Rank and File Unionism in Action—Early Days in Warehouse Local 6

The Dispatcher, November 1995
Edited by Harvey Schwartz

Brother Hackett

“When the strike was settled we’d nearly doubled our wages. Now you had a feeling of dignity. Before, you were just a machine, a nonentity. By the end of the 1930s, our stewards ran the place. “

I was born in San Francisco on September 5, 1914, two days ahead of Labor Day. So you can figure I was born to be a labor man. My father worked in the shipyard and was in the Boiler Maker Union from 1910-1925. Later he worked for the city and paid dues into the Laborers Union for 40 years; even after he retired he still kept up his membership.

I got out of high school in 1931, during the Depression. There was no work to be had. To make money I gambled: blackjack, poker, dice. I used to make $15 to $20 a week. When I went to work at McKesson’s in September, 1932, I made less! The job was as an errand boy. I made $8 a week, about $30 a month. The warehousemen weren’t gettin’ much better. Four years later, in ’36, just before the union came, I was only making $38 a month as a checker.

They had started cutting wages about 1930, taking ten per cent here and ten per cent there. After the third or fourth cut your $3 a day was down to $2 a day. But before the union, people took the wage cuts. Better ten percent cuts than no job at all. You were in a position where you couldn’t bargain. The boss was in the driver’s seat and you had no choice.

So, before the union workers at McKesson’s were peons in what amounted to economic slavery.

When I was a checker in early 1936, there was no hourly rate. They gave you that $38 a month, and that meant all the work they could get out of you for that. You’d work your regular eight hours, then they’d come up to you at 4:30, a quarter to five, and say, “We’re working tonight. Here’s half a buck, go get dinner and get back here at six. We’re working ’til ten.” They’d do this two, sometime three times a week. And you had to be at work at eight o’clock the next day. Then they’d bring you in on Saturday ‘til two. We were putting in a hell of a lot of time, and we were getting practically nothing.

I first bumped into the Warehouse Union in March or April 1936. I had a feeling there was something going on with a few whispers here, a little group there. I finally approached somebody and got ’em to confess: There was a union in the offing. You think I wasn’t going to jump for it? I said, “Sign me up!”

The early organization was subrosa. Then we were told by the union, “Tomorrow, everybody wears a union button.” The people who started the union and the people who joined it were very discreet, so the company was caught completely by surprise. Once we hit ‘em with the button, then the union said, “We represent your people. If the union had sent a letter saying, “We represent your people,” the company would have laughed, ‘That’ a farce.” But when you looked out at the warehouse and you found better than half your warehousemen wearing buttons, and you got a letter, then you said, “Hey, these guy aren’t kidding.”

The company tried to stem the tide of unionism. They said, “We’ll take care of you. Times are getting better we’ll give you a few more dollars.” They gave us a raise, but it wasn’t that great. Our pay went from $40 to $45 a month, still ridiculously low wages. It was all a facade. They were just trying to con us.

McKesson’s also fired two guys. They figured, “Fire a couple put the pressure on the rest of ’em, and they’ll fold.” This was July, August, or September 1936, when the last of us were initiated into the union. Word spread through the warehouse, “They fired so-and-so; what the hell we gonna do about it?” People said, “Let’s not work until they bring ’em back.” It was a spontaneous thing. Next thing you knew everybody just sat down.

At this point, the company either brought those guys back or we lost our strength in the house. If we gave in, those guys would have been gone, and somebody else would have gone the next day. But we were all committed. We figured, they’re going to pick us off two at a time. Let ’em pick us all off at once, and if they do that, they’re dead.” After two or three hours the word came around, “They’re bringing ’em back.” That gave us a hell of a lift. First taste of unionism, our first act, and damn it we beat the company! Boy, that made us feel twenty feet tall.

We went into negotiations in September or October 1936. We created a rank and file committee to formulate demands. I was part of the group. Our idea was, let’s get recognition, which the union office will get, and then go for wages. We put in for 75 cents an hour. We took this figure back to the house. We didn’t have a formal meeting to accept the demands of the committee. We just came back and said, “We’re gonna ask for six bits an hour. Is that all right?” The guys said, “Sure, that fine.” It was rather sloppily done, but it was a rank and file union.

