Harry Bridges: The labor union leader who fought for workers’ rights and faced decades of litigation

Labor union leader Harry Bridges had--and continues to have--an enormous impact on California's economy. He also was a defendant in decades of litigation, including three U.S. Supreme Court cases.

Bridges was born in Australia in 1901. As a teenager, he joined the Australian Seamen's Union and sailed the world.

In 1920, Bridges arrived in the U.S. and eventually settled in San Francisco. He became a longshoreman and joined a union, the Pacific Division of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA). Abysmal longshore working conditions eventually led to the 1934 San Francisco general strike, and Bridges chaired the strike committee. The ILA's Pacific Division emerged largely victorious, and Bridges became its president. (My Aug. 8, 2023, Daily Journal column, "San Francisco's 1934 general strike: The fall and rise of organized labor," recounts this strike, https://www.dailyjournal.com/articles/374206)

Throughout Bridges' union leadership, he was militant and accepted support from radical groups, including Communists. In response, San Francisco's maritime employers, rival unionists, and government agencies attacked Bridges as a Communist as well as an alien.

The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service--then under the Department of Labor--investigated Bridges, but, in 1935, failed to find Communist connections to him. The San Francisco Police Department conducted its own investigation but reported to U.S. Labor Secretary Frances Perkins that Bridges' background was "clear" of Communism. See Peter Afrasiabi, "Burning Bridges: America's 20-Year Crusade to Depart Labor leader Harry Bridges," 29, 41 & n.41 (2016).

Even after the 1934 strike, Bridges remained aggressive on behalf of workers. In 1936, Bridges led another longshore strike. After 98 days, the ILA's Pacific Division retained its 1934 gains in a new agreement.

The following year, the Pacific Division seceded from the ILA. West Coast longshoremen formed a new, more progressive, and more militant International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU), with Bridges as president.

Bridges' first case in the U.S. Supreme Court began during litigation between rival unions at the Los Angeles port. Bridges sent a telegram--which he intended to be published--criticizing the trial judge and threatening to "tie up the port ... and involve the entire Pacific Coast. ..." Based on various complaints, including one from the L.A. Bar Association, Bridges was fined for criminal contempt by attempting to influence pending litigation.

The California Supreme Court upheld Bridges' fine, but, in a landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed. The U.S. Supreme Court held that when the respective rights to a fair trial and free press conflict, the latter prevails, especially when the prosecution could not prove a clear and present danger. Bridges v. Superior Court, 14 Cal.2d 464 (1939), rev'd, Bridges v. California, 314 U.S. 252, 259-71 (1941). (For an authoritative explanation of the case, see Henry Weinstein, "Harry Bridges and the Los Angeles Times: Unlikely Free Speech Allies," CSCHS Review, Fall/Winter 2020, at 19, https://www.cschs.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2020-CSCHS-Review-Fall-Harry-Bridges.pdf).

Bridges' successful labor leadership led to national attention. Time magazine, for example, put Bridges on a 1937 cover. Despite this prominence, Bridges' and the ILWU's enemies continued to accuse Bridges of being a Communist. In particular, American Legion members, Oregon officials, and the Los Angeles Police Department all worked to find--or create--evidence that Bridges was a Communist.

Further, some members of Congress agitated for deporting Bridges as a Communist. Indeed, the House Un-American Activities Committee--later to become notorious during the McCarthy era--was formed in 1938 to target Bridges. HUAC even threatened to impeach Secretary Perkins for failing to rid the country of alien Communists such as Bridges. See id., 39-60.

Bridges responded by asking for a formal deportation hearing. Perkins acceded, arresting Bridges and ordering a hearing at Angel Island in San Francisco Bay. Perkins appointed Harvard Law School Dean James Landis to preside.

Under the then-current federal statute, deportation required that the alien be a Communist party member at the time of arrest; expired membership was insufficient. Kessler v. Strecker, 307 U.S. 22, 29-33 (1939). After an 11-week trial and 274 exhibits, Landis ruled in December 1939 that the INS had failed to prove that Bridges was a Communist. Landis found that the INS's witnesses lacked credibility. Later, unsealed evidence would show that much of the evidence had been manufactured and that the INS knew so. See Peter Afrasiabi, supra, 64-94, 102-05.

