The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) is a labor union which primarily represents dock workers on the West Coast of the United States, Hawai'i and Alaska.;and also in British Coulumbia Canada it also represents hotel workers in Hawai'i, cannery workers in Alaska and warehouse workers throughout the West. The union was established through the 1934 West Coast longshore strike, a three month-long strike that culminated in a four day general strike in San Francisco and the Bay Area.

The 1934 West Coast longshore strike

Longshoremen on the west coast ports had either been unorganized or represented by company unions since the years immediately after World War I, when the shipping companies and stevedoring firms had imposed the open shop after a series of failed strikes. Longshoremen in San Francisco, then the major port on the coast, were required to go through a hiring hall operated by a company union, known as the "blue book" system for the color of the union's membership book.