Comparative History

Historians, sociologists, political scientists, literary critics, and others, have compared South Africa (SA) and the United States (US) for decades. Many scholars have explored the ways both societies grappled with diversity and experienced powerful social movements combating racial inequality. Both nations have overcome the worst of their systems of racial oppression – while also inspiring people, worldwide, with the promise of freedom and equality. Among the many differences include levels of economic development, formal rights held by people of color, worker rights, and – perhaps most significantly – that African Americans are a distinct minority of the US population while blacks comprise the great majority in South Africa. A handful of comparative historians, led somewhat recently by Peter Alexander and Rick Halpern, have started examining intersections of labor and race; my research builds upon this foundation.Footnote ⁷

The nature of longshore work was and remains remarkably similar, be it in San Francisco or Durban, Rotterdam or Valparaiso, thereby facilitating this study. In the pre-container era, longshoremen – generally on a casual basis – normally labored in gangs for long hours and under hard and dangerous conditions though, of course, every port and society was distinctive. Once containers remade global shipping, the work drastically changed – but in similar ways, though the persistence of some casual labor in Durban is quite different from the Bay area. Before and during the container era, longshore workers have been quick to organize themselves and exert power at the point of production. Furthermore, dockers have demonstrated their political beliefs by occasionally boycotting ships in solidarity with issues they supported. This article examines several causes that longshore workers fought for and how they did so.

Within the fields of labor and maritime history, some scholars have productively deployed comparative (and/or transnational) methodologies in order to examine political activism. The obvious starting point is the two-volume collection, edited by Sam Davies and others, entitled Dock Workers: International Explorations in Comparative Labour History. The editors make the crucial point – re-emphasized here – that there is no norm in comparative history; one must strive not to judge any port's experience based upon another's, as no one history is the prototype for others. The contributions to Dock Workers, alas, do not extend into the container era.Footnote ⁸

This article compares how two sets of dockers employed boycotts owing to similar ideological beliefs and political understanding of their position in the global economy. By examining two stories, side by side, we can see the many similarities in the dockers’ actions and more fully comprehend the internationalist consciousness of marine transport workers. A comparative approach also enhances our understanding of the vital matters of labor and race in each country, an endeavor relevant to other countries with diverse working classes and labor movements. Comparisons also help scholars to think about the transnational dimension of labor activism, for only by investigating workers in more than one nation can scholars truly appreciate the politics, history, and impacts. Finally, this article suggests that longshore workers’ history, despite much research, demands further attention, including more comparative studies. This article, and the larger project, is among the first to compare both the experiences of dockers in the container era and how they engaged in political boycotts.Footnote ⁹

Longshore Work(ERS) Before And After Containerization

Historians have devoted considerable attention to longshore workers,Footnote ¹⁰ justifiably so given their propensity to strike, unionize, and take international solidarity actions. The collective nature of their work begins to explain their long history of strikes and unionism. Literally for thousands of years, workers loading and unloading cargo have done so in gangs; moreover, much of the heavy lifting demanded that dockers work in pairs. Thus, the nature of the work inculcated a collective identity among workers. Further, in many ports, including San Francisco, longshoremen had regular partners; sometimes, partners worked together exclusively for years and some even refused jobs unless their partners were also dispatched to the same ship. Moreover, dangerous workplaces often encourage workers to think of each other as a close-knit “family”. Hence, be it Hamburg, Hong Kong, or elsewhere, longshore workers often organized, formally or informally, to improve wages, safety, and other work conditions.Footnote ¹¹

Not only have longshore workers frequently seen each other more as family than co-workers, they are unusually cosmopolitan, knowing much more about the world than many people. The nature of marine transport – moving goods, people, and information – explains why longshore workers (and sailors) are so worldly. Thus, many longshore workers, with access to information and people who travel the proverbial seven seas, interpret their lives, work, and world through a global lens. Occasionally, they become internationalist in their thoughts and deeds. Moreover, certain political ideologies are overtly international in their imagination and intention; many longshoremen, including in the SF Bay area and Durban, embraced leftist, Pan-African, or both of these ideologies – which demand transnational thoughts and actions. Not all longshore activism, though, was motivated by leftist ideologies; during the Cold War, union longshoremen in New York City protested ships from the Soviet Union. Naturally, not all longshoremen are internationalist, but the propensity of longshore workers to think in such ways is remarkable. Just as ideas now travel more quickly due to new information technologies, other technologies transformed marine transport.Footnote ¹²

In the past half-century, the shipping industry has proven integral to the dramatic growth in the market-driven global economy and a key factor was the introduction of containers. Seeking larger profits and facilitated by allies in governments, shipping corporations introduced a new technology and process, called containerization, without which globalization could not have occurred. Due to containers – standardized metal boxes holding cargo and loaded by huge cranes – global trade has exploded since the 1960s. Thus, longshore workers found themselves in the “eye of the storm” of modern globalization, moving ever more containers with ever fewer workers.Footnote ¹³ Containerization weakened longshore workers across the planet, but many of their unions survived, and their members in many nations now earn higher wages – again with far fewer workers. Crucially, due to their vital role in the global economy, longshore workers still command significant power. Aware of their central role in global trade, they occasionally use this power for their own benefit and, as this article argues, on behalf of others.Footnote ¹⁴

The Praxis of Local 10: Leftist and Pan-African Ideologies and Striking Apartheid

