Guide to the Shaun Maloney Papers
1932-2000

Shaun Maloney at age 37, Singapore, 1949. Special Collections, UW Libraries, UW21162z

Biographical Note

Shaun Maloney was a fiery union activist and advocate for workers' rights whose involvement in the labor movement spanned eight decades.

Shaun McGillin Maloney was born on Sept. 10, 1911, in Minneapolis. His natural father deserted the family before Maloney's birth. As a youth he was known as John or Jack Severson, adopting the name of his stepfather. He reverted to using Maloney in about 1936 when he was issued a social security card. He was called Shaun by his longshore associates, but remained Jack to those who had a Minnesota connection and John to a handful of relatives.

Maloney was introduced to labor activism and radical politics as a youth. His mother was a fierce Irish nationalist. His stepfather, a Teamster who was blacklisted after an unsuccessful Teamsters strike in 1917, was an early member of the Industial Workers of the World. The Severson home was the scene of frequent Wobblie gatherings.

Maloney left school after the eighth grade. Through the 1920s and early 1930s, he worked driving delivery wagons—initially horse-drawn wagons and eventually trucks. When hauling work was unavailable, he sailed on the Great Lakes and worked in the fields, following the harvest north from the southern plains to the Dakotas. It was during the late 1920s that Maloney joined the Wobblies and his first union, General Drivers, Helpers and Inside Workers Union (Teamsters) Local 574 of Minneapolis. Through his union activities he became acquainted with noted socialists such as Karl Skoglund and V.R. and Miles Dunne.

In May 1934 Local 574, spurred on by a successful strike against area coal companies, began what was to be a long and bitter general trucking strike. Seven weeks into the strike armed police fired into the crowd of strikers. Two strikers were killed and dozens of others, including Maloney, were injured on what came to be known as "Bloody Friday." Martial law was declared and federal mediators were sent in to lead negotiations. The union won the strike and approved a contract in August. Maloney, who was elevated from picket line captain to the negotiation committee after the strike's primary leaders were arrested, appeared on the front page of a local Minneapolis paper casting his vote in favor of the contract.

After the 1934 strikes, Maloney organized truckers in South Dakota, Iowa, and Nebraska. In fall 1937, he joined the drive to organize the then-neglected over-the-road drivers and bring them under a single area contract. As a member of the North Central District Drivers Council, he helped negotiate the first area contract covering an 11-state area and tens of thousands of drivers. The area contract set up the structure that turned the Teamsters from a loose confederation of provincial outposts to a powerful national union.

In the course of a 22-week strike leading up to the contract, a bakery delivery truck traveling across the Iowa-Minnesota border was destroyed, and the company blamed the union. Maloney, who had been assigned to work with Local 383 in Sioux City, Iowa, and several other union organizers closest to the scene were rounded up and charged with interference with interstate commerce. Maloney was convicted and entered the federal penitentiary in Sandstone, Minn., in June 1940.

A draft notice was awaiting Maloney upon his release from prison in Mar. 1942. To avoid fighting in a war that he opposed, Maloney traveled to New York and joined the merchant marine. He found a berth on the SS Samuel Chase, which turned out to be part of a convoy delivering supplies to Murmansk, Russia. Just days after departing from a layover in Iceland, the convoy was attacked and suffered heavy casualties. The Samuel Chase limped into the Russian port of Molotovsk, where she remained for several months and was presumed lost. Of the original 35 vessels of Convoy PQ-17, only three, including the Samuel Chase, survived both the sailing to Russia and the return voyage across the Atlantic.

Maloney returned from Russia in the fall of 1942 and came to the West Coast. After a brief stay in San Francisco, he made his way to Seattle, from where he sailed the relatively safe Alaska run for the duration of the war. After the war Maloney continued sailing throughout the Pacific and took an active part in the Sailors' Union of the Pacific (SUP) until he became involved in the Mahoney Beef in 1949.

