The history of the Marine Cooks and Stewards begins in 1901 in Seattle when six men joined to improve their working conditions. The name they took and kept until 1945 was the Marine Cooks and Stewards Association of the Pacific Coast. It was originally affiliated with the International Seamen's Union, AFL. Within a year, this fledgling group had grown to 500 men. As steam schooners and steamships replaced sailing vessels, the union continued to organize and achieved 4,000 members,2 although during World War II, it boasted that 12,000 members sailed, many holding "trip cards." 3 At its peak, it had branches in the ports of Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Wilmington, Honolulu, Boston, New York, Baltimore, Norfork and New Orleans. A brief description of its work jurisdiction was "all members of the stewards department," but a 1948 contract covering a "Class A Passenger Vessel" gave a fuller picture. It included stewards, chefs, cooks, bakers, butchers, messmen, waiters, bartenders, storekeepers, porters, pantrymen, scullions, laundrymen, telephone operators, yeomen and gym instructors.

From its outset, the Marine Cooks and Stewards established its character as an aggressive, militant union struggling to improve the lot of workers who toiled under very oppressive conditions. Before it was a year old, it signed its first contract, had a hiring hall in San Francisco and joined the City Front Federation (for seafaring and waterfront unions), giving its support to help win a teamster strike in San Francisco. It was a participant in the great Pacific coast maritime strikes of 1934 and 1936. The MCS was an early supporter of the CIO and affiliated in 1938. It joined with other federations of waterfront unions as well--the Maritime Federation of the Pacific (1935), and the Committee for Maritime Unity (1946).

From its first contract in 1902 with the Pacific Coast Steamship Company, the MCS won collective bargaining agreements with the major shipping associations--the Pacific American Steamship Association (PASA), the Waterfront Employers' Association (WEA), and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA).

At its 1945 Convention following World War II, the leadership proposed a new constitution and a new name to more effectively reflect and govern the larger union. The proposed change was ratified November 1945, and the union's name was changed to the National Union of Marine Cooks and Stewards to better identify its national geographical character with branches on the east coast and gulf, as well as the Pacific Coast and Hawaii. The following year, the MCS held its first election under the new constitution, and Hugh Bryson was elected president, Nat Jacobson, vice-president, and Eugene Burke, secretary-treasurer.

The post-war years brought increasing attacks to all labor unions, and to the MCS in particular. The 1947 enactment of the Taft-Hartley Act began a series of lawsuits before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the courts, along with early signs of the anti-Communist hysteria which would eventually destroy the union. Politically, Hugh Bryson was a leftist and, prior to 1947, a member of the Communist Party. He had close ties with Harry Bridges of the International Longshoremen's & Warehousemen's Union (ILWU) and in 1948, he joined with him to help form the Independent Progressive Party and support the presidential campaign of Henry Wallace. Bryson was a supporter of the California Labor School, speaking at its special events and conferences.

The MCS became the victim of raids by other unions, especially its AFL counterpart, the Marine Cooks and Stewards, AFL (MCS-AFL) and Sailors' Union of the Pacific (SUP), both affiliated with the Seamen's International Union (SIU). These unions employed the Dirty Dozen, ( a mixed assortment of expelled and still active but disaffected) MCS members to organize against the MCS. Red-baiting was their main weapon, and while some raided members away from the MCS, others appeared as witnesses against Bryson and Bridges in government attacks, Congressional hearings, NLRB suits, and other litigation. During the Korean war, Congress passed the Magnuson Act, which authorized the Coast Guard to screen alleged security risks from waterfront industries--longshoremen, seamen and others. Many MCS members were barred from their jobs due to this waterfront screening program.

The most damaging blow came in 1950 when the CIO expelled the MCS, along with the ILWU and several other unions, for being led by Communists. This unleashed even greater raiding activity, for the National Maritime Union, a CIO union, also attempted to take over the MCS membership. The NLRB was the agency most often used in these attempts to decertify the MCS as bargaining agent. In 1952, the MCS called for an NLRB election to validate its right to represent and bargain collectively for its members; the MCS-AFL was also on the ballot. The NLRB stalled on this election demand, stating a Compliance Order on an earlier Unfair Labor Practice case had not been satisfied by the MCS. The election was conducted early in 1954 and was protested by the MCS; neither union won bargaining rights.

In September 1954, the SIU petitioned for representation election to include members of the deck, engine and stewards departments--the combined membership of three of its affiliate unions, the Marine Firemen, the SUP and the MCS-AFL. The election was vigorously protested and MCS petitioned the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, 9th District for enforcement of its direction for an election in 1952. A major argument was that these SIU unions discriminated against Negroes, and the MCS membership included many Blacks. Nevertheless, it was conducted and the MCS-AFL won bargaining rights; the MCS was effectively defunct.

Simultaneously, in 1953, Hugh Bryson was indicted in federal court under Section 9(H) of the Taft-Hartley Act, which required union officers to sign a non-Communist affidavit. He was convicted in 1956 and served nearly two years in prison. Upon his release, he became a successful real estate broker.

The MCS ceased to function in 1954, but many of its members joined and became leaders of the ILWU. James Herman, a former MCS patrolman, succeeded Harry Bridges as ILWU International President; Eddie Tangen, former MCS Secretary-Treasurer, became an ILWU organizer in Hawaii; Joe Johnson, who succeeded Tangen, became a leader in the San Francisco longshoremen's local.