Local 10's strong commitment to civil rights is appreciated, if not fully documented, and demands mention here to comprehend its solidarity actions with South African workers. While not spotless, it must be noted how “advanced” Local 10 has been on race relations, especially in integrating its own ranks. Since the 1930s, white leftists, in the local's leadership and rank and file, consciously promoted policies that resulted in a massive increase in African-American membership. Notably, African Americans never have been a statistically large presence in the city of San Francisco. Even Oakland has never had an African-American majority though, after World War II, a large and growing black population emerged, most famously birthing the Black Panthers. Yet by the late 1960s, African Americans made up a majority of Local 10's approximately 4,000 members. Also in that decade, the rank and file elected African Americans to many leadership posts, with Joe Mosely as chief dispatcher (arguably the most powerful local position) and Cleophas Williams the first black president, in 1967, serving three more terms before retiring. No other local in the entire ILWU was (or is) majority black; in fact, several large locals (Los Angeles and Portland) have troubling records of race relations. Thus, while the ILWU generally is racially progressive, Local 10 led (or pulled) the entire union.Footnote ¹⁵

Building upon these gains, Local 10 activists, black and white, pushed for the inclusion of more African Americans in other ILWU locals, particularly the SF Bay area shipping clerks (Local 34), that, as late as 1960, had only one African American out of 1,000 members. Working with white leftists on the inside and International leaders Harry Bridges and William “Bill” Chester (an African American originally from Local 10), Local 34 hired many blacks in the 1960s. Local 10 activists also pushed for the hiring of black workers in other occupations – from San Francisco streetcar drivers in the 1950s to jobs in the employers’ own Pacific Maritime Association. Similarly, the ILWU actively embraced the southern black freedom struggle, carrying dozens of stories on the civil rights movement in its paper, the Dispatcher, contributing money to the cause, and participating in Bay area civil rights demonstrations. Local 10's reputation was so renowned that, in 1967, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr visited its San Francisco hall and became an honorary member (like Paul Robeson before him). King addressed a large gathering: “I don't feel like a stranger here in the midst of the ILWU. We have been strengthened and energized by the support you have given to our struggles […]. We've learned from labor the meaning of power.”Footnote ¹⁶

This long-term commitment to racial equality by Local 10 contains both ideological components (in syndicalist, communist, and other socialist ideologies that one's class identity trumps race and ethnicity) and pragmatic ones (a union is stronger with more workers). Initially, this effort came from leftist whites who forged alliances in the SF Bay area's black community to prevent African Americans from crossing picket lines in the union's founding 1934 strike. Harry Bridges, earlier a member of the syndicalist Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or Wobblies), emerged in the 1930s as the leader of the entire ILWU; Bridges often receives credit for the union's racial inclusivity though numerous leftist whites embraced equality. As work swelled during World War II, more than 1,000 African Americans found jobs on the waterfront and, after the war, leftist whites pushed for racial inclusion despite declining work, arguably acting as “race traitors” but earning tremendous loyalty from the growing African-American contingent. Cleophas Williams recalled, “When I first came on the waterfront [1944], many black workers felt that Local 10 was a utopia.” Not only was it racially inclusive, Williams claimed, “Local 10 was the most democratic organization I've ever belonged to”. As historian Robert Self concludes, the ILWU “forged an intense solidarity, and Harry Bridges and cosmopolitan radicals of both communist and syndicalist persuasion turned this solidarity into a force for racial equality”.Footnote ¹⁷

The strike against the Nedlloyd Kimberley was not the first (nor last) time that the ILWU engaged in a work stoppage for political ends and with a racial tinge. Since the union's inception, radicals in Local 10 – sometimes with support of elected leaders (local and/or international) – have boycotted ships to demonstrate solidarity with workers in other countries. Herb Mills, a Local 10 leader who earned his Ph.D. in political science while on leave from the docks, writes:

Later, in the 1970s, Local 10 activists boycotted ships from nations with repressive and/or racist politics. In 1978 Local 10 refused to load US-made military supplies intended for the Chilean military dictator, General Augusto Pinochet. In the 1980s, the ILWU did the same to protest military dictatorships in El Salvador and South Korea. The stand that Local 10 took against apartheid South Africa belongs to this eighty-year tradition.Footnote ¹⁹

The first time that ILWU Local 10 stopped work to protest apartheid occurred in 1962, in coordination with the American Committee on Africa (ACOA). Mary Louise Hooper, a leading US anti-apartheid activist and West Coast Representative of ACOA, teamed with the ILWU to successfully boycott South African cargo, likely the first such action in the United States. On 17 December 1962 Hooper led picketing of the Dutch ship Raki that arrived at Pier 19 in San Francisco loaded with asbestos, coffee, and hemp from South Africa. Along with the ACOA – the era's leading US organization on African issues – members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Northern California Committee for Africa, and Congress of Racial Equality picketed the Raki. More than 100 Local 10 members refused to cross this community picket line so the ship remained unloaded for the day and night shifts (see Figure 1). Bill Chester, ILWU Regional Director for Northern California and the International's highest-ranking African American, served as the union's primary contact with Hooper; Chester had a long, distinguished history of civil rights activism in the SF Bay area. This boycott sought to raise awareness of the horrors of apartheid and encourage the USA to join the United Nations boycott of South African goods. A few months later the ILWU Dispatcher published a letter of thanks from John Gaetsewe, Acting Secretary-General of the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU), which had been bitterly persecuted by the South African government for organizing black workers and fighting apartheid. This letter partially illuminates still-hidden networks that existed among the ILWU, US anti-apartheid activists, and South African activists operating in America, Great Britain, and across Africa.Footnote ²⁰

Figure 1

When the Raki docked with South African cargo, longshoremen refused to cross a picket line, led by the American Committee on Africa's Mary Louise Hooper. ILWU Dispatcher, 28 December 1962, International Longshore & Warehouse Union. Used with permission.

