An Online Archive

This website—The Dispatcher Digital Imaging Project—is an online archive of historical issues of The Dispatcher, the official newspaper of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union.

This site originally appeared online during the 2002 ILWU contract campaign, in the months prior to the lockout of West Coast longshoremen by the Pacific Maritime Association, the union of shipowners and stevedores that employ the dockers. It grew out of a desire among several rank-and-file dockworkers to discover—and then publicize—what the ILWU did to win past struggles.

The period currently covered by this archive, 1947-49, is especially fitting for such a study. In June 1947, Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act as an amendment to the National Labor Relations Act. In 1948, the ILWU was confronted by the waterfront employers’ determined effort to smash the union and destroy the hiring hall. This assault by both the government and the bosses was soundly defeated by a militant, united movement of the workers.

The 1947-1949 Dispatchers presented here contain a wealth of information about how the generation of workers who sacrificed to build the ILWU fought off attack after vicious attack, and won virtually every fight they were pushed into.

This website is a rank-and-file project, and it isn’t officially authorized or endorsed by the ILWU or anybody else. Please read our Disclaimer.