Bloody Thursday and Paint on the Sidewalk :: American History Depression Essays

Bloody Thursday and Paint on the Sidewalk On the edge of North Beach, across the street from where the myriad of little shops in the wharf which sell Alcatraz t-shirts and miniature Cable Cars begin, two human outlines made of white paint adorn the ground in front of a union hall. These are passed by hundreds of tourists daily, as well as many residents, yet few stop to ponder the curious shapes or the crude text painted in red: â€Å"SHOT BY POLICE JULY 5, 1934.† Though this spot does not mark where the original incident occurred, for the men died in front of the original Longshoremen’s Hall on the corner of Mission and Steuart streets, when the new hall opened here on the edge of North Beach these outlines were placed to remember the event. That event, â€Å"Bloody Thursday,† became the climax of the waterfront strike in 1934 and a turning point for Employer and Union relations in San Francisco—and the rest of the nation. ILA DEMANDS By the end of 1933, the effects of the Great Depression began to shift public opinion toward the rights of workers, and enlivened the efforts of unions working for collective action to ensure those rights. As a report before Congress in 1942 explained, Legislation such as the National Industrial Recovery Act emboldened these unions to explore the â€Å"potentialities of a protected right to bargain collectively† and, in the context of this potential, the â€Å"all but defunct† International Longshoremen’s Association renewed their activity and â€Å"met with immediate success.† On the West coast, the ILA gained scores of new members and even extended membership to include â€Å"checkers, seniors, weighers, lumber handlers, grainmen, and warehousemen employed on the waterfront.†[1] In December, the San Francisco local voted on a resolution to participate in a coast-wide strike to demand a six day, thirty hour work week with minimum pay of $1 per hour. Acting on the instigation of the local, a convention of members from all West Coast ports met in San Francisco in February 1934, deciding to strike â€Å"unless the wage-and-hour demands† were accepted. The Waterfront Employers Union, an association of ship owners which controlled most of the dock labor, refused to even meet with the ILA until they filed a complaint with the National Recovery Administration’s Regional Labor Board.