The Long, Militant History of Durban's Dockers

The militancy of Durban dockers offers an important example of “social movement unionism” and their long history of activism and self-organization is widely appreciated. Scholar-activist David Hemson ably and fully explores how Durban dockers were among the first group of Africans to challenge the apartheid regime's labor and urban policies, which sought to maintain large surpluses of black labor in the rural “homelands” (or “reserves”) and limit blacks in cities. Indeed, dockworker activism proved vital to the city's black working class as well as the anti-apartheid struggle. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the state brutally repressed black labor and anti-apartheid organizations, including SACTU, that allied with the African National Congress (ANC) and other groups to fight apartheid. Repression against Durban's dockers in 1958–1959 foreshadowed repression against the wider anti-apartheid movement, resulting in a “quiet decade” from 1964 to 1973. Dockers again rose up prior to other elements of Durban's black and Indian working class, striking in 1969, threatening to do so in 1971, and striking again in late 1972. This last action helped launch the mammoth “Durban strikes” in early 1973 that shaped the trajectory of the national anti-apartheid movement in the mid-1970s. In most waterfront strikes, Durban employers took extreme measures – firing the entire workforce several times to squash militancy – confirming the links between economic and political struggles.Footnote ²¹

A political boycott in an earlier generation confirms the long history of subaltern activism on the Durban waterfront. In his dissertation, historian Ralph Callebert briefly describes a fascinating strike in 1935, an action both political and internationalist. Despite a labor surplus, Durban dockers refused to load meat aboard the Perla, for this cargo was destined for Italian troops in Ethiopia. Apparently, these black workers did not wish to help Italian fascists defeat the last independent African nation, but local police broke the picket line and loading resumed. This action and another one shortly thereafter indicate a workforce well-informed about international events and one willing to engage in politically motivated direct action in support of black people far from Durban.Footnote ²²

Similar to that action, a 1959 strike evolved out of a national “stayaway” campaign waged by the ANC, SACTU, and other groups. Of course, most dock strikes in Durban dealt with wages, including several during World War II as well as in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Generally, the state (many dockers were employed by the state-owned South African Railway and Harbours administration) and private employers dealt with all strikes in the same manner – vehemently cracking down; that dockers repeatedly struck despite such repression confirms their militancy.Footnote ²³ The great majority of Durban dockers were Zulu, who hailed from rural KwaZulu and supposedly were conservative; yet these men repeatedly “downed tools”, suggesting that the work regime on the docks was a major, perhaps the major, factor in their militancy. Ironically, the interlocking systems of labor and race relations on the docks (and country generally) contributed to the radicalism that political and business elites sought to contain and, ultimately, contributed to apartheid's demise.Footnote ²⁴

Durban dockers’ willingness to strike, despite repression, inspired other black workers in the city of Durban and the province of Natal. Hemson contends,

Scholar Rob Lambert, who also writes on SACTU in Natal, convincingly argues that Durban's working class stood at the forefront of the nation's labor movement and that SACTU played a leading role in the era's anti-apartheid struggle. Lambert also demonstrates that SACTU in Natal was probably the most resolutely Marxist and radical of any region.Footnote ²⁶

That Durban was a national center of labor and left radicalism from the 1950s into the 1970s – not unlike the SF Bay area, considered the most progressive metro area in the USA – remains undeniable. Hemson himself belonged to a group of radical, white university students inspired by the global New Left as well as currents in Durban, including Stephen Biko's growing Black Consciousness movement and Professor Rick Turner's activism. Further, many Durban dockers were active in SACTU. For instance, Curnick Ndlovu, a Zulu, found a job as a “casual dock worker” in 1953 and continued working into the mid 1960s. He belonged to the South African Railway and Harbour Workers’ Union (SARHWU), an all-black union whose origins dated back to the 1930s, and SACTU, which SARHWU co-founded. Like other SARHWU activists, Ndlovu became a regional commander of the ANC's armed underground, Umkhonto we Sizwe (“Spear of the Nation” or MK), in Durban in the 1960s. According to the circumspect Ndlovu (interviewed in 1983, i.e. during apartheid), he was active in various “day-to-day struggles” in this period, which earned him a prison sentence on Robben Island for almost twenty years, along with more famous prisoners, Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu.Footnote ²⁷

Not surprising given their long-standing activism, Durban dockworkers returned to the struggle, prior to most others, in 1969. Owing to massive state repression, only 2,000 black workers struck annually nationwide in the 1960s, but Durban dockers matched that in April 1969, when just as many struck for wage increases – predictable given the poverty of African workers. Also predictably, police beat, fired, and “endorsed out” (i.e. deported) strikers to their “homeland”. Again, employers replaced the strikers with fresh recruits from rural KwaZulu – supposedly more “traditional”, i.e. loyal to Zulu royalty and the apartheid state as well as without class-consciousness. However, as Hemson writes, “The strike of dock workers in 1969 signalled the reawakening of black working class action after the suppression of the labour movement in the early 1960s.”Footnote ²⁸ Historian Steven Friedman agrees: “In 1969, Durban dock workers struck for more pay and their stoppage was later seen as the start of a new worker militancy.”Footnote ²⁹ Hemson notes, ironically, that this strike occurred at “precisely the same time as the ANC and SACP had concluded at the Morogoro Conference that mass action among the working class had been exhausted as a means of resistance to apartheid”.Footnote ³⁰ Long-time labor activist Ray Alexander, who could not make the Morogoro conference, sent a letter suggesting that Durban's longshoremen offered a blueprint of how to revive the labor movement: “We must organise under any name – the Mutual Benefit Societies, Co-ops. We may even have to consider utilising the ‘Works Committee’. It was the Works Committee at Durban Docks that led the dockers’ strike this month.” The 1969 strike also helped inspire radical white students at the University of Natal-Durban, including Hemson: “As a result of the strike by the dockworkers, activists launched the idea of students undertaking research into the wages of black workers as a means of organising them.”Footnote ³¹

