Longshoremen on the Portland Waterfront

Dr. Michael Connolly's Portland Harbor Museum January History Lecture, traced the turbulent history of Portland longshoremen's struggle to wrest a living wage from their hard and often dangerous work. The St Joseph's College professor of history's lecture followed the story from the formation of the Portland Longshoremen's Benevolent Society in 1880 to the port's decline in 1923.

"The early years of the nineteenth century were the era of "casual hiring" of longshore labor along the Portland waterfront," said Dr. Connolly. "Longshoremen were unorganized and poorly paid. When the ships came in they worked. Between ships their families got by on lean rations. During this period, African Americans were a substantial part of the Portland waterfront work force."

In the mid nineteenth century two events spelled big changes for Portland longshoremen. The opening of rail connections to Canada in 1853 brought mountains of western wheat to elevators newly constructed along the Portland waterfront. The old system of casual hire gave way to steady work and the need for an expanded work force. Portland merchants had to look elsewhere for labor to load their ships.

Across the sea in Ireland a catastrophic failure of the potato crop, the country's major food staple, touched off a mass migration. The labor short Portland waterfront was a magnet that drew in hundreds of those Irish immigrants.

By 1880 the expanded Portland longshore labor pool was looking for a little leverage in their dealings with the local shipping industry. They banded together in a union they named the Portland Longshoremen's Benevolent Society. It was almost exclusively Irish. African American labor was squeezed out and a small minority of Italians was relegated to lower paying freight handling jobs."

"When dealing with racial make-up, there are two ways for a union to pull together," said Dr. Connolly. Either you open up to all ethnic minorities and hope for solidarity or you stay exclusively with a single nationality. In the rough and tumble competition for jobs, the Portland waterfront Irish majority opted for exclusivity."

The new union's membership, rising and falling with changes in the economy, topped out at 1356 workers in 1910. Wages, however, had remained static since 1874. The union decided it was time to get militant with the shippers.

Major strikes in 1911 and 1913 failed to produce results. The shippers superior organization and wealth decided both contests but the Portland Longshoremens Benevolent Association learned a lesson. There is strength in numbers. In 1914 it affiliated with the International Longshoremens Association.

"A by product of the ILA affiliation was the opening of waterfront jobs to non-Irish ethnic groups," said Dr. Connolly. "The ILA told them to open up or face competition from strike breakers of other nationalities."

Wartime traffic brought the Portland waterfront and longshoremens wages to the peak of its prosperity in 1919. By 1923, however, St. Johns and Halifax began to handle the Canadian grain exports that formerly flowed through Portland. Despite the building of Maine State Pier in 1923 the port's decline continued.

In recent years oil tanker cargoes piped to Montreal help keep up Portland's tonnage. Unfortunately it doesn't help boost local ILA membership. Longshoremen aren't needed to discharge a tanker. The longshore work force has shrunk to 60 members in what has been characterized as a great high paying part time job.

Reported by

Jack Reynolds