biography
| name: |
Bridges, Harry (Alfred Renton)
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1901–90)
|
| biography:
| Labour leader, born in Kensington, Australia. He went to sea at age 16 and entered the USA after jumping ship in 1920. He did occasional work in the Mexican oil fields, returned to sea, then settled down as a longshoreman and waterfront labour organizer in San Francisco. He founded the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (1933) and led a major dock strike the next year. During the 1940s the federal government repeatedly and unsuccessfully tried to deport him as a Communist sympathizer. Although expelled from the Congress of Industrial Organizations (1950), his union remained a powerful force on the West Coast docks during the 1950s. |
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