Durban dockers resumed their struggle without formal organization (as unions, essentially, remained illegal for blacks), striking in 1971 and 1972. The 1972 strike was the culmination of months of growing agitation for wage increases – and demonstrated remarkable organization in the absence of a formal union, in part thanks to local white student radicals. Not only did hundreds push for raises (recall that previous efforts resulted in mass firings), they also challenged the authority of their Zulu foremen, who were often corrupt and detested for collaborating with (white) managers. Harriet Bolton, a long-time white activist and colleague of Hemson's, recalled a pivotal 1972 meeting of the Department of Labour Wage Board, a state-appointed institution that set wages:

Bolton continued, “The board's faces were a picture […]. I don't think they'd ever heard a real worker speak at a hearing before.” By October 1972, however, the Wage Board had not issued its ruling, so workers struck at Maydon Wharf and “the Point”, the heart of the port, shutting down the harbor. The dockers refused to elect a delegation and, instead, shouted (as a group) their demands to management to avoid having their leaders fired, a key precedent. Not long after, the dockers won a modest raise as well as annual increases that, by 1978, meant a doubling of wages.Footnote ³²

The significance of this strike proved far greater than the raise – it helped ignite the legendary “Durban strikes” that launched a “domino effect” of rising protests against apartheid. Hemson writes, “On October 23, 1972 1,000 stevedores went on strike and signalled the beginnings of mass opposition to apartheid.” Historian Robinduth Toli and I agree with Hemson: “their strike and agitation was an advance shock wave of the earthquake of the 1973 strikes which followed and the opening of a new era of resistance”.Footnote ³³ The dockers had struck less than two months before several thousand black workers at Coronation brick “officially” started the wave. In his fascinating, but little referenced, 1991 thesis, Toli convincingly argues that the 1972 dock strike greatly influenced Coronation's workers: “the strike at Coronation was made possible when African workers, having been emboldened by the 1972 dock workers’ strike and having become acutely conscious of their problems were encouraged to take militant action on 9 January [1973]”.Footnote ³⁴ Scholar Julian Brown also recently noted that those first to strike, after Coronation, worked in transport on Point Road; that is, before the larger textile factories downed tools, those who struck worked “primarily in the transport and marine sectors”.Footnote ³⁵

Given the nature of apartheid, any strike of African workers was political, particularly as tens of thousands, in dozens of workplaces, struck from January to March 1973. After all, the Bantu Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act of 1953 made African strikes illegal. After the strike, dockers marched with railway workers in downtown Durban (near the Point), demanding that SACTU be made un-banned. Labor activity (in Durban and nationally) continued from 1973 onwards. On the docks, the Transport, General and Allied Workers’ Union (TGWU) as well as General Workers’ Union (GWU) emerged, in Durban and Cape Town, the country's second-largest port. Although worker activism grew nationwide after the Durban strikes, Hemson notes, “unions grew quickest in Natal”; he continues, “The dockworkers of Durban – have had a decisive part in the initiation of mass working class resistance in South Africa.” Ultimately, as Toli concludes, “the Durban dock worker strikes were a forerunner of the 1973 strikes and foreshadowed a reawakening of black worker struggles in the 1970s”, though that belief remains less accepted than it should be.Footnote ³⁶

SF Bay Longshore Workers Boycott Apartheid, Again

The struggle against apartheid surged in the 1970s, as global solidarity efforts expanded in response to the emergence of protests in South Africa. First, the 1973 Durban strikes, partially launched by the 1972 dock strike, shook the nation out of the repression-induced “quiet decade”. Then, the 1976 uprising of black students in Soweto took the movement to the next level. Despite ferocious repression, the Soweto rebellion quickly spread nationwide and dramatically increased opposition to apartheid worldwide, including in the USA. In both South Africa and worldwide, organized labor played a major role in this fight.Footnote ³⁷

Following the lead of historian Francis Njubi Nesbitt, this article suggests that the African American longshoremen who fought apartheid fell into one of three categories: leftist, nationalist, or liberal – with the leftists and nationalists sharing anti-imperialist views and the nationalists divided into economic and cultural groups. While not all black Local 10 members were leftists, the leaders of the anti-apartheid movement were, and they also inhabited, following Nesbitt, the left side of the black nationalist spectrum. Leo Robinson, the leading activist in the 1977 and 1984 actions, first became interested during the Soweto uprising, having only a vague sense of South Africa previously. As an African American whose left politics always incorporated anti-racism, Robinson authored a resolution, shortly after Soweto, to create the Southern Africa Liberation Support Committee (SALSC) and Local 10's rank and file officially voted to do so. The group's name merits highlighting, indicating the fight against apartheid belonged to interlocking struggles across the subcontinent. Subsequently, this committee, made up mostly of African Americans, engaged in a wide series of actions over many years in solidarity with black workers in South Africa, Mozambique, Rhodesia, and elsewhere – consciously not limiting its gaze to South Africa.Footnote ³⁸

Other SALSC activists, black and white, were leftists whose political beliefs demanded solidarity actions. These longshoremen saw black South African workers oppressed by a racist, capitalist regime and believed the best method of undermining it was via direct action on the job. This syndicalist approach informed other political boycotts and strikes undertaken by the ILWU. As noted earlier, the ILWU has a long tradition of leaning left, despite Cold War repression. For example, the ILWU motto reads: “an injury to one is an injury to all”, a popular mantra crafted by the most radical union in the early twentieth century, the IWW – which shaped the ILWU.Footnote ³⁹

