#MayDay is International Workers Day in Hawai'i! In honor of May Day we are lifting up our Kanaka labor history as we are largely written out of the Hawai'i labor history literature.
Harry Lehua Kamoku was born in 1905 in Hilo. He was Hawaiian and Chinese and began working on ships and docks as a teen. He was disturbed by the working conditions of dockworkers and got involved in labor organizing.
In 1934, he and other Hawaiians were in San Francisco supporting the famed 1934 dock strike. There he met Harry Bridges who further mentored and supported his organizing work in Hawai'i.
In 1935, he helped found the ILWU Hawai'i, the first bargaining union in Hawai'i. The Hilo longshoremen broke the prior organizing paradigm which was along racial lines, and instead preached inter-racial worker solidarity and anti racism, uniting against the Big 5 employer class
In 1938, Kamoku led dock workers in a six month strike, culminating in hundreds of workers protesting at the Hilo docks on August 1st. 70 police were called in, using tear gas, fire hoses and guns on the workers. 50 were injured and this event is known as the Hilo Massacre.
Kamoku was an effective and militant union organizer and so blacklisted & hated by the Big 5 oligarchy. Accused of being a dupe for the CIO, he responded in typical Hawaiian form with humor and ridicule while pushing back against the racist and insulting message of his accusers.
He attended the California Labor School in the mid to late 40s, where classes on unionism, socialism, imperialism and international struggle, among other things, were taught.
Eventually the ILWU became the powerful union that we know today. Because of the fight they put up against the white sugar oligarchy, they remained wildly threatening in Territorial Hawai'i and many were persecuted through American anti-communist propagandist tactics.
We have much to learn from this time and these organizers. Ho'okahi e pō'ino, Pau pū I ka pō'ino! An injury to one is an injury to all. Hapi Lā Mei and Hau'oli Lā Limahana Kau'āina. #kanakalaborhistory
#nativelaborhistory
#InternationalWorkersDay
Happy Native May Day @uahikea @nickwestes
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