Coast Committeeman Ray Ortiz, Jr., at the memoriam.  Photo by John Regas.


By John Showalter

The Southern California Pensioners Group (SCGP) hosted its annual memoriam to the many longshore workers who have died on the job over the years at the Ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach and Port Hueneme on May 15, 2007 in John Gibson Memorial Park in San Pedro,
California. The date marked the 73rd anniversary of the murders of Dickie Parker and John Knudsen, the first two West Coast longshore workers killed by police and scabs during the Waterfront Strike of 1934 in San Pedro.

ILWU Coast Committeeman Ray Ortiz, Jr. shared the stage with ILWU Vice President Joseph Radisich; Southern California Pensioners Group President Al Perisho; Local 13 President Mike Mitre; Local 63 President Joe Gasperov; and Local 94 President Danny Miranda, and others. Pensioners Lou Loveridge and Art Almeida served as the program’s Chairman and Master of Ceremony, respectively. Los Angeles Councilwoman Janice Hahn (D-15th Dist.) sent a representative.

“We can’t forget who we are,” Ortiz reminded audience members which included pensioners from Locals 13, 63 and 94. “We are labor and we move cargo. The day we forget that is the day we start having problems in our struggles in California and nationwide.” Ortiz dedicated his remarks to his father, Ray Ortiz, and to Pete Velasquez, a deceased longshoreman who was de-registered under the Modernization and Mechanization Agreement of 1960.

John Joseph Royal, former Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Fishermen and Allied Workers Union, Local 33, ILWU, described the violence he saw as a young boy on the waterfront in 1934, when police patrolling the docks would routinely beat up longshoremen with their Billy clubs.

Days after the murders of Parker and Knudsen, labor historian Harry Fisher wrote: “There are times when circumstances so control the destinies of men that death lifts from obscurity sterling characteristics of golden promise in the unfolding process of development. A vivid confirmation of this truism was exemplified at the funeral of Richard Parker. Just one week ago this boy of twenty was buoyant spirit approaching the threshold of a brilliant career, where success was wholly dependent on his own endeavor….It was the irony of fate that Dick Parker, who had just joined the union, should be the one to die, by being shot through the heart.”
 
A monument and two benches (dedicated last year) in Gibson Park commemorate those who lost their lives working—and fighting for the right to work—on the docks in Southern California. Several years ago, Hugh Hunter, an active member of the SCGP Executive Board, pushed the City of Los Angeles for a panel on the monument honoring three longshore workers killed on the job. The plaque currently lists the names of 59 brothers who have died on the waterfront since 1934.

“This event is not just to honor the fallen,” said SCGP President Perisho,” but to honor each other.”