ILWU Pensioners Honor First Blood Shed on the Waterfront May 15 By Terelle Jerricks, Managing Editor
Many movements were established or furthered by the deaths of its martyrs, whether its Jesus preceding the establishment of Christianity; the Boston Massacre preceding the American Revolution; Emmett Till the last lynching before the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s led to an energized nationwide effort to kill Jim Crow. Movements are born from the blood of its members. Well cognizant of this fact, ILWU Pensioners Jerry Brady, Art Almeida, and Angel Blanco are hosting a ceremony honoring the reinstallment of the Dickie Parker and John Knudsen plaque on May 15, in Wilmington. Knudsen and Parker were the first to die in the lead up to the 1934 West Coast-wide general strike. Labor actions taken up until the 1934 general strike failed. Longshoremen on the West Coast ports had either been unorganized or represented by company unions since the years immediately after World War I, when the shipping companies and stevedoring firms had imposed the open shop after a series of failed strikes. As Almeida explains it, “There was a lot of [deployed] goons and employer hirelings were…successful against the unions.” In 1933, during President Franklin Roosevelt’s administration, the National Industrial Recovery Act was signed and lead to an explosion of union membership. With the increase membership nationwide, labor activists
became embolden and pushed for greater reforms, especially on the docks. The sticking point in the strike was recognition: the union demanded a closed shop, a coastwide contract and a union hiring hall. The employers offered to arbitrate the dispute, but insisted that the union agree to an open shop as a condition of any agreement to arbitrate. The longshoremen rejected the proposal to arbitrate. Their rejection of the proposal to arbitrate was followed by a series of work slowdowns up and down the coast. Almeida explained that at the time, the dockworkers at the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports were accused by their compatriots in San Francisco of not doing enough slow down the ports. “That was a big accusation against Local 13,” Almeida noted. “The piers in Long Beach and LA were all so spread out that it was pretty hard to cover them with pickets and stuff. “The perceived criticism, as I understand it, was that the guys up north were being critical of Pedro that weren’t covering the strike properly. So when they got that, ‘hey they’re not doing their job as strikers,’ they [local longshore workers] head out to either Point Fermin or White Point, 300 hundred of them met there to discuss what they were going to with them doggone
ILWU Pensioners Jerry Brady, left, and Art Almeida. Photo: Terelle Jerricks.
scabs at Pier 146. “They had to make an impression with an action. So that’s what they did when they showed up at [pier]146 at around midnight and attacked that scab camp.” Parker and Knudsen were shot and killed by private guards hired by the employers in the ensuing melee between the striking longshoremen and the strikebreakers. Similar skirmish happened at other ports up the coast. from p. 3
Change Agent Lorraine Shea
May 3 - 16, 2013
Serving the Seven Cities of the Harbor Area
sales. “Everything goes toward charity.” Her first fundraising event for the competition was Feb. 9. It was a concert called the Ryan Rossi and Elizabeth Carter Memorial concert at the Warner Grand.
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Parker and Knudsen, died for the cause, so to speak. And, it wasn’t until later up north in San Francisco and later in Seattle that others died in similar activity. But the first bloodshed was here. There’s pride in that. Brady noted that labor organizers and the rank in file didn’t recognize how much of a success the general strike was until some years later. The Harbor Department and the ILWU dedicated a monument in memory of the sacrifices of Knudsen and Parker in 1985, on the southwest corner of Harry Bridges Boulevard and Neptune Avenue in Wilmington. This site was located where the May 15, 1934 clash took place, near Berths 147. According to the Port of Los Angeles public relations staff, the monument was moved to the memorial lawn on Harbor Boulevard in San Pedro in 2006 in response to a planned redevelopment of the TraPac terminal, affecting the original site. As it was, the monument was located in an industrial area near a major truck route that was essentially inaccessible to the public. But on May 15, a monument of the first blood that shed in the cause of workers rights will installed at its rightful place.
Since, she’s done bowling tournaments, drag queen bingo, yard sales and other fundraising events. For her, the competition is not about winning a title. Though she admits she is competitive within herself, she does want to raise money for the research grant and that is where her focus lies. “I wake up thinking about it; I go to sleep thinking about it,” Shea said. There is a driving force in Shea that goes beyond the memory of her mother. “My heart goes out to kids who don’t have a chance to really live their full life,” Shea said. “I have these six people who I take with me everywhere I go—people who passed away—my mother and my aunt (Camile Ferrante), Ryan Rossi, Mark Vasquez, Larry Bonney (4), and Devin Hamilton (10). It just shows the dynamics of how cancer can take somebody’s life; it’s not prejudice at all.” That’s why she believes raising money for research is so important. “There is a lot of hope raising money. It may not be in my lifetime, but I believe it (a cure) will happen soon. They are coming so close.” And, beyond the increased awareness she has gained throughout her experience, there are other positives to her fundraising work for blood cancers research. “The idea that I get to bring people together who have never met, that’s fun for me,” she said. “That’s what I like about events…bringing the community together. In fact, this may be her calling. “I was always wondering if I ever had a talent or a gift and I think maybe I’ve found it,” she said. “I think God blessed me with something special.”
For details about Shea’s journey or to be part of cause visit http:// unitetofightbloodcancers.org