John Mahoney was expelled from the SUP in June 1949 for questioning the leadership's attempt to break a strike by the Canadian Seamen's Union, which the leadership viewed as Communist-influenced. Over 30 of his supporters, including Maloney and his half-brother Jim Severson, would be expelled over the course of 12 months. Maloney was not initially part of the so-called Mahoney gang; the collection of a small fund for the family of a deceased shipmate led union leaders to suspect Maloney and his shipmates of financially supporting Mahoney's defense. Maloney became a key member of the Mahoney Defense Committee and helped coordinate the efforts of the expelled sailors who filed suit for reinstatement. The court battles dragged on for several years. Mahoney's case eventually worked its way up to the Washington State Supreme Court, which affirmed the lower court's order of reinstatement. Maloney and his co-plaintiffs also won reinstatement, but were again expelled.

After his expulsion from the SUP, Maloney did not return to sea. He and many of the other expelled sailors found work as longshoremen while contesting their expulsions. Maloney gained membership in the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union in Apr. 1953. With its reputation for militancy and rank-and-file democracy, the longshore union seemed a good fit for Maloney. He quickly became active in Seattle's Local 19. He was elected vice president of the local in 1956, was appointed to the area committee in 1957 and sat on the Executive Board. He frequently opposed positions taken by ILWU President Harry Bridges and was critical of the controversial "Mechanization and Modernization" Agreement of 1960.

In the post-war years, pressure to speed up cargo handling made mechanization an attractive option to shipowners and waterfront employers seeking to increase profitability. Mechanization would naturally result in the loss of waterfront jobs. The longshore union was divided on how to confront this issue. While many members resisted change in the industry, the union leadership concluded that mechanization was inevitable and sought to ameliorate its effects. The M&M agreement allowed shipowners and stevedoring contractors to introduce labor-saving machinery and work practices in return for a guarantee against layoffs and increased wages and benefits.

Maloney was elected president of Local 19 in Dec. 1970 and served five terms, the first person to do so. When Maloney took over as Local 19 president, the ILWU was still dealing with the consequences of the M&M agreement of 1960. Of growing concern to the union was the spread of the employers' practice of hiring "steady men" equipment operators who were assigned work outside the normal dispatch procedure. Contract negotiations were at an impasse, and on July 1, 1971, the longshoremen went on strike. Only after a 134-day strike (interrupted by a court-imposed "cooling off" period) was a settlement reached. The issue of steady men nevertheless remained a source of tension. In the fall of 1972, Local 19 was embroiled in a dispute locally with employers over hiring of steady men crane operators. The waterfront employers hit the union, and Maloney personally, with a lawsuit accusing the union of an illegal work slowdown.

Maloney retired from the ILWU in 1976, but remained active in union affairs. He regularly attended membership meetings and served as an advisor to the more militant wing of the local union membership. He also remained an active figure in the wider labor movement, in which he was better known for his role in the 1934 Teamsters strike. He cultivated a circle of correspondents around the country and campaigned on behalf of union solidarity.

Maloney died in Seattle on Dec. 19, 1999.

Scope and Content

The Shaun Maloney papers document Maloney's involvement in the West Coast maritime and longshore unions as well as the broader labor movement, his World War II service in the merchant marine, his political philosophy and his personal life. Although there is frequent mention of his work with the Teamsters in the 1930s, Maloney's papers from those years are not part of this accession. The collection contains biographical material, correspondence, minutes, financial records, reports, speeches and writings, notes, assorted publications, a limited number of photographs, video and audio cassette tapes, ephemera and clippings.

The "General Correspondence" series, measuring 5 cubic ft., includes newspaper and magazine articles on which Maloney has commented but which never reached their intended recipient. Maloney maintained an extraordinarily wide circle of correspondents. It included his large family, friends and colleagues from his early years in Minnesota, fellow sailors and longshoremen along the Pacific Coast, and successive generations of union activists. During his time at sea, Maloney corresponded with several women in various Asian port cities. The letters cover a period of six decades and touch upon a wide range of topics in often-colorful language. They contained news of family members or mutual friends, the recounting of Maloney's work for the Teamsters, the status of ILWU affairs, and discourses on developments in the labor and socialist movements. Correspondence relevant to the subgroups can also be found in the "General Correspondence" series.

