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a heavier weight than they had before. They claimed that nevertheless they worked harder, that the managing of the loading of this ship was much more complicated and much more difficult as the “sling-load” became greater - and anyhow they ought to have more money if the amount of goods stowed was greater. It was that kind of a grievance, just sort of spontaneously related to the production idea. That was the thing they grumbled about.

They grumbled also, of course, because of what they called preference hiring and there was preference hiring, no doubt of it. That was a scheme, which the employer had put into operation after the 1916 strike, in which each dock or each company hired its own men on a shape-up system. The stevedore who shaped them up was the company's man. He shaped up gangs for the various ships and for the various companies with definite intention to discriminate against anybody who had been involved, and not to hire anybody who had been involved in the 1916 strike, or who was known to be in his heart very inclined toward the union. They weren't going to have the union get any foothold in here.

There was, as there always had been, and as there is now (June 1953) in New York, the practice of a kick-back to the shape-up boss. That practice is an ancient