Ferdinand Smith

By Roy Rydell

When the National Maritime Union (NMU) was founded on May 5, 1937, one of the big jobs facing the convention was setting up a union constitution which would set out its guiding principles.

The first paragraph of the constitution sought to unite in one organization all workers eligible for membership directly or indirectly engaged in the maritime industry, regardless of creed, color, nationality or political affiliation.

That same convention elected Ferdinand Smith as Secretary of the Union, the highest union office held by a Black worker at the time. Smith's election to that high office was no accident - Communists who were active in the formation of the NMU insisted on the necessity of a policy of no discrimination.

Smith, with a proud record of fighting for a rank-and-file union, was elected because of the strength he had showed in the struggle within the International Seaman's Union against the head of the stewards division, David Grange, who chaired union meetings with a revolver in full view of the membership.

Smith, born in Jamaica, had sailed as a chief steward with the Luchenbach Steamship Company. The ships, which sailed in the intercoastal trade, were known as workhouses for the crew.

A common practice on Luchenbach ships prior to the founding of the NMU was to hire "workaways" - seamen who worked for no wages hoping to be put on the payroll when someone who was working for $37.50 a month could stand it no more and packed his bag.

The chief steward had the unenviable job of feeding the crew on a very low budget. (That's how the term belly robber was invented.)

But Smith was known to feed the best he possibly could under the limitations set by Luchenbach.

William Standard, the first attorney for the new NMU was a noted admiralty lawyer. He defended many of the seamen who were arrested during the fall strike of 1936-37.

In his book, Merchant Seamen and the Law, he describes how a mass meeting was called by the Seamen's Defense Committee to declare that the East Coast seamen were on strike. In addition to pledging full support to the seamen and longshoremen on the West Coast who were already on strike, the East Coast seaman raised their own demands:

FWest Coast wages, conditions;

FSixty cents an hour cash payment for all overtime;

FUnion hiring halls.

FAn 8 hour day for the Stewards Department.

This meeting also elected a strike committee consisting of Smith, Joe Curran, Al Lannon, Blackie Keenan, Frank Jones, Charles McCarthy, John Muldring and Glynn Skogman. Skogman was later exposed as a company agent and was expelled.

After the strike, members of the International Seaman's Union and the Stewards Union decided to take steps to remove their reactionary officials and to put the control of their union into the hands of the rank and file.

Smith, Gettlyn Lyons and Jones were elected as trustees of the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union of the Atlantic Gulf. They were given the responsibility of negotiating with the AFL Executive Board to bring about democratic union elections.

During the fall strike, Smith was active in organizing the many African-American, Jamaican and Filipino seaman who worked for the Clyde Mallory Lines, the United Fruit Company and on ships like the Cuban Mail Line, which operated the passenger ship Oriente.

The Cuban Mail Line had also operated the infamous Morro Castle, which had caught fire at sea and ended up on the beach at Asbury Park, N.J. with many casualties. This fire exposed the rotten conditions and lack of safety on American ships prior to the establishment of strong sea-going maritime unions.

Communists on the waterfront had long seen the necessity of organizing all seamen into one union.

In February 1934, the Marine Workers International Union in the Port of Baltimore, under the leadership of Lannon, a Communist and later a co-worker of Smith's on the strike strategy committee in New York, called a meeting of all seamen on the beach in Baltimore. More than 700 appeared.

It was agreed to establish a Centralized Shipping Bureau (CSB) for the Port of Baltimore and to do away with all favoritism, blacklisting and discrimination.

As a result, conditions on ships sailing out of Baltimore grew better and wages were raised, in some cases by as much as $15 a month. Seamen who were black listed and discriminated against in other ports began to drift into Baltimore and in less than six weeks there were 1,300 seamen registered in the CSB.

The CSB's most important contribution to the well-being of the seamen was its complete abolition of discrimination against Black and Filipino seamen. The Bureau afforded the same rights of shipping to Blacks, Filipinos and other nationals that it guaranteed to white seamen.

The Bureau recognized that if it did not accord equal rights to Black seamen, it wouldn't have lasted a week. The shipowners would have smashed it by boycotting it and hiring those seamen who had been discriminated against by the Bureau.