The company stalled us in negotiations. We pulled the pin and out we went. We carried the rest of the drug houses out too, and finally most of the City’s warehouse industry was out between the end of October, 1936 and January, 1937. The brass at the hall did the negotiating for us. We were concerned primarily with keeping the place closed and doing our picket duty.

We came out on the streets, got some wooden boxes together, and sat on ’em. There weren’t any specified shifts. You stayed on the picket line until you got tired and went home. Sometimes it was two or three days. Nobody wanted to go home because what was the point of going home? The action was down here. I was down there for a week. I only went horn to bathe and come back.

We had some boxes that were good sized crates. We’d set ’em up on end for a wind break, get a 50 gallon drum, scrounge some wood, and make a fire. It was cold—this was November and December. At this same time, the Maritime Federation of the Pacific was on strike too, including the longshoremen. They had a soup kitchen down on the Embarcadero, four blocks from us. We’d go down there and eat dinner—beans hot dogs and salad. We’d go in shifts, three guys at a time.

When the strike was settled we’d nearly doubled our wages. Now you had a feeling of dignity. Before you were just a machine, a nonentity. “Now,” you could say, “you can treat me as a man, not as a damn dog.” Now they asked you to work overtime, they didn’t tell you to work overtime. And we got a seniority list, which meant you couldn’t fire someone indiscriminately.

The steward system was set up now too, so you had somebody to go to bat for you. A union steward could go to the superintendent and say, “This guy’s working as a checker, and he’ only getting order filler’s wages. Get him checker’s wages,” or “That work is too heavy for one man. Put two or three men on the job.”

After the 1936-1937 strike everybody organized. You went around the neighborhood on your lunch hour, found somebody havin’ lunch, and started talkin’ to ’em. If they didn’t belong to a union you asked ’em what wage they were getting. When you found out how little they were being paid, you’d say, “We just joined the Warehouse Union, went out on strike for a lousy couple of months, and doubled our salary.” The guy’d say, “Just lead me to it.”

See, there was a tremendous surge then. We had a meeting every week. There was always fifteen, fifty, or a hundred to two hundred people being sworn in. The people were just waiting in the weeds for somebody to hit them with a stick. It was just like a great awakening or a crusade.

In 1938 McKesson locked us out with the rest of the warehouse industry. When the lockout was over the Warehouse Union got the master contract they still have. In 1938, we didn’t have 24-hour picket duty. It was just day shifts. They had too many men at McKesson, so they picked five or six of us and threw us down the street to Mutual Drug. There was some crap wood around and we built ourselves a little shack. We built it so we could take it apart because the cops would come around and say, “Get that thing down.” We fixed it so we could break it down and put it back again right after the cops left.

About 1938-1939 there was another incident that showed our new militancy. The company said it was absolutely necessary that we work Saturday. Nobody wanted to work Saturday, but fine, we work Saturday. I took Monday off. The next time they said everybody work Saturday, I took Tuesday off. I did this with a couple of other guys. The idea was, everybody who worked Saturday, take Monday or Tuesday off. Soon everybody was doing it, always working Saturday but only working four days during the week.

Finally, the superintendent says to me, “I see that every week you take a day off.” I said, “As long as you insist on making us work on Saturday I’ll work Saturday, but it doesn’t cost me anything, it costs you; you’re paying me time and a half for Saturday, and I’m only losing a straight day.” Did something hit the fan? The minute he took that to the other managers the order came out, “No more Saturday work.” And everybody was happy.

By the end of the 1930s, our steward ran the place. They were more important than the foremen. If you had a beef you went to the steward, not the foreman. If you had to say, “This guy is making me work twice as hard because he isn’t doing his part,” the steward would walk over and say, “Look, Brother, you’re making it tough on the other guys. Straighten up or we’ll cite you before the grievance committee.”

On the other hand, the foremen didn’t dare push, because they were union people under our jurisdiction! We set it up so the foremen were not “supervisors” but “working foremen.” If you were a foreman you asked your union men to do things. You didn’t stand behind them with a whip, or the steward would say “Treat your men properly, or they’ll have you down the union hall.”