The ideologies of Local 10 activists, who embraced a variety of leftist views (communist, Trotskyite, syndicalist) and/or the left side of Pan-Africanism, explains why they took on this fight. For years prior to the Nedlloyd Kimberley action, activists – led by Robinson, Dave Stewart (an African American active in the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists or CBTU), Bill Proctor (a white leftist whose stepfather was a well-known black communist in Local 10), Larry Wright (white, raised by communist parents, who first worked on behalf of African liberation in the 1960s while at university) Howard Keylor (a white leftist committed to anti-racism, who later became involved) – educated Local 10 members and others via the SALSC. This committee raised awareness about apartheid and colonialism, to ready Local 10 and others for direct action. This “anti-apartheid labor committee”, according to Robinson the first in the country, also took the issue to the AFL-CIO via the CBTU, a caucus of militant African Americans that served as a conduit in coordinating anti-apartheid activists nationwide.Footnote ⁴⁰

Local 10's activism mirrored what unionists elsewhere did to combat apartheid in the 1970s. Working people around the world expanded their protests, in individual unions as well as via the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), a massive conglomeration of unions from across the non-communist world. The ICFTU provided significant financial and moral assistance to the struggle for decades. While commendable, rarely did ICFTU-affiliated unions engage in direct action. Notably, dockworkers in New Zealand, who refused to unload South African cargo, were one of the few other examples of “striking” apartheid.Footnote ⁴¹

Turning rhetoric into action, on Easter Sunday in 1977 Local 10 members boycotted a ship loaded with South African cargo as part of a week of international union actions. When the Nedlloyd Kimberley docked, a Local 10 dispatcher privy to the plan selected workers committed to this cause who refused to cross a “community picket” at Pier 27. According to the ILWU contract, if a workplace situation (including getting to a ship) is a threat to a union member's “health and safety”, s/he can refuse to work. As many as 500 people, especially from churches, cheered the workers while hoisting banners including one that said, “Apartheid is Crucifixion”. In 1978 the SALSC collected many tons of food, clothing, medicine, and other essentials, convinced shipping companies to donate two containers, and loaded the goods for South Africans in exile in Tanzania, where the ANC had a huge training camp. Another tactic employed by ILWU activists was screening the 1973 documentary film Last Grave at Dimbaza. This powerful movie, secretly filmed in and smuggled out of South Africa, proved a popular organizing tool in the global struggle. Wright and Robinson showed the film to dozens of audiences up and down the Pacific coast in the 1970s and 1980s, laying the groundwork for the important 1984 action.Footnote ⁴²

Indeed, a screening of Last Grave at Dimbaza in late 1984, before about 400 Local 10 members, provided the spark of the longest and most important boycott against apartheid in US history. After workers, approximately half African-American, watched the film, Robinson made a motion that Local 10 should boycott the next Nedlloyd Line ship that arrived with South African cargo; Keylor also participated in this strategic motion. The timing was apt, since that fall a group of black South African union miners had been arrested and faced long prison sentences. The longshore workers already knew about the issues in South Africa, having been exposed to them since the 1976, and were primed to act – particularly in solidarity with the persecution of unionists, something Local 10 workers had fought against in Chile, El Salvador, and elsewhere.Footnote ⁴³

On 24 November 1984, the Nedlloyd Kimberley, an older ship that carried break-bulk (i.e. not containerized) cargo, arrived from Australia with some South African cargo. Local 10 activists knew of the ship's arrival thanks to Alex Bagwell, an African American in Local 34 (shipping clerks). After being assigned to the ship by a Local 10 dispatcher “in” on the plan, another sympathetic clerk who supervised unloading (the “supercargo”), informed longshoremen which cargo was South African: that is, they unloaded all the cargo except the South African goods. In a dramatic retelling by a principal activist, Bill Proctor recounts the boycott's start:

During these eleven days, many community members demonstrated their support. Each day at San Francisco's Pier 80, hundreds picketed, thereby providing a legal rationale, if needed, for workers to refuse to unload the ship – as well as invaluable moral support and publicity. However, this time workers had voted to boycott the next ship with South African cargo – that is, they did not use the community picket for legal cover. Instead, they directly violated their contract and refused to unload a ship though they also received enormous community support. For example, on 2 December, about 700 people from other unions, religious groups, and civil rights organizations, rallied near the pier; many joined the newly created Bay Area Free South Africa Movement. Among those who spoke in solidarity were the legendary activist Angela Davis and Congressman Ron Dellums, a prominent, progressive African American who represented nearby Oakland and Berkeley.Footnote ⁴⁵

Boycotting workers materially sacrificed for this cause. The Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), which represents west coast shipping corporations in dealings with the ILWU, filed a federal injunction claiming the work stoppage was illegal. As a result, the workers forfeited their minimum guaranteed weekly pay, an issue already discussed inside Local 10. Robinson's motion before the membership and Keylor's motion to Local 10's Executive Board highlighted that the members would work all cargo except for the South African goods. In doing so, they hoped to avoid an injunction. Also, Local 10's and the International's leaders (including International President Jimmy Herman) consistently claimed the action was performed by individual workers on the basis of their own consciences, i.e. the boycott was not officially sanctioned. Activist David Bacon explains: “The Pacific Maritime Association went to Federal court to get an injunction against Local 10 to force it to work the ship. To avoid huge fines and its officers possibly going to prison, the local eventually unloaded the ship.”Footnote ⁴⁶ Thus, Local 10 President Larry Wing and Secretary-Treasurer Tom Lupher, during and after the action, stuck to this line. In the (surprisingly) brief story in the union's paper, shortly after the boycott, the article began, “Longshoremen from ILWU Local 10, whose 10-day refusal to unload South African cargo coincided with growing national protest against that country's racial policies.” The Dispatcher quotes Lupher that “the workers’ boycott […] was made on an ‘individual basis’”.Footnote ⁴⁷

