The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 7, Issue 1, Winter 2018 | Page 25

Area. During World War I, Oakland received the moniker “Glasgow of the West.”
Moore’s Shipbuilding Company employed thousands of highly skilled Scottish
shipwrights in the construction of 30 warships between 1917 and 1920. This effort
consolidated the strength of unions like the American Federation of Labor’s
Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Brotherhood of Carpenters and Shipwrights, and the
International Association of Machinists and Aircraft Workers. 25 The traditionally
exclusive and conservative AFL craft unions initially opposed Kaiser’s mass
production techniques, arguing that prefabrication “de-skilled” workers in the
shipbuilding trades. 26 These unions further argued that tens of thousands of ship
fitters, welders, burners, riggers, and so on, eroded the traditional Apprentice and
Figure 2. A view of the offices of the auxiliary Boilermakers A-36 Union, a
segregated union hall for African American shipyard workers in Richmond,
California. Photograph by E. F. Joseph, RORI 686, National Park Service.
Journeymen system.
When FDR’s “Emergency Shipbuilding Program Act” was approved (3
January 1941) requiring prefabrication shipbuilding methods, however, the unions
cooperated, at least outwardly. Eventually, the Brotherhood of Boilermakers
represented 65-70 percent of all West Coast shipyard workers. Membership in
several East Bay Locals exceeded 35,000 and some Locals conducted three
initiations a day admitting between 200 and 300 members at a time. The
25