A Sailor Fled the Guardian as Seattle's Waterfront Labor War Heated Up
A union sailor says a ship's mate threatened to kill him; shipowners vow to tie up their vessels rather than hire union men.
The Sailors' Union and boarding-house men are still at swords' points, and both claim to be ahead in the race for victory. A sailor named Henry Stratford, who was shipped from this city a few days ago to the ship Guardian, has gotten into trouble and claims that he was harshly used by the ship's officers. He says the mate, whose name is Anderson, had 'it in for him,' and would have killed him had he remained on board the vessel. He says the crew was ordered about like cattle and the men called vile names. Stratford made up his mind to stand it no longer and left the ship. He was arrested in Everett and released on habeas corpus.
The shipowners positively refuse to sign union men and say they will tie their ships up rather than be bullied by the union.
T. W. Wright and T. J. Newman, proprietors of the non-union boarding house, who were recently arrested on complaint of Paddy Glynn, secretary of the union, on the charge of carrying concealed weapons, waived a preliminary examination before Justice Caldwell yesterday afternoon and were bound over to the superior court in $100 bonds each.
“The shipowners positively refuse to sign union men and say they will tie their ships up rather than be bullied by the union.”
The 1895 fight over union crews on Puget Sound ships echoes today's battles over unionization and worker safety at the port. Then as now, the question was who set the terms of work on the waterfront—shipowners and boarding-house operators, or the men who sailed the ships.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.