However, several SALSC activists later suggested that Wing and Lupher were sympathetic to the cause and firm believers in union democracy; that is, since the membership had voted to endorse this act, the leaders were committed, too. In his telegram to International President Herman, Lupher spoke more bluntly:

Similarly, Herman did not want to go against the contract, so downplayed the matter – to the chagrin of activists. While generally an ally of progressive causes, Herman was conspicuously absent during the boycott; however, the following year, as the struggle heated up nationwide and gained popularity, Herman was arrested for civil disobedience against apartheid. Regardless, the key point is that anti-apartheid activism in the ILWU always was driven from the rank and file, not the elected leaders.Footnote ⁴⁹

Shortly after the boycott, the ILWU issued an official position on apartheid. Typically, the ILWU called for the release of Nelson Mandela and other long-time prisoners, the unbanning of the ANC and other organizations though they also sought to aid the emerging labor movement, which in 1985 saw the formation of COSATU. Another result of the boycott was, according to local activist David Bacon, “The Bay Area Free South Africa Movement was born in those demonstrations.” SALSC leader Wright also claims, convincingly, that the Bay area's entire anti-apartheid struggle was inspired by Local 10, including the large student sit-ins at the University of California Berkeley campus just months later.Footnote ⁵⁰

The ILWU – and SF Bay area anti-apartheid movement – proved so important that Nelson Mandela visited Oakland on his legendary ten-day tour of the United States in 1990, shortly after his release from notorious Robben Island. After listening to freedom songs presented by the local choir Vukani Mawethu, to which ILWU activist Alex Bagwell and his wife belonged, Mandela singled out, before 60,000 people at the Oakland Coliseum, the longshoremen's action:

Even if the role of unions in the anti-apartheid struggle has been underappreciated in the United States, that no less a figure than Mandela praised Local 10 speaks volumes as to what he considered an effective tactic to attack apartheid.Footnote ⁵¹

Durban Dockers Boycott To Support Zimbabwean Democracy

As with Local 10, Durban dockers repeatedly demonstrated a commitment to issues of social justice in South Africa and beyond, particularly involving working class matters. In the 1980s and after apartheid, they joined several different unions including the TGWU, a member of COSATU. The largest labor federation in South Africa since its formation in 1985, COSATU played a central role in the defeat of apartheid and remains part of the ruling “tripartite alliance” with the ANC and South African Communist Party (SACP). Just like the ILWU, the COSATU masthead includes the old IWW motto, suggesting these unions share core values. Among COSATU founding unions, several in transportation merged into the South African Transport and Allied Workers' Union (SATAWU), now the main union for transportation workers. Though few in number, the dockers remain a powerful and militant component of SATAWU, with workers in every port including Durban, still the largest in the country and, indeed, all of Africa. In 2008 they boycotted a ship on behalf of Zimbabwean workers and democracy activists in an effort to make tangible the ideal of working-class internationalism.Footnote ⁵²

Like most South African workers in the post-apartheid era, dockers in Durban have experienced a chaotic few decades. At times it seemed that their collective power had been broken only to rise again, sometimes in a different union. The two most important factors weakening dockers were the introduction of containers and return of casual workers. These issues involve economic, political, and technological aspects and have local, national, and international ramifications; of course, millions of other South African workers have experienced similar challenges, including new technologies, casualization, a marked increase in the informal economy, and a government that has not done enough to overcome the massive economic and racial inequalities inherited from apartheid. These issues have weakened COSATU and other unions. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that SATAWU has managed to hold on to some power in Durban, as evidenced by its 2008 action. Indeed, that Durban dockers acted as they did, albeit atypical in the current of contemporary South African labor and political climate, makes their actions worth studying.Footnote ⁵³

In 2008 the political crisis in neighboring Zimbabwe reached a boiling point as South Africans looked on with interest and sympathy, especially as President Mugabe had long supported the anti-apartheid struggle. Elected after Zimbabwean independence in 1980, Mugabe has held power ever since though, in recent years, he has increasingly been condemned – especially outside Africa – as a brutal dictator. Not surprisingly, the truth is more complicated, especially in the context of leftist internationalism and Pan-Africanism. First, Mugabe was an important ally of the ANC in the anti-apartheid struggle; for someone like SA President Thabo Mbeki, a long-time ANC leader-in-exile, Mugabe was an ally and comrade. Second, during Mugabe's reign, he often claimed to act on behalf of the black masses, using expressly Marxist rhetoric; for example, the major land redistribution program in which wealthy white farmers lost lands was frequently praised by black Zimbabweans and other Africans though condemned by the Western media. Nevertheless, Zimbabwe's economic decline and lack of democracy had over time resulted in rising opposition to Mugabe in his country as well as neighboring South Africa, due to a shared border along with countless cultural, demographic, economic, historical, and political ties. When Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), appeared to have won the 2008 presidential election, Mugabe's forces unleashed mass terror on the Zimbabwean people. This ugly conflict regularly made the international news and particularly concerned South Africans and the several million Zimbabwean refugees there. Many across the world looked towards Mbeki, a lion in the anti-apartheid movement who had worked with Mugabe during that long struggle, to mediate the dispute. However, Mbeki's attempts at “quiet diplomacy”, behind closed doors and without uttering a single word of criticism of Mugabe's actions, failed to resolve the crisis.Footnote ⁵⁴

Amidst this storm, and seemingly out of the blue, Durban dockers sent shockwaves through southern Africa and made international news by refusing to unload a ship full of weapons destined for Mugabe. Much like ILWU actions, SATAWU members in the Planning Department of Transnet, the South African port authority, provided essential information, including which Chinese ship was carrying the military cargo, when it would arrive, and where it would dock. Then SATAWU activists, led by Provincial Secretary Joseph V. “J.V.” Dube, met with SATAWU members who worked for Transnet and used text messaging to spread the word to members about refusing to unload this cargo. As community activists, Zimbabweans, and South Africans picketed in solidarity, the ship remained in harbor for several days until leaving with its hold still loaded with millions of rounds of AK-47 ammunition, thousands of mortars, and RPGs.Footnote ⁵⁵

