ABSTRACT
A most significant public action by the Sailors’ Union in the period leading up to the 1901 strike was the foundation, in January of that year, of the City Front Federation, linking the Sailors with the longshoremen, teamsters, mates, engineers, marine firemen, freight-handlers, and lumbermen. The clash between the employers and the mighty ranks of San Francisco labor began in earnest in July when a group of teamsters were locked out for refusing to haul non-union baggage. Projects for full emancipation of the sailor had been introduced into the national Congress in the period from 1900 to 1911 but there was no substantial legislative success after the Maguire Act. Most of the clauses in the LaFollette bill were supported by precedent in Britain, Norway, and other leading maritime nations, but this did not prevent the shipowners from fighting them down to the last comma and period.