In 1934, the Marine Worker's Industrial Union demanded:

FAll hiring thru the union hall;

FAbolition of all fink halls (U.S. Shipping Bureau halls);

FNo discrimination;

FFull political, social and economic equality for Black and Asian seamen.

Smith's election as NMU secretary didn't mean that discrimination was automatically abolished in the industry. The union did its best to enforce the no-discrimination policy but it wasn't written formally into the contract until 1944.

On July 15, 1944 the NMU contract with the shipowners was finally signed. It flatly stated that there shall be no discrimination because of race, creed, color or national origin.

Smith personified the NMU's no-discrimination policy but even his forceful leadership couldn't always stop the shipowners from their old practices. Here is an example:

In June 1942 the Swedish liner Kungsholm was taken over by the United States Lines and renamed John Erricson. A crew of 140 was asked for and dispatched to the ship.

Of these, 115 were accepted and 25 were rejected. All 25 were Black. A protest in Washington resulted in the shipping of all of the 25 men previously rejected.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent a letter to the NMU which said: "I am informed that the discrimination against colored seamen referred to in your telegram was eliminated by the action of the U.S. Maritime Commission on the day it was received.

"Questions of race, creed or color have no place in determining who are to man our ships. The sole qualification for a worker in the maritime industry as well as any other industry should be his loyalty and his professional or technical ability and training."

Even with the war on, NMU seamen ashore often faced discrimination and the union did its utmost to stop these practices.

The 4th Convention's minutes of 1943 describe a lawsuit the NMU won on behalf of 18 African-American crew members of the SS Seminole, a Clyde Mallory Ship, who were discriminated against while first-class passengers aboard a train from Tampa, Fla. to New York City.

At the same convention Josh Lawrence, an African-American seaman and delegate from the Moore McCormack-operated passenger liner turned troop ship Argentina, put forward a resolution calling for the repeal of the poll tax designed to stop African Americans from voting.

At the 4th Convention, Paul Robeson gave a short speech and sang 12 songs including "The Peat Bog Soldiers," "Old Man River" and "The Four Insurgent Generals."

The 1943 convention dedicated itself to an all-out struggle for the defeat of fascism.

When FDR ran for his third term Smith and High Mulzac, the famous black skipper of the Booker T. Washington, toured the country's shipyards, packing houses and steel mills, urging a big vote for FDR.

Smith was a leader in fighting for the needs of seamen's wives and families while the head of the family was away at sea. He was instrumental in setting up the NMU Personal Service, which fought the racial prejudice of many community social service agencies against seamen's families.

In July 1946 CIO President Phil Murray presented to the NMU the CIO Annual Award for outstanding service to the cause of economic and political democracy in the field of racial relations.

In September 1947 Smith made his report as national secretary to the 6th NMU Convention. He pointed out that the first NMU Convention symbolized the successful struggle of rank-and-file seamen to free themselves from the tyrannical yoke of the leaders of the old International Seaman's Union.

Smith went on to condemn the Taft-Hartley Law and its requirement that trade union officials sign a non-communist oath. He said the union shouldn't capitulate by recognizing this or any of the law's provisions.

Smith called for the unity of the CIO and the AFL and for strengthening the NMU's relationship with the World Federation of Trade Unions.

He lauded the role of the National Negro Congress, which encouraged Black workers to support and join labor unions. Smith concluded by blasting the Marshall Plan, pointing out that U.S. seamen are often forced to transport cargo for the aid of economic, political or military aggression.

This was too much for the U.S. ruling class. NMU President Curran attacked Smith because he wasn't a citizen. Smith, like Harry Bridges on the West Coast, had many difficulties getting his citizenship because of his progressive ideas. Soon after this, Curran began to expel many progressive seamen from the NMU.

The shipowners had Smith deported because he represented the unity of all seamen - Black, white, native born and foreign born - who sailed on American ships.

Before he was deported, Smith was a proud signer of the petition "We Charge Genocide" submitted to the U.N. by William Patterson of the Civil Rights Congress.

Smith was deported to his native Jamaica in 1949. In Jamaica he became the island's outstanding Communist and its most important progressive leader. Smith died but his memory lives on among the seamen who sailed out of the NMU.