The reasons for SATAWU's stand are myriad and complex but not unlike the ILWU's. First, most South Africans knew of the crisis in Zimbabwe; the politically aware appreciated Mugabe's and other Zimbabweans’ support during the anti-apartheid struggle and, thus, regretted the sad irony of a revolutionary ally acting in anti-democratic ways to maintain power. Second, SATAWU maintains a program to educate its membership on the necessity to act in solidarity with other workers’ struggles. Just like the ILWU and COSATU, the official slogan of SATAWU is the Wobbly one, “an injury to one is an injury to all”. Moreover, the very nature of the marine transport industry, central to the global economy, facilitates international connections. For politicized South Africans, and there are many, there also remains an appreciation of how labor unions (not just political leaders) in other countries offered major support in the struggle against apartheid. When interviewed, Dube cited Zimbabwean unions’ assistance in the anti-apartheid struggle as well as those of other unions outside South Africa that carried out solidarity actions.Footnote ⁵⁶

Though fraught with complexity, Durban dockers struck because of their commitment to international working-class solidarity. In brief, when Rhodesia's black majority overthrew its white minority in 1980, the labor movement had played an important role and Mugabe frequently claimed to rule on behalf of the masses; later though, when growing numbers of Zimbabweans demanded that Mugabe be ousted, opposition arose out of Zimbabwe's labor movement. However, Mugabe's earlier contributions to the fight against apartheid (and other anti-colonial struggles) made it painful for South Africans, particularly Mbeki, to take a stand against Mugabe. Yet, increasingly, Mbeki was criticized for seeming to do nothing as Zimbabwe imploded, especially after the MDC appeared to win the 2008 election. When asked for SATAWU's motivation to aid the Zimbabwean opposition, Dube's answer was clear: SATAWU did so in solidarity with Zimbabwean workers and the belief that, if Mugabe gained more weapons, they would be used against Zimbabwean unionists and civilians, who were – after all – workers. COSATU's press release echoed Dube, “Workers of the world unite in solidarity with the workers and people of Zimbabwe in their fight for democracy, peace and food!”Footnote ⁵⁷

As with the ILWU, many individuals and organizations praised SATAWU for its boycott. The Anglican Church, powerful in both South Africa and Zimbabwe, supported the strike, as did some other religious groups. Since millions of Zimbabweans live in South Africa, some demonstrated in solidarity with SATAWU in both Durban and the Chinese embassy in Pretoria. Countless congratulatory emails and letters poured into SATAWU headquarters in Johannesburg.Footnote ⁵⁸

Unlike in the United States, where the ILWU's political actions might be opposed – or, at least, not celebrated – by the broader labor movement, COSATU declared:

The COSATU press release also encouraged dockers in neighboring Mozambique and Angola to follow SATAWU's lead; COSATU even contacted labor federations in these nations. Both SATAWU and the ILWU belong to the International Transport Federation (ITF), which also has member unions in Mozambique and Angola. In fact, the ITF supported and boasted about the boycott as well. Further, SATAWU Secretary-General Randall Howard was a leader in the ITF and Durban hosted the 41st ITF Congress in 2006. Subsequently, the Ai Yue Jiang was turned away from several other African ports so returned to China. South African journalist-activist Azad Essa, for one, commended “COSATU's resolve and desire to continue its internationalisation against oppressive forces around the world”.Footnote ⁵⁹

A notable difference between the ILWU and SATAWU actions was their two nations’ legal structures. While the South African constitution legally protected SATAWU, the ILWU was slapped with a federal injunction. The constitution ratified in post-apartheid South Africa guarantees the right to be in a union and strike (section 23). By contrast, US worker rights are not enshrined in their constitution and, while still supported by most Americans, such rights are insecure; witness that the SF Bay area employers’ association successfully filed suit in federal court. Thus, although its action was shorter, SATAWU did not fear a government crackdown – even though the union's position contradicted Mbeki's “quiet diplomacy” (see Figure 2).Footnote ⁶⁰

Figure 2

Thabo Mbeki claimed to be practicing “quiet diplomacy” in his dealings with Robert Mugabe. The work stoppage by Durban dockers was anything but quiet despite this clever illustration by David Anderson. David Anderson, Sunday Times (Johannesburg), 27 April 2008. See also http://davidandersonillustration.com/. Used with permission.

Finally, what this action also suggests is that, despite the twin whipsaws of containerization and massive casualization, SATAWU remains a vital force on the Durban waterfront. While some scholars, notably Bernard Dubbeld, have thoughtfully and impressively chronicled the devastating impact of containers, his study stops in the early 1990s and concludes that Durban dockers were permanently weakened; clearly, that prediction proved incorrect. Similarly, while the profound impacts of casualization on South African workers are real, Durban dockers have managed to weather this storm, too. Quite recently, scholar Franco Barchiesi made a powerful case of the increasing “precariousness” of work (and life) in contemporary South Africa. No-one who lives there or who has visited can deny this troubling reality. Without seeking to contest Barchiesi's overall thesis, this essay suggests that Durban dockers’ actions in 2008 – years after Barchiesi conducted his interviews, none of which were with dockers – are both impressive and worth studying. While Barchiesi convincingly writes about the “precariousness” of workers – and unions – marine transport does not fit neatly into his model. Indeed, longshore workers in many ports still hold surprising power, but those in the SF Bay area and Durban have used theirs to particular effect, suggesting the need to appreciate local context and forces as well as the general nature of longshore workers worldwide.Footnote ⁶¹

