F. (eds), The Apple Sliced. Sociological Studies of New York City (South Hadley, 1984), pp. 5066Google Scholar; also Larrowe, , Shape-Up and Hiring Hall, p. 140.Google Scholar

90 See Weinhauer, , Alltag, p. 165.Google Scholar

91 See Winslow, , “On the Waterfront”, p. 368f.Google Scholar

92 See Brüggemeier, Franz-Josef, Leben vor Ort. Ruhrbergleute und Ruhrbergbau 1889–1919 (Munich, 1983)Google Scholar; Hartewig, Karin, Das unberechenbare Jahrzehnt. Bergarbeiter und ihre Familien im Ruhrgebiet 1914–1924 (Munich, 1993)Google Scholar; for an international survey, see Tenfelde, Klaus (ed.). Towards a Social History of Mining (Munich, 1991).Google Scholar

93 See Sköllin, H. (ed.), Statistische Mitteilungen über den hamburgischen Staat, 30 (Hamburg, 1932).Google Scholar

94 See Nelson, , Workers on the Waterfront, p. 29.Google Scholar

95 On the syndicalist organizations, see Kimeldorf, , Reds or Rackets?, pp. 19f., 2737, 4649Google Scholar; idem, “Social Origins”, esp. pp. 326342 and 352357Google Scholar; McGirr, Lisa, “Black and White Longshoremen in the IWW: A History of the Philadelphia Marine Transport Workers Industrial Union Local 8”, Labor History, 36 (1995), pp. 377402CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Weinhauer, , Alltag, pp. 197203Google Scholar; Rübner, Hanmut, Freiheit und Brot. Die Freie Arbeiter-Union Deutschlands. Eine Studie zur Geschichte des Anarchosyndikalismus (Berlin and Cologne, 1994), pp. 94123Google Scholar; for the passive resistance and theft, see Weinhauer, , “Zwischen Betrieb”, p. 9f.Google Scholar

96 The interplay of social protest movement and industrial militancy as exemplified by the Ruhr miners is traced impressively by Hartewig, , Jahrzehnt, ch. 8.Google Scholar

97 See Weinhauer, , Alltag, p. 187f.Google Scholar

98 On this discussion, see the contributions by Arnesen, Eric, Cronin, James E., Hyman, Richard, Price, Richard and Zeitlin, Jonathan in International Review of Social History, 34/35 (1989/1990).Google Scholar

99 See Weinhauer, , Alltag, p. 299Google Scholar; Grüttner, , “Konfliktpotential”, p. 155f.Google Scholar

100 See Hamburger Echo, 144, 27 03 1919Google Scholar; 280, 21 June 1919; 424, 13 September 1919.

101 See Kimeldorf, , Reds or Rackets?, p. 29fGoogle Scholar; Nelson, , Workers on the Waterfront, p. 50f.Google Scholar

102 See StAHH Deputation für Handel, Schiffahrt und Gewerbe (DHSG), II XXXIV 165f., report of the Greater Hamburg Workers' Council, 17 July 1919; ibid., 165e, DHSG Report 19 June 1919; Hamburger Echo, 276. 19 06 1919.Google Scholar

103 On the following, see Weinhauer, , “Zwischen Betrieb”, pp. 10 and 13f.Google Scholar

104 See Hamburger Echo, 545,24 11 1919Google Scholar; StAHH Arbeitsbehörde I 27, report of 1 December 1920; StAHH Arbeiterrat Groß-Hamburg, 3a vol. la, session of 18 June 1919.

105 On harbour theft, see Grüttner, Michael, “Working-Class Crime and the Labour Movement: Pilfering in the Hamburg Docks 1888–1923”, in Evans, Richard J. (ed.), The German Working-Class. The Politics of Everyday Life (London, 1982), pp. 5479Google Scholar; Weinhauer, , Alltag, ch. III.2.Google Scholar

106 See Hamburger Fremdenblatt, 444, 13 09 1920.Google Scholar

107 See StAHH Politische Polizei S 5900 vol. 1.

108 See StAHH DHSG II 165e vol. 2, report of the quay administration of 4 July 1919; Generalanzeiger für Hamburg Altona, 185, 10 08 1920.Google Scholar

109 See e.g. Kommunistische Arbeiterzeitung, 27, 2 06 1919.Google Scholar

110 See Kimeldorf, , Reds or Rackets?, p. 30f.Google Scholar

111 Such behaviour motivated by personal considerations is discussed by Lüdtke, Alf, Eigen-Sinn. Fabrikalltag, Arbeitererfahrungen und Politik vom Kaiserreich bis in den Faschismus (Hamburg, 1993).Google Scholar

112 With regard to the latter point, the Dock and Cotton Council in New Orleans provided a framework flexible enough to give me necessary support to the demands of the dockworkers it represented. This was possibly the reason why the IWW could not win mass support there. Moreover, there is much to indicate that by comparison with other trades, particularly the freight handlers and roustabouts, the screwmen and longshoremen were relatively permanently employed and settled, with closer ties to the companies. As Eric Arnesen concentrates his analysis on the latter two trades, he loses sight of the possibility that the IWW had its main support among the masses of itinerant workers among the railroad freight handlers and roustabouts; see Arnesen, , Waterfront Workers of New Orleans, p. 175f.Google Scholar; and on the railroad freight handlers and the Mississippi River roustabouts, see ibid., pp. 99–106. This thesis is supported indirectly by Bernard Cook and James R. Watson, “The Sailors and Marine Transport Workers' 1913 Strike in New Orleans: The AFL and the IWW”, Southern Studies, 18 (1979), pp. 111122 and 119f.Google Scholar The authors point to the high mobility and unsettled form of existence of the IWW members.

