Bizarrely, the parties now switched sides. The union demanded that the employers mechanize faster to eliminate these physical burdens. “We intend to push to make the addition of machines compulsory,” Harry Bridges told management negotiators in 1963. “The days of sweating on these jobs should be gone and that is our objective.” The ship lines were hesitant to spend the money. The ILWU responded by filing grievances against the lack of machinery on docks and in holds. After one of the strangest arbitration proceedings ever to occur in any industry, the employers were ordered in June 1965 to
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