Employers broke coast-wide strikes through division, strikebreaking, and fomenting racism

Evidence

Much like a picket line itself, a strike is something whose strength lies in its continuity. Thus, as always, employers focused their efforts on breaking the line. Early on, they tried to get each port to negotiate its own separate agreement, thus preventing a coast-wide alliance. They hired strikebreakers—in some cases college football players—offering them a police escort and housing aboard a moored ship with plush treatment: meals, laundry, entertainment, and banking facilities. The employers also attempted to foment racism among the longshoremen; Quin writes that “[b]osses who would never hire Negroes except for the most menial jobs now made special, and relatively unsuccessful, efforts to recruit Negroes as scabs.” — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 289

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• XREF: The tactic of dividing a workforce along race parallels the reader’s sources on scabbing and strikebreaking in the Drake voyages and trade history.