113 In addition to the studies already mentioned, see Valen, Nelson Van, “‘Cleaning Up the Harbor': The Suppression of the I.W.W. at San Pedro, 1922–1925”, Southern California Quarterly, 66 (1984), pp. 147172CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Northrup, Herbert R., “The New Orleans Longshoremen”, Political Science Quarterly, 57 (1942), pp. 526544CrossRefGoogle Scholar; on Hamburg, see Weinhauer, , Alltag, p. 209f.Google Scholar, and “Zwischen Betrieb”, p. 15f.Google Scholar

114 Kimeldorf, , “Working-Class Culture”, p. 367.Google ScholarParker wrote, Carleton H.: “[…] the I.W.W membership in the West is consistently of one type, and one which has had a uniform economic experience. They are migratory workers currently called hobo workers”Google Scholar: Parker, Carleton H., The Casual Laborer and Other Essays (Seattle, 1972; original ed. 1920), p. 113f.Google Scholar The IWW sympathies of the Califomian itinerant labourers are referred to by Woirol, Gregory R., “Men on the Road: Early Twentieth-Century Surveys of Itinerant Labor in California”, California History, 70 (1991), pp. 192205 and 201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On the social background of syndicalism in the port of Hamburg, see Weinhauer, , Alltag, p. 200f.Google Scholar

115 Peterson, Larry, “The One Big Union in International Perspective: Revolutionary Industrial Unionism 1900–1925”, in Cronin, James E. and Sirianni, Carmen (eds), Work, Community and Power (Philadelphia, 1983), pp. 4987, 81 (quote) and 73.Google Scholar

116 See Weinhauer, , Alltag, pp. 316335.Google Scholar

117 See Nelson, , Workers on the Waterfront, p. 79.Google Scholar Characteristically, the leading proponents of an undogmatic communist trade union policy, including Sam Darcy and Harry Bridges, met in an assembly hall in the docklands district of San Francisco, the German-run Albion Hall. See Kimeldorf, , Reds or Rackets?, pp. 3749 and 120126Google Scholar; on Albion Hall, see p. 87. For the strong position of the Wobblies among casuals see footnote 114.

118 See ibid., pp. 42–46. However, Winslow, , On the Waterfront, p. 387Google Scholar, referring to the October 1919 strike, emphasizes a gradually growing influence, particularly among the Italian dockworkers in Brooklyn.

119 See Nelson, , Workers on the Waterfront, p. 83.Google Scholar

120 On Ryan, see Kimeldorf, , Reds or Rackets?, pp. 121f. and 153156.Google Scholar

121 See Ibid., pp. 261 and 112f.

122 See Arnesen, , Waterfront Workers of New Orleans, p. 105.Google Scholar

123 See Boll, , Arbeitskämpfe, pp. 58 and 305Google Scholar; Babcock, , “Longshoremen”, p. 36f.Google Scholar; Phillips, and Whiteside, , Casual Labour, p. 278Google Scholar; Kimeldorf, , “Social Origins”, p. 339.Google Scholar

124 See Nelson, Bruce, “Class and Race in the Crescent City: The ILWU, from San Francisco to New Orleans”, in Rosswurm, Steve (ed.), The CIO's Left-Led Unions (New Brunswick, 1992), pp. 1945 and 30.Google Scholar

125 On the following, see Arnesen, , Waterfront Workers of New Orleans, p. 225f.Google Scholar; Rosenberg, , New Orleans Dockworkers, p. 167.Google Scholar

126 On this politicization, see Nelson, , Workers on the Waterfront, pp. 168174Google Scholar; Kimeldorf, , Reds or Rackets?, p. 119Google Scholar; and on the effect of police actions, see Nelson, , Workers on the Waterfront, pp. 168 and 185Google Scholar; Kimeldorf, , “Sources of Working-Class Insurgency”, p. 42.Google Scholar

127 See Nelson, , “‘Pentecost’”, p. 173.Google Scholar

128 Kimeldorf, , “World War II and the Deradicalization of American Labor”, p. 260f.Google Scholar There was a similar situation in New Orleans; see Arnesen, , Waterfront Workers of New Orleans, p. 172.Google Scholar In San Francisco job actions were also used to counter the Communist Party's efforts to increase the weight of the loads from 2,200 to 3,000 pounds during the productivity campaigns of the Second World War, see Kimeldorf, , Reds or Rackets?, p. 136.Google Scholar

129 See Eisenberg, Christiane, Deutsche und englische Gewerkschaften. Entstehung und Entwicklung bis 1878 im Vergleich (Göttingen, 1986), pp. 12, 77f. and 258f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Boll, Arbeitskämpfe, p. 252Google Scholar; Boch, Rudolf, Handwerker-Sozialisten gegen Fabrikgeseilschaft. Lokale Fachvereine, Massengewerkschaft und industrielle Rationalisierung in Solingen 1870 bis 1914 (Göttingen, 1985), pp. 15 and 293CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Grüttner, , “Rank-and-File”, p. 127f.Google Scholar

130 The joint dock company structure created in Hamburg in 1934 was retained after the Second World War and was further extended in 1948 to include guaranteed minimum earnings for all dockworkers; see Weinhauer, , “Arbcitsmarktorganisation”, p. 293.Google Scholar

131 On these conflicts in British ports, see Phillips, and Whiteside, , Casual Labour, passim.Google Scholar

132 See Swanstrom, , Waterfront Labour Problem, p. 86Google Scholar; Weinhauer, , “Unfallentwicklung”, p. 113Google Scholar; on the high accident rate in one Australian port, see Tull, Malcolm, “Blood on the Cargo: Cargo-Handling and Working Conditions on the Waterfront at Fremantle, 1900–1939”, Labour History (Australia), 52 (1987), pp. 1529 and 2326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar