Marine workers strike

One hundred years ago today … Negotiations stalled and police harassed picketing workers, dulling the outlook for an end to a mariners strike that had begun on May 1st. 

The workers were responding to wage reductions and other restrictions on the work force declared by the American Steamship Owners’ Association in agreement with the U.S. Shipping Board, a division of the U.S. Department of Commerce. According to Arthur Emil Albrecht, “All seamen who wanted to sail after that date had to sign articles that contained the new terms. Those who refused to do so were not permitted to sail” (60). 

Albrecht explains the conflict:

The new wage scale and the new working conditions, effective May 1, 1921, were made public by the United States Shipping Board in a multigraphed bulletin, entitled “Wages and Working Condi­tions Aboard Ship.” The new wage scale reduced the wages of able seamen from $85 a month (the rate prevailing since July, 1919) to $72.50 a month; ordinary seamen were reduced from $65 a month to $52.50. Boatswains were to receive $80 and carpenters $85, in­stead of $95 and $100 a month, respectively. Firemen were reduced from $90 a month to $75; coal passers and wipers were to be paid $65 instead of $75. Oilers and water tenders were reduced from $95 to $80. All grades of cooks and stewards were reduced $10 a month. All overtime pay was eliminated and subsistence rates were reduced from 75 cents to 60 cents a meal for each man. No mention was made of many details as to working conditions contained in former agreements. There was included, however, a new provision: “ There shall be no discrimination against the employment of any man on account of affiliation or nonaffiliation with any labor organization.”A strike followed. When three boat lines were reported to have renewed their agreements with the seamen at the old rate of pay the Shipping Board insisted that the scale of wages promulgated May 1, involving the proposed reduction, be observed on all Shipping Board vessels. The Marine Engineers’ Beneficial Association, which had also refused to accept the drastic reductions in wages and radical revi­sions in working conditions, struck on May 1. During the course of the strike the efforts of the Shipping Board and the Department of Labor were centered upon securing a settlement with this union, which was the backbone of the strike. After disagreements within their own ranks the engineers signed an agreement with the Ship­ping Board on June 15, 1921, and accepted a 15 per cent reduction in wages and other conditions laid down by the Shipping Board.

The strike was slowing down international shipping.

The strike lasted into June. With the government backing the bosses, the workers eventually settled for reduced wages and an open shop industry, weakening its unions (Albrecht, 61).

References/Further reading:

Albrecht, Arthur Emil. “International Seamen’s Union of America: A Study of Its History and Problems.” Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics 342, June 1923. US Department of Labor. 

– Jonathan Goldman, May 4, 2021

TAGS: strike, labor, union, shipping, commerce, strike-breaking, owners