The Waterfront Stand-off
A shipping captain's attempt to use non-union crews to unload his vessel in Seattle ignites a volatile labor clash on the docks.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The longshoremen had another bout yesterday with Captain Ross, of the steamer Haytian Republic, whom they caused to be arrested some time ago for attempting to discharge his vessel with Japanese labor. The steamer arrived in port from Portland about noon, and Captain Ross insisted on his crew handling the freight in the hold of the vessel and letting the longshoremen handle it on the wharf. The longshoremen objected to this, and insisted on doing all the handling or none, so they quit work. The captain then ordered a portion of his crew to go ashore and handle the freight, but the men said they were afraid and refused to obey, whereupon he discharged them. He then tried to induce a number of Chinese passengers he had on board to discharge the vessel, but they also were afraid. As a last resort the captain had a lot of men taken down from up town, but they too refused to go to work, some of them yielding to the persuasion of the longshoremen, and others claiming to be afraid. Ultimately, H.W. Baker and his office force, the wharfinger, and the night watchman trucked the freight away themselves while the captain and his officers landed it. Longshoremen stood nearby watching, while the captain threatened to return all freight to Portland rather than yield to the union's demands.
“If we yield in small things they will expect us to yield in larger ones. We refused to handle freight with sailors, and have a perfect right to do so.”
This 1892 clash over the 'right to work' and who controls dock labor foreshadows decades of intense waterfront militancy in Seattle, a city that remains one of the most significant labor hubs on the West Coast. The tension between shipping companies seeking low-cost, non-union labor and organized dockworkers remains a recurring theme in modern global supply chain disputes.
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