ILWU Local 10 Young Workers

12/08/2025

🚨 Atten: LOCAL 10 “A” members‼️

11/13/2025

🔊 Atten: Local 10 ‘A’ Members❗️

10/23/2025

Resolution was submitted by Beau Logo on behalf of the Local 10 Young Workers Committee. It passed at our general membership meeting last week.

Arms are being sent to the Israeli Government from our Home port. This cannot stand, we will not be complacent in the ongoing Genocide in Gaza. As our founder Harry Bridges once said “INTERFERE WITH THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE COUNTRY! SURE AS HELL, THAT’S OUR JOB, THAT’S OUR PRIVILEGE, THAT’S OUR RIGHT, THAT’S OUR DUTY!”. We intend to keep that fighting spirit alive!!!

07/26/2025

YWC hosted its first Books 📚 & Brews 🍻 the other day. We had a great time reading Harvey Swartzs’ new article featured in the Argonaut magazine.
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His article touched on our history leading up to the Big Strike of 1934 all the way until present time.
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It is important to know the history of 1901, 1916 & 1919. Learning from our mistakes of those times led to our victory in 1934. 💪
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Thank you to Harvey Swartz & our friends from the Palestinian Youth movement for joining us & special thanks to Original Pattern Brewery for the space.
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#1934

04/10/2025

Calling on all rank & file family and friends to show up in full force this coming SATURDAY! Wear your favorite ILWU gear and represent! We will be meeting on 19th Street between Dolores & Guerrero at 10AM sharp. See you there!😎🎉🌾
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02/23/2025

To finish off Black History Months ode to governmental resistance, we honor quite possibly 1 of the most resilient, persistent, & ruthless leaders of Local 10’s history,  Brother Leo Robinson. His intellect, commitment, passion, and savvy allowed him to help lead Local 10. He loved this union and fought to improve the lives of all working people. Robinson might be best known for leading the ILWU and the fight against racial oppression, in South Africa.

When he came to the waterfront, he wasn’t that political. His issues were all local, and it was only later that it occurred to him that everything local was also national and international. During the Vietnam War, a question by a young longshore worker changed his political outlook for life and led him into activism. The young longshoreman said, “I want to ask you a question, and you don’t have to answer it now, but I want you to answer this question. Of what kind of threat do the Vietnamese pose to you?” Leo became politicized in the late ’60s, and eventually joining the Communist party.

“When some people insult you and call you a Red,” Leo said, “that’s when you know you’re doing good work. When you’re hurting the racists, that’s their weapon of choice.“

Leo assisted in forming Local 10’s South Africa Liberation Support Committee (SALSC), the first anti-apartheid group in a U.S. labor union. In 1984, Leo & Howard Keylor put forth a motion calling for the boycott of South African Cargo at pier 80. This action was held for 1 shift but the community came out in massive numbers and it kept the boycott going for 11 days. he put the resolution into action. Becoming the moment that sparked the world to stop supporting the South African Apartheid.

Leo also wrote the ILWU position paper on the Israeli-Palestinian question, calling for the recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organization as the sole representative of the Palestinian people.

These are just a few moments in time of one of the most impressive career’s any Longshore worker has had. He’s the epitome of understanding how to use your resources to apply societal pressure. Even proving you can create International change.

02/17/2025

This week goes out to Sister Rosa Mae Tyner, described as 1 of the classiest, hard working, and was pushing boundaries during a time when women where still fighting for respect on the waterfront. With a 23-year career with the ILWU, she was a member of Locals 10 and 91. She broke the barrier and became Local 10’s first female Dispatcher, when there was only about 20 women in Local 10.

She was the little sister of “The Boy from Troy” (Congressman John Lewis, a prominent leader of the Civil
Rights movement), and was the youngest of 10 children

Rose left Troy with her husband and two boys to settle in the Bay Area. Her husband got a maintenance job at the Port of Oakland, and Rose worked in a pencil factory. In 1989, she won the lottery when her card was the third to be drawn. Rosa said “the only prior knowledge I had about longshoring was the result of a spelling list in the 11th grade that included the words “longshore” and “stevedore.””

Rosa recalled “I was afraid of heights, but couldn’t afford to turn down a job, so I took a ‘top-man’ assignment one night and got into a crane basket that lifted me up to the top of a pile where I worked up my nerve to put cones on those containers,” “It was a lot
easier to do after I got my first paycheck!”

“I hope the election sends a message to women, that they have the same opportunity as men. It’s the same rules: get a copy of the constitution and contract, understand what makes this union work, and you won’t have to rely on other people.”
Rosa told the dispatcher after being elected in 1995

Her election was such a monumental event that at the time Current International President Brian McWilliams was in attendance and Former International President Jimmy Herman swore her in.

02/09/2025

We continue our journey to Preserve and Celebrate our Rich Black History. This week we Celebrate Local 10 member, and International Vice President William “Bill” Chester, ILWU’s first Black International officer. He is also honored by having Local 10’s hall named after him.

In 1938 Chester became a member of ILWU Bargemen’s Local 22, a Northern California organization that later merged with San Francisco Bay Area ILWU Longhore Local 10.

Bill Chester was associated with the struggle for human rights throughout his career. He was especially active in Local 10 during the post-World War II years. Chester was appointed Northern California Regional Director in 1951. He was elected International Vice President in 1969 and retired from that office eight years later.

In the 1960s he played an instrumental role when Local 10 hosted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and made him an honorary member.

Chester also contributed significantly in 1969 as mediator of an important teachers’ strike at San Francisco State University.

The year after he became International Vice President, Chester was appointed by San Francisco mayor Joseph Alioto to the Board of Directors of the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART). He served with distinction and became board vice-president (1972) and president (1973) during the critical period during the launch of the BART system.

This is just a few moments in time for the impressive life of Brother Bill Chester.
If you’d like to read more: https://www.ilwu.org/oral-history-of-bill-chester/

02/02/2025

We Don’t care what the Government says, we still Embrace and Celebrate Black History Month and the Diversity this Union has built.

We are starting off the month by highlighting Local 10’s first Black President, Cleophas Williams.

His distinguished career as a member of Local 10 spanned 38 years. Cleophas Williams’ was elected as president of ILWU Local 10 in 1967, this made him the highest elected African American to serve as an officer in the entire ILWU. Born in rural Camden, Arkansas, and part of the Great Migration to the Bay Area, he arrived in Oakland, California, in 1942. Seeking to escape the horrors and multifaceted structures of systemic racism and white supremacy. He was amongst the leaders who placed Local 10 into the vanguard of the labor movement by engaging in civil-rights unionism and other social movements in the 1960s and 1970s.

If you’d like to read more about Cleophas, check out his book brought to us by Clarence Thomas:
https://www.powells.com/book/cleophas-williams-my-life-story-in-the-international-longshore-warehouse-union-local-10-9798215162446

11/27/2024

BALMA is collecting new unwrapped toys for the SF Firefighters Toy Drive. Please drop off your toy donations at the BALMA office or place them in the toy barrels in the hall. Deadline is December 19th!

11/27/2024

Join us for BALMA's Annual Children's Holiday Party on Saturday, December 14th! Thank you to the ILWU Credit Union for sponsoring the entertainment.

11/27/2024

Give BALMA a follow 😀

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