Conclusions: The Working Class Internationalism of Longshore Workers in San Francisco and Durban

This article argues that Durban and SF Bay area longshore workers have demonstrated, repeatedly and over time, a passionate commitment to social justice causes. The dockers in Durban now belong to SATAWU, affiliated with COSATU, and definitely act in accordance with the principles of social movement unionism. After the democratic elections of 1994, and with COSATU a key player in the ruling alliance, some question what role COSATU can play as a force to press for real social change, i.e. pushing against the now dominant ANC. Clearly, the 2008 boycott confirms that SATAWU acts as a social movement union, even willing to stake a position against the ANC. In the words of South African journalist Essa,

Essa quotes SATAWU General Secretary Randall Howard, “I don't think COSATU has ever shifted away from the community issues. We always knew that our role was always going to be more than merely workplace based issues.” Patrick Bond, a well-known activist-scholar, agrees, “COSATU's philosophy of internationalism is exceptional, far advanced amongst the world's working classes. We've seen great actions against oppression in Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Burma and now Palestine.”Footnote ⁶²

Bond's analysis of SATAWU echoes what many say of ILWU Local 10, which the San Francisco Labor Council recently described as “the heart and soul of the San Francisco labor movement”. Rank-and-file activists in Local 10, more so than their elected leaders at local or international level (and other unions in the Bay area), continue to agitate on behalf of social justice causes they believe important to the ILWU and labor movement in the United States and globally.

Among the most important and relevant, in 2008 longshore activists in Local 10 convinced the Longshore Caucus, representing all ILWU locals on the US West Coast, to “stop work” for an entire day to protest the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – the only US union to do so; that this action occurred on the international Labor Day, 1 May, only added to this action's drama. In 2011, rank-and-file activists in Local 10 refused to work in solidarity with public-sector workers in the state of Wisconsin, who were experiencing a major effort by a newly elected governor to pass anti-union legislation; Local 10 was the only union in the nation that struck (in violation of their contract) on 4 April, the anniversary of the murder of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. Finally, in 2012 and 2013, in the aftermath of the killings of striking platinum miners in Marikana, South Africa, Local 10 hosted a speaker representing the Marikana workers and wrote a letter to South African President Jacob Zuma condemning these actions. These actions suggest that Local 10 members continue to believe in the necessity of engaging in direct-action tactics on behalf of others social-justice causes, particularly working-class ones. Local 10 continues to demonstrate belief in a social movement unionist ideal.Footnote ⁶³

The long trajectory of activism by SF Bay area longshore workers indirectly influenced Durban dockers and, now, the reverse also appears true. On several occasions in recent years, SATAWU and ILWU have boycotted ships in support of shared beliefs, particularly ongoing efforts to pressure Israel to recognize a Palestinian state. Not only do both the ILWU and SATAWU belong to the International Transport Federation, they pay attention to each other's actions, meet at ITF conferences, and issue press releases praising each other's stands. If the recent past is any indication, port activists will continue to use ITF connections to promote political causes, including on Palestine – a topic that resonates deeply in South Africa.Footnote ⁶⁴

Longshore worker power (in San Francisco, Durban, or elsewhere) derives from two distinct avenues – both rooted in the work process. Traditionally, dockworkers were relatively strong, militant, and willing to strike and/or unionize because the nature of the work cultivated solidarity among the workers; this reality was demonstrated repeatedly across time and cultures. However, technological changes – containerization – threatened this tradition by transforming the work process, which drastically reduced the number of (sometimes better paid) workers who, potentially, might not believe or act in solidarity with other workers. Enter the second key factor explaining longshore workers’ enduring power: their strategic location in the global economy. While some posit that containerization fatally wounded dock unions, such a contention oversimplifies and distorts the reality.Footnote ⁶⁵ Undeniably, the work changed and number of workers plunged, yet dockers remain aware of their important work and demonstrate a willingness to deploy that power. Witness Local 10 activists stopping work in 2008 to protest US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, in 2010 to protest Israel's policy in Gaza, and in 2011 in solidarity with embattled public sector workers in Wisconsin. Of course, the particular, local histories of workers in these ports must also be considered. That is, to draw meaningful parallels and observations one must combine a general understanding of longshore worker activism with the particular history of a port.Footnote ⁶⁶

In short, dockers possess some power to protect their own interests and act on behalf of workers in other nations. This power, rooted in their appreciation of their strategic niche in global trade, exists even though their industry continues to be transformed and traditional working-class port communities have disappeared. Combining pragmatism with leftist and anti-racist ideologies, SF Bay area and Durban longshore workers have translated their beliefs in the need for and possibilities of solidarity into tangible actions: boycotting ships to protest apartheid and other forms of political oppression. Such boycotts, arguably, are more possible now due to the ever greater links created by global trade and transnational labor organizations like the ITF. For instance, for several years in this new millennium, workers across the United States and Europe boycotted ships, threatened to boycott ships, and donated money in support of Charleston, South Carolina's unionized longshore workers under assault by a company that (with government aid) sought to destroy their union.Footnote ⁶⁷

Currently, employers, governments, and global capitalism present tremendous challenges to workers and their power. Despite containerization, globalization, and other forces, longshore workers hold on to their unions better than many other blue-collar workers in both the United States and South Africa (along with other ports from Marseilles to Melbourne). While not suggesting that they represent the norm of all manual workers, dockers’ experiences are suggestive of what others can accomplish even as technology and powerful economic forces threaten to weaken and destroy unions. In both the San Francisco Bay area and Durban, longshore workers demonstrate(d) a robust sense of working-class internationalism.