Word: seamens
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...hiring hall had become the great stabilizer of maritime employment. Before the unions began setting them up in the mid-'30s, hiring of seamen and longshoremen had been a racket; men were obliged to buy jobs and kick back part of their wages. As the unions ran them, jobs were filled from a list of union men registered at the halls. It was clearly discriminatory; non-union men could get jobs only when there were not enough union men to fill them. Thus the hiring hall became a stronghold of union security. But it brought a measure of peace...
Rats & Shaving Brushes. The P.H.S. was established in John Adams' administration, on July 16, 1798, to care for ailing seamen. Its job still begins at the water's edge. Quarantine Servicemen inspect arriving ships (and planes) for victims of smallpox, plague, cholera, typhus, yellow fever (the five diseases defined as "quarantinable" by international agreement). Those with other communicable diseases are passed on to local health authorities to deal with. On all ships the P.H.S. looks for evidence of rats,* which might carry plague. They check imported shaving brushes for signs of anthrax...
Smart is the first to admit that there will be cagier seamen than he in the competition even though he's been handling the tiller according to one Nantucket legend since the tender age of six. But "there's only so much skill in handling a boat, and from there Lady Luck takes over," he says...
...A.F.L. Seafarers International Union. The Seafarers, following the pattern of C.I.O.'s brawling National Maritime Union in helping striking white-collar workers, had decided to put some noise and muscle into the Financial Employes' walkout. When the cops moved in on them to clear the entrances, the seamen had their own roughhouse counter-move ready. They rushed the cops, blocked the exchange entrance with a carpet of bodies. The surprised policemen started swinging their clubs-and the first labor brawl in Wall Street's history...
...would probably have to dig into the Curb's cash reserve. Keefe threatened to strike, shrewdly waited till the market was on its way up-and brokers had their hands full with heavy trading-to call his members out. But even with the lusty help of the seamen, he fell far short of crippling the citadel of speculation...