San Francisco Maritime General Strike Mural

In 1934, the militant Albion Hall faction of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) demanded changes to the agreement their union had previous negotiated with port employers. They insisted on better working conditions and stronger protections for union workers, including a closed shop employment policy and a union hiring hall. When employers insisting on dropping some demands as a precondition for negotiations, longshoremen along the entire US West Coast went on strike.

Several violent clashes with police subsequently occurred. The most notorious of these was “Bloody Thursday,” on July 5 in San Francisco. Although spectators differ on who attacked first, police ended up shooting three men outside the ILA strike kitchen at Steuart and Mission Streets. Two of them, striker Howard Sperry and kitchen volunteer Nick Bordoise, were killed. Afterwards, strikers placed wreaths and flowers around where the shooting occurred, returning when police tried to make them leave.

Subsequently, police escalated their attacks and the governor of California called in the National Guard. However, the killed men were given a high-profile funeral procession, attended by over 40,000 and making all of San Francisco aware of what happened. In solidarity, 150,000 workers across the city went on a four-day general strike. The broader, more moderate committee running the general strike eventually agreed to an arbitration. Although this was to the dismay of the original militant strikers, the arbitration allowed all the West Coast ports to unionize. As ILA leadership was opposed to the strikes in the first place, the West Coast longshoremen split several years later and formed the separate International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). Today, they are one of the wealthiest and most powerful unions in the United States, often controlling the flow of goods from Asia.

Today, the ILWU Local 10 Hall near Fisherman’s Wharf has a mural on the sidewalk dedicated to Bloody Thursday. Outlines of the two men killed are surrounded by red paint drops reminiscent of blood. Around those, the words “police murder” hold special significance in one of America’s most progressive cities, where police brutality often becomes a hot-button issue. Every year on July 5, union workers gather in San Francisco to commemorate the tragedy of Bloody Thursday, laying flowers around the mural as was originally done. There is also another sculpture dedicated to union workers at the original site of the shooting.