…known as “Alaskeros”, circa 1950, The ILWU Story: Six Decades of Militant Unionism, International Longshore and Warehouse Union, 1997.

Processing salmon is a seasonal industry with a transitory workforce, and the long distances between workplaces in Alaska make it even more difficult for workers to organize.

Alaska’s Local 37 traces its roots to CIO cannery workers and to Filipino veterans of the Hawaii sugar strike of 1924. The latter traveled to Alaska to organize salmon processors and became known as the “Alaskeros.”

Though Filipino salmon processors are still a majority of the workforce, there are a growing number of white college students and Hispanic workers in recent years.

See this image in the Images from the Waterfront exhibit.