Congress howled at Landis's ruling. The House voted 330-42 to deport Bridges immediately and to eliminate any habeas corpus protection. When the U.S. Senate failed to agree, a compromise was reached: the existing statute would be amended to provide for deportation of aliens who had ever "affiliated" with the Communist Party, even if the affiliation was not current.

At the same time, the INS was moved under the Department of Justice, probably because the Labor Department was deemed insufficiently aggressive in deporting Bridges. Id., 112-13.

In March 1941, the INS again sought to deport Bridges, this time under the amended statute. A different presiding officer conducted a 10-week deportation hearing. As in 1939, the INS presented thin and contradictory testimony. Nonetheless, this presiding officer found that Bridges had been a Communist and ordered his deportation.

The Bureau of Immigration Appeals, however, reversed, holding that the INS's witnesses were "not worthy of belief," as their testimony included perjury, evasions, equivocations, and contradictions. E.g., Frederick R. Barkley, "Bridges is Cleared by Appeals Board," N.Y. Times, Jan. 6, 1942, at 1, col. 2.

The U.S. Attorney General--on his own motion, without an INS appeal--reversed the Bureau's decision. The Attorney General ordered Bridges deported immediately, a tactic intended to preclude Bridges from filing a habeas petition. Bridges, though, filed quickly, thereby staying deportation. See Peter Afrasiabi, supra, 141-43.

The U.S. District Court and 9th Circuit denied Bridges' habeas petition. However, in another landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed, ruling that the Attorney General had broadened the definition of "affiliation" beyond the statute. To be sure, Bridges had cooperated with Communists, but for "wholly legitimate" purposes, namely the improvement of longshoremen's working conditions. In sum, Bridges' "militant advocacy ... of trade unionism" was within "constitutional limits." Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U.S. 135, 140, 144-49 (1945).

After this decision, Bridges petitioned for U.S. citizenship. During the hearing, the judge accepted affidavits and heard Bridges' and character witnesses' testimony that Bridges was not a Communist. In September 1945, the judge granted the petition, and Bridges became a citizen.

Unfortunately for Bridges, his legal travails continued. In 1948, the U.S. Department of Justice and FBI launched an investigation into whether Bridges had lied in his citizenship hearing when he denied being a Communist. In May 1949, a federal grand jury indicted Bridges and two of his witnesses for perjury and conspiracy in the citizenship hearing.

Trial began in November 1949. The judge seemed biased against the defense, sustaining prosecution objections to proper defense questions, and repeatedly citing Bridges' lawyer for contempt. By contrast, when a prosecution witness perjured himself by testifying that Bridges had attended a Communist party meeting in New York (Bridges proved that he was across the country on the purported meeting date), the judge took no action against the witness or prosecutor.

Even the jury deliberations were tainted. In the jury room, jurors apparently read an inculpatory affidavit that--being fatally flawed--had never been admitted into evidence.

In April 1950, the jury convicted Bridges and his co-defendants on all counts. See Peter Afrasiabi, supra, 159-93. In 1953, however, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Bridges' and the other co-defendants' convictions on statute-of-limitations grounds. Bridges v. U.S., 346 U.S. 209.

Incredibly, the government then filed yet another proceeding against Bridges: A civil case to "denaturalize" Bridges (that is, to undo his U.S. citizenship). In July 1955, the civil trial judge ruled in Bridges' favor, finding that the government's witnesses lacked credibility. See Peter Afrasiabi, supra, 209-24. Finally, after this loss, the government abandoned efforts to convict or deport Bridges.

Bridges served as ILWU president for four decades until retiring in 1977. The ILWU remains the primary labor union in the country's West Coast ports, which annually handle cargo worth over $400 billion.

Harry Bridges died in 1990, not just an American citizen as a matter of law, but also a true American.