ILWU International Secretary-Treasurer Louis Goldblatt (center) at the Local 142 Convention held at the Ilikai Hotel from September 8-13, 1969. (R-r) Oahu Division Director Jose Corpuz, Goldblatt, and Hawaii Regional Director Robert McElrath.

But a new kind of unionism had come to Hawaii. A new kind of unionism in the form of the ILWU—a new policy. A policy that is based on complete racial unity a program whereby we decided in advance that under no circumstances were we going to make the mistake of racial strikes such as the Filipino or Japanese strike that had taken place in years before—each one of which had been broken. And, that if we ever did have to have a showdown and this was apparent by the reports the one thing we were determined to do—we were going to play table stakes—one hand I winner take all. That if we had to go to a showdown I we’d shut down every single plantation on every single island and gamble the whole bundle and that’s exactly what finally did have to happen in 1946 and out of that came the rebirth of effective trade unionism here in the islands. But it took a new kind of unionism. A unionism that had picked up in the best traditions of American labor. The traditions of some of the great founders of American labor— Eugene B. Debs, William Z. Foster, Big Bill Hayworth and John L. Lewis.

A kind of trade unionism that above all had within it a, powerful democratic structure, rank and file participation, militancy and the willingness to gamble. The same kind of union as the ILWU which led to a rebirth of unionism on the Pacific Coast to the longshore and general strike of 1934 that had launched the march inland on the pacific coast to the warehouse division. This same kind of union that broke the back of industrial feudalism here in Hawaii and shook these volcanoes loose of plenty of their ashes. And out of this foundation we began to build and grow, to expand our range of interest and our range of influence.

You know, anybody who denies or ignores history is doomed to repeat all the mistakes of history. Anybody who denies or ignores history will be ignorant of the present and blind as to the future. And that’s the reason in a meeting of this sort—it’s worthwhile reviewing some of these things because we’re not just trying to maintain traditions and customs like you would customs or particular rituals but where there are background institutions or background principles within the formation of an organization to understand what they are, what built that union and the importance of keeping them alive and then finding out ways and means to do so on that score, an understanding of history is essential.

And the things that made this union, made it powerful, made it possible to do its job for its own membership, for the people of Hawaii was because of these things I talked about—a rank and file structure—an internal democracy, dedication to the principle of complete equality, equality both as to races and as to individuals. And above all, that the union is the property of the membership. We argue and fight, struggle among ourselves, but the one thing everybody has to agree to—that union is theirs.

But we who’ve lived with this union for any length of time know that what is even more important is that very tough day-to-day organization and day-to-day work to perfect a structure that’s tight and strong enough so that if you have to strike, you can strike successfully but a structure that’s so strong and so tough that in most cases the employers will realize that they might just as well bargain and settle things without a strike. And that’s the job of this union. And let us never forget our roots—those roots are right in the rank and file and those roots are our economic power, and that’s the first power of this union—working class power. That’s where it came from.

See related stories on political action (pages 3-5) and on Daniel Inouye (pages 6 and 7).

“Our political future is too important to be left to politicians—we need union political action”

A long time ago we decided that our economic future was too important to be left to the whims of private enterprise or free enterprise. That’s the reason we have unions. Unions automatically start off by taking away some employer prerogatives, limiting and constricting them and we had to do that so as to protect our livelihood, to protect our future. Initially, many unions only negotiated for wages and hours and after that the worker was on his own. If he could put out a day’s work — okay, if the employer wanted to get rid of him, that was that. Many changes have taken place in that regard and now the unions fight equally hard for security of the individual on the job. Security against discrimination and favoritism, maintaining his rights as to promotion and all the other related protections that he has under the contract. So there’s been a change in demands but all of these are still predicated around the idea that we cannot trust our economic future and our destiny to just the capitalistic system, to the employers who run it.

Second, our political future is too important to be left to politicians. That explains our political action program and of all places where an outstanding job has been done, is right here in Hawaii and done through a program of independent political action. Now, in the course of our political action program we made some mighty fine friends and some very loyal friends. But never forget something — that there are some politicians who are so slick they can steal your radio and leave the music playing. And never forget it. So you keep your political action program — sharp eye open all the time.

Third, war and peace are too important to be left to the generals. We heard some interesting remarks this morning from Senator Inouye and I for one, and I am sure that the convention shares this with me, was most happy to see that the senator realizes that the only answer in Vietnam is a negotiated peace, a ceasefire and continued military action is not going to solve anything. Quite to the contrary, it will result in getting in deeper and deeper — destruction of American boys, the destruction of a sad and tragic country and one thing, it seems to me we can point out, and this is not finger pointing I that insofar as the ILWU is concerned, there’s been a persistent record in this regard.

Next, it’s our belief that the natural resources of our country are too valuable to be left to individual and private development. That explains the malama program here in Hawaii. We’re going to promote tourism but tourism with controls and we did not fight for a better life for our people, we didn’t struggle all these years for an improvement in the standard of living of working people and others in Hawaii so as to finally wind up with a new kind of mahele where all the mainland high-binders and capital pick up the beaches and the parks and the people in Hawaii end up with a handful of rocks. That was not the purpose of all our struggles. We’ll work for tourism, help promote it but only under the most rigorous set of controls so as to make sure that the interests of our people are protected.

The health of our people is too important to leave the delivery of medical services to administrators and doctors to use their stethoscopes to first test the health of your pocketbook and that’s the reason this union is working with other groups to see what can be done to improve both delivery of medical services here in Hawaii as well as to get some control over costs.

There are many other areas too numerous to mention where this union is directly concerned; areas of community life that range all the way from education, and particularly the question of housing.

And lastly, the future of the union movement in this country is too important to leave to the officials alone. And that’s the reason for conventions of this sort because through conventions of this sort there will be a chance to not only pass on the heritage of this union, that part of it that’s relevant — that part of it on which somebody feel that they can build, but through conventions of this sort there will be increased understanding on the part of the membership, there will be this broad scale participation in the life of the union and in the life of the community and it’s around this type of convention and participation that the trade union movement can regroup its forces and continue to do the kind of job to which its initial purposes were dedicated.