But the battle raged on, and they finally began to make headway. The union gradually won new concessions that transformed the nature of dock labor. One of the first victories was a cost-of-living increase in wages which provided workers the ability to better support their families and took some of the burden off a job that demanded so much physical effort. The time of reduced hours of work came and it was a sudden drop in standard of living. There men used to work the twelve and fourteen hour day, contracts began to make limits plain where working-men could not be imposed upon.
Greatly improved safety measures were suggested; most valuable of all, were adopted–better methods for handling equipment;
a stricter system of examination and testing of implements, a limited number of dangerous working loads.
These gains were not made in the teeth of dock work, but they saved millions of lives and showed that the well-being of longshoremen could never again be neglected.
An Infection of Early Successes.
The significance of even the most modest success was far bigger than simply making money on the spot.
To the dock workers themselves, those wins proved to them that the sacrifice they had endured on strike was worthwhile and
that it was possible for all of them to realize workplace improvements by standing together.
For the union as an entity, they built up momentum — it became a more credible negotiating force and drew more people in.
Other labor struggles watched developments with bated breath,
and the victory of the longshoremen led them to take on the big corporations as well and beat them.
There was a ripple effect through other industries from that wave,
and it helped fuel the broader labor movement that was transforming America in the early years of the 20th century.
A Reputation for Intimidation.
By now, when the first big victories were won,
the American Longshoremen and Harbor Workers Union had long hardened into something far more serious than a rag time society of sore heads.
It was, by now, a powerful force in labor which had the capacity to shut down ports,
national publicity and force some of the biggest corporations that we have in this country to capitulate.
The reputation the union built in those years would stand as one of the pillars of the identity of the union,
such that for decades to come employers and politicians would negotiate
with a heightened sense of how serious were their opponents in the organized dockworkers.