Marine Workers Industrial Union

The Marine Workers Industrial Union (MWIU) was a short-lived union (1930-1935), initiated by the Communist Party of the USA (CPUSA).

Marine Workers Industrial Union (MWIU)
Marine Workers' Industrial Union of the USA
MergedInternational Seamen's Union
FoundedApril 30, 1930
Dissolved1935
HeadquartersNew York City
Location
Members
14,000
Key people
Roy Hudson
AffiliationsTUUL

History

In 1927, CPUSA member George Mink traveled to the USSR, attended the fourth congress of the Profintern, and returned to the US as the Profintern's representative of a Transport Workers International Committee for Propaganda and Agitation (TWICP&A) to organize maritime workers in the US. Working with William Z. Foster's Trade Union Educational League (TUEL), he established a Marine Workers Progressive League (MWPL) by 1928. During the CPUSA's factional in-fighting 1928-1929 between followers of James P. Cannon, Jay Lovestone, and Foster,[1] Mink laid low. When Joseph Stalin appointed Foster as head of the CPUSA in 1929, Mink continued his efforts with marine workers.[2]

On April 26–27, 1930, a Marine Workers' League of New York (itself organized in 1928 by the Trade Union Unity League or "TUUL") called a convention that created the Marine Workers' Industrial Union of the USA. This national convention followed coastal conventions held during 1928–1930. The convention adopted a constitution,[3] openly supported the USSR, and elected three delegates to attend the fifth world congress of the Red International of Labor Unions or "Profintern" (itself an arm of the Communist International or "Comintern").[4] The MWIU openly affiliated with TUUL.[4][5] According to another source, MWIU decided against TUUL and decided instead to affiliate with the Profintern's Red International of Transport Workers[6] via an International Seamen and Harbors Workers Union (ISH),[7] based in Hamburg, Germany.[2]

During the 1934 West Coast waterfront strike, the International Seamen's Union and the Marine Transport Workers (MTW) of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) joined the strike, but the "Communist-dominated MWIU undercut the strike" by scabbing.[8]

In 1935, Roy Hudson, a ranking MWIU official, dissolved the union (then, with 14,000 members) without a vote, and the International Seamen's Union of America succeeded to it.[5]

Slogan

"Full economic, social and political equality for whites, Negroes and Asiatics!"[4]

Offices

MWIU's headquarters was at 410 Broad Street, New York City. It had US offices in Buffalo, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans, Houson, San Pedro, San Francisco, Sacramento, and Seattle. It had overseas offices in London, Newcastle, Bordeaux, Copenhagen, Antwerp, Hamburg, Bremen, Leningrad, Archangel, Vladivostok[4]

Members

Publications
  • Marine Workers Voice[5] (inherited from the Marine Workers' League TUUL[4])

Legacy

In 1963,[10] Nelson Bruce helped found the Marine Workers Historical Association, which included records of the MWIU.[11]

In 1980, George Morris (American writer) described his recollections of the MWIU during the 1934 strike in his oral history.[12]

Union 51 of the Industrial Workers of the World today bears almost the same name: Marine Workers Industrial Union 51.[13]

See also

References
  1. Chambers, Whittaker (May 1952). Witness. New York: Random House. p. 799. ISBN 9780895269157. Retrieved 29 December 2019.
  2. Pedersen, Vernon L. (2000). "George Mink, the Marine Workers Industrial Union, and the Comintern in America". Labor History: 310–312. Retrieved 15 June 2021.
  3. Constitution and Preamble, Marine Workers Industrial Union. Marine Workers Industrial Union. 1930. p. 18. Retrieved 15 June 2021.
  4. N. Sparks (1930). The Struggle of the Marine Workers (PDF). International Pamphlets (International Publishers). pp. 49–50, 59–61, 63. Retrieved 14 June 2021.
  5. "Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities". USGPO. 1940. p. 6458 (Curran, MWIU, Hudson), 6478–9 (MWIU, Hudson), 6515 (Jones), 6532 (Marine Workers Voice, affiliation). Retrieved 14 June 2021.
  6. "Opening of the Profintern Congress" (PDF). International Press Correspondence (Inprecor). 7 December 1922. p. 892. Retrieved 15 June 2021.
  7. Weiss, Holger (1995). "The International of Seamen and Harbour Workers – A Radical Global Labour Union of the Waterfront or a Subversive World-Wide Web?". International Communism and Transnational Solidarity: Radical Networks, Mass Movements and Global Politics, 1919–1939. pp. 256–317. Retrieved 14 June 2021.
  8. Bekken, Jon (1995). "Marine Transport Workers IU 510 (IWW): Direct Action Unionism". Libertarian Labor Review: 12. Retrieved 14 June 2021.
  9. Kimeldorf, Howard (1988). Reds or Rackets?: The Making of Radical and Conservative Unions on the Waterfront. University of California Press. p. 219. Retrieved 27 January 2021.
  10. "About". Marine Workers Historical Association. Retrieved 13 June 2021.
  11. "Guide to the Bruce Nelson Research Files on Maritime Workers TAM 585]". New York University - Tamiment Library. 22 June 2018. Retrieved 13 June 2021.
  12. Morris, George; Kimeldorf, Howard (2 September 1980). "Morris (George) interview". New Century Publishers. Retrieved 13 June 2021.
  13. "Marine Workers Industrial Union 51". Industrial Workers of the World. Retrieved 14 June 2021.
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