ILWU在20世纪30年代开始接纳非裔工人,在二战期间,仅旧金山分部就有估计800名黑人会员。当时大多数旧金山工会将黑人工人排除在外,并抵制执行罗斯福总统在国防工业中反对种族歧视的8802号行政命令(1941年)[7]。然而,“黑人工会成员在 ILWU [领导层] 中是一个极小的群体”,少数例外是奥克兰地区,那里的黑人成员数量比旧金山还要多[7]。此外,旧金山地区主席理查德·林登自己也承认,ILWU未能积极晋升其黑人成员[7]。尽管如此,根据历史学家 Albert S. Broussard 的判断,“就黑人议题方面,ILWU 在几乎所有方面都远比湾区工会进步”[7]。随着战争期间工会开放会员资格,它经历了可观的成长。从成立之初大约有25,000名缴纳会费的会员算起,该工会的成员在第二次世界大战结束时扩大到超过 65,000名,这归功于战时生产的增加以及成功发动运动组织港口以外的仓库工人[8]。
Bernstein, Irvin. The Turbulent Years: A History of the American Worker, 1933-1941. Paperback edition. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin Co., 1970. ISBN0-395-11778-X. (Originally published 1969.)
Kimeldorf, Howard. Reds or Rackets?: The Making of Radical and Conservative Unions on the Waterfront. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1992. ISBN0-520-07886-1.
Larrowe, Charles. Harry Bridges, The Rise and Fall of Radical Labor in the U.S. Rev. ed. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 1977. ISBN0-88208-032-6.
Nelson, Bruce. Workers on the Waterfront: Seamen, Longshoremen and Unionism in the 1930s. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1988. ISBN0-252-06144-6.
Quin, Mike. The Big Strike. New York: International Publishers Company, 1996. ISBN0-7178-0504-2.
Selvin, David F. A Terrible Anger: The 1934 Waterfront and General Strikes in San Francisco. Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1996. ISBN0-8143-2610-2.
Logan, Tim; Khouri, Andrew. Small but powerful union is at center of port dispute. Los Angeles Times. 2015-02-17 [2023-11-07]. (原始内容存档于2023-10-11). But the port workers — who still queue up at hiring halls daily for work and spend years earning full membership — stand guard over a crucial chokepoint in the global economy. For decades these “lords of the docks” have been paid like blue-collar royalty. ... The first was negotiating a single contract covering every port from San Diego to Bellingham, Wash. That prevents shippers from playing one West Coast port against another, as sometimes happens on the East Coast, said Peter Olney, a former organizing director at ILWU.
Nolte, Carl. When S.F. waterfront was scene of bloody riots. SFGate. July 5, 2014 [2023-11-07]. (原始内容存档于2023-06-08). The longshore union has become the aristocrat of the working class; a top member can earn over well over $100,000 a year with excellent benefits. The jobs are so good that it's almost as tough to get in the ILWU as it is to get into Stanford; thousands apply for vacancies, sometimes tens of thousands. "These are dream blue-collar jobs," said Craig Merrilees, the union's communications director.
Sweeney, Steve. 29 US ports shut down as dockers strike in solidarity with BLM. Morning Star. 19 June 2020 [6 July 2020]. (原始内容存档于2023-11-30). The date is known as “Juneteenth” and saw 29 ports shut down for eight hours as the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) pledged support for all those fighting structural racism and inequality. It followed a previous stoppage on June 9 when union members downed tools for eight minutes and 46 seconds in silent tribute to George Floyd during his funeral.