A Lesson for Today’s ILWU?

Herb Mills passed away in 2018 before he could finalize his historical novel, Presente. His wife Rebecca Mills had promised him that she would get the novel edited and published. At her request some of us took a look at what Herb had written and said that it was not suitable for publication. But Becky valiantly persisted, and talented labor historian Peter Cole joined the project. It took six years and some excellent editing by Stephanie Fay and Mathew Tallen, and Presente was issued by HardBall Press in 2023. The delay was fortuitous for the labor movement because the subject of Presente, the ILWU’s boycott of arms shipments to the murderous Salvadoran regime in December of 1980, is very relevant to labor’s stance on a ceasefire in Gaza and the US government’s arming of the murderous Israeli war machine. (On April 23^rd, at 8 PM Eastern Time there will be a Zoom discussion of Presente! – links to join are at the end of this post)

Herb’s narrative is a thinly disguised autobiographical tale of his successful effort to block arms shipments to the El Salvadoran dictatorship in December of 1980. The protagonist of the novel, Steve Morrow, is Mills himself, the Secretary Treasurer at the time of San Francisco Local 10, who successfully internally organized his union and built broad national community support for longshore worker refusal to load arms. The US government, in the face of this public militant pressure, canceled the arms shipment. 

The novel also tracks the successful pressure applied by the ILWU at the same time on the government of South Korea to stop the execution of dissident democratic reformer Kim Dae Jung. I remember when I was first hired as Organizing Director of the ILWU, the President of the ILWU at the time Brian McWilliams, invited me into his office to view an invitation from Kim Dae Jung to attend his inauguration as South Korean President in 1998. The ILWU was being so honored for saving his life!

Just because a union is successful in raising the living standards of its members and protecting on the job safety and security doesn’t automatically lead to advanced political stances

Based on historical facts, Presente reads like a fast moving TV series. It has the shortest chapters of any book I have ever read, which means that it is an accessible page-turner but full of wonderful organizing lessons. Morrow is Mills with such memorable phrases as, “Hey that’s pretty good old bub” “Hey old bud what’s doing?” “I mean I was totally knackered.” And photographs in Mills /Morrow speak are “snaps”. I can hear Herb talking and I get a clear take on his style as an aggressive union representative in the days before cell phones. Remember the pager?? 

In fact many of the narratives are tales of him addressing workplace safety and compensation grievances with his San Francisco Pier based stewards. He is an aggressive and effective union rep. Part of the reason the members respond to calls to action around larger political issues is because the union wins their respect on the job.  Steve Morrow tolls the bell and makes the record!

Since this is “fiction” based on factual history it is important to point out one of the gaps in the narrative. Just because a union is successful in raising the living standards of its members and protecting on the job safety and security doesn’t automatically lead to advanced political stances like blocking arms to El Salvador. Those acts require conscious political leadership and education and training of the members. Paul Murphy the fictional International President of the ILWU is fully on board with the mission from the get go. That “Paul Murphy’” was in real life Jimmy Herman, the President of the union starting in 1977, who succeeded the legendary Harry Bridges, the founding President. Herman was a political guy who was a member of the radical Marine Cooks and Stewards Union with years of political experience on the left. The other officers of the union at the time, represented as fictional characters in Presente,were also touched and formed by left wing politics. Herb Mills himself was an amazing character with a rich history and educational background. He was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate from the University of Michigan. He was a graduate student in political science at the University of California, who participated in the 1960 protest against HUAC at San Francisco City Hall. In 1963 Herb dropped out of graduate school and became a Bay Area longshoreman. In 1968 he was granted a leave of absence for a year from Local 10, and he finished his PhD at UC Irvine.  The union rises to the occasion in defense of Kim Dae Jung and in opposition to the Salvadoran dictatorship because its leaders had a very clear internationalist political perspective.

The clear and definitive action in Presente is in stark contrast to the present day ILWU’s failure to even take a stand in favor of a ceasefire let alone act to block arms shipments. Even the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) leader Randi Weingarten has called for a cease-fire and for Benjamin Netanyahu to resign. This to the amazement of many from a union, the AFT, long a passionate supporter of Israel and a purchaser of Israeli war bonds. The ILWU has always had a strong and clear policy of support for Palestinian rights and certainly “Paul Murphy”/ Jimmy Herman would be speaking loudly and clearly in favor of a cease-fire and dramatic action where possible to support it.

Herb Mills has left us with an important and timely legacy novel based on his own true to life experiences in building international solidarity from the bottom up. Hopefully the ILWU at its forthcoming convention on June 17^th in Vancouver, British Columbia will rise up once again and embrace its historic internationalism. The Dispatcher, the voice of the ILWU, on January 8 of 1981 after the historic actions described in the book, published a lengthy statement ending with the following: “Our hope is that by thus dramatizing the tragic situation in El Salvador, and by refusing to any longer be party to it, we can, in some small way, assist in ending this nightmare, and in restoring security and freedom to the Salvadoran people.”

Do not the people of Gaza deserve the same solidarity from this great union?

Herb Mills Presente! Pick up Presente from Hard Ball Press. It is 230 pages of action packed drama based on true to life history.

.

On April 23^rd, at 8 PM Eastern Time there will be a Zoom discussion of Presente!

Join here: 

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84809741247?pwd=QWY2QVlZY0JLY0tqVzNtQzc1QnpoZz09

Meeting ID: 848 0974 1247

Passcode: 834937

…