The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-05-28
BY BEN FIELD

THE boys in the Marine Workers
Industrial Union headquarters
on Gravier Street, New Orleans, tell
me I can find out conditions among
the fishermen by driving down to
Pensacola. Jim Yates is down there
starting the work of organizing the
fishermen.
The road from the west takes you
over the railroad tracks and through
the poorest section of the town
where the Negroes live in shacks. In
the heart Of Pensacola are the spa
cious houses of the rich whites and
churches, one Of which shows you
engraved in stone saint with a
harpoon. The sea glistens like a
star Kids are fishing with red
snapper bait. Cafes, alleys, string
pieces of wharves are crowded with
jobless fishermen.
Sure enough, in the Star of the
Sea Cafe I meet Jim Yates. Husky
ex-wobbly, member Of the Marine
Workers Industrial Union. Jim has
helped open half the halls on the
Pacific, worked Columbia River two
years, two seasons in Alaska, three
seasons Pedro tuna fishing, Austria
LA one season
Jim was in the great f1sherman's
strike in San Pedro, January, 1881.
In 1923, the fishermen were getting
e175 q +0,, foy 4,,y,o ~, fLo o,1o,,
market tuna was as high as 5000
and 1925. That wasn't so bad. Then
the best grade of tuna, the albacor,
swan off in schools the devil knows
where to Japan. Boats had to be
larger, able to make cruise of 5000
miles. So Van Camp and the other
big Gamers blind-man-b luffed the
fishers to borrow money from them
for boats. Many of the fishers sold
their houses, put everything they
had into the boats. The Van Camps
gave the fishermen contracts: 5000
for yellow fin, $110 for blue fin, and
800 for skipjack.
But as the depression blew down,
the company backed down on the
contract. 1t forced the men to take
500 for yellow fin. One-third of the
money to be held by the company
till January, 1882. The company
forced that down the mems outlets
by threatening to foreclose on mort
cages, by threatening to take boats
away. They refused to sort the tuna
They gave the men $67 fiat for
skipjack, holding one-third again
because of "cuthroat competition.
In January 1882, the Van Camps
refused to pay 100000 it owed 5000
fishermen. The boat owners associa-
ton went on strike. The canneries
refused to pay the crews. The crews
we're evicted from the company
houses.
i'm YATES looks like a buffalo
y who has been in half the salt
ticks of the world He says, THE
strike was smashed. You see this
fishing amt only knowing the diff
ference between to gertie in or to
gertie out or to tell apart a senter
or ganjon. Fishing is a fight all
along the line from the hook, and
the fellows lucky who amt gated
or got a leg chewed off by land
sharks like Van Camp. Here in
Florida soon as the fleet comes in,
the fishermen's shirts begin falling
off. Boots and oil skins begin fall
ing off too. You find some of the
fishers wearing flour bags for boots.
Sandycrab, Sandybottom, Galveston
Fred, Long Eric, and all the rest Of
the bootleggers are after us. There
are 10 bootleggers in a radius of 4
blocks, I'll swear in my membership
book.
1T don't make the difference of a
flea if you're Portuguese, Greek,
Negro, italian. Yank, or them native
Georgia crackers like the sponge
fishers at Tarpon, you're in the same
boat and starving. Everywhere the