Woman warehouse worker, 1975, The ILWU Story: Six Decades of Militant Unionism, International Longshore and Warehouse Union, 1997.

For many years women workers in the ILWU were found primarily in the warehouse division and in Hawaii, and women continue to in considerable numbers in both places. However, by the mid 1970s warehouse industry workers suffered the combined effects of runaway shops and automation. As technology advanced, it became easier and easier for owners to move operations away from unionized areas in order to have a low wage workforce.

The work shown in this image would be done by machines instead of by people within five years, as automation of the final packing and shipping of goods increased.

See this image in the Images from the Waterfront exhibit.