Maloney had several correspondents of note. He maintained a long-running correspondence with Farrell Dobbs. The materials in the collection date from Maloney's time in prison, by which time Dobbs, the leader of the Teamsters' area-wide organizing drive, had left the union to work for the Socialist Workers Party. Their letters contain recollections of Teamsters organizing activities, discussions of current developments in the labor and socialist movements, and updates on mutual acquaintances. Maloney's correspondence with Frank Lovell, another leading socialist whom Maloney knew from the days of the Mahoney Beef, covers similar topics. In his correspondence with Asher Harer, a socialist and San Francisco longshoreman who also opposed the M&M agreement, Maloney and Harer trade opinions on the contract and changes facing the longshore industry.

Other major correspondents include siblings Dorothy Weinreich and Don Severson, fellow Teamsters organizers Lou Miller and Jack Wirth, longshoremen Bob Murray, Art Almeida, and John "Sarge" Ransome, Minnesota labor activist Dave Riehle, and John Mahoney.

Dobbs' reliance on Maloney's sharp memory is evidenced in the "Manuscripts of Others" series, which includes Dobbs' books of Teamster history. The "Speeches and Writings (of Others)" series includes the work of Dobbs, as well as Frank Lovell.

The "Publications" series documents Maloney's wide range of interests and includes everything from transportation industry journals to newsletters from fringe left-wing organizations. The collection retains mostly political and labor publications, many of which are quite obscure, that shed light on Maloney's political sympathies and causes. Some of the more mainstream political, labor and trade publications were separated from the collection and offered to other sections of the Libraries or discarded.

The "Subject Series" materials hint at Maloney's wide range of interests and involvements. Maloney was a self-described revolutionary socialist but never a member of the Communist or Socialist parties. The "U.Com" file contains what appear to be notes taken by Maloney during the 1954 hearings in Seattle of the House Un-American Activities Committee. The "S.W.P-related" and "S.W.P. vs. FBI" files touch on Socialist Worker Party matters. The only organized political movement with which Maloney was affiliated appears to have been Labor Party Advocates and the resulting Labor Party, which is documented in the Labor Party Advocates Subgroup.

Other subject files of interest are "Convoy to Russia," which includes materials recalling Maloney's harrowing voyage to Russia during World War II, and the "Hoffa Film," which contains Maloney's assessment of the accuracy of the biographical film of James R. Hoffa, Teamsters president from 1957 to 1967.

The "Clippings" series represents only a small fraction of such items collected by Maloney, a voracious reader of newspapers and journals from the mainstream press as well as trade and leftist political publishers. The files in the collection include those which were already gathered by subject and those on a very few other representative subjects. Due to volume and lack of organization, the majority of clippings and their photocopies were discarded during processing.

The "Videotapes" series includes recorded interviews with Maloney in which he recalls his early years in Minnesota and his voyage aboard the Samuel Chase. The collection also contains approximately 200 audio cassette tapes, a great many of which are unidentified. They include recorded interviews with Maloney, taped telephone conversations Maloney had with Farrell Dobbs and with Frank Lovell, and recordings of television and radio broadcasts such as the President's State of the Union address.

The Teamsters subgroup contains materials collected by Maloney over the years beginning in the 1950s regarding the Teamsters union. Maloney withdrew from the union in the early 1940s, but he continued to closely follow union developments and supported factions seeking greater democracy within the union in the 1980s and 1990s. The subgroup includes several issues of publications of rival "pro-democracy" factions, Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) and PROD, and newsletters from TDU and its Evergreen Chapter.

The materials in the Sailors' Union of the Pacific (SUP) subgroup date largely from the second half of the 1940s and document Maloney's activism in the union. The "General Correspondence" files include Maloney's reports to the union on conditions at sea. Among the "Miscellany" files is one containing Maloney's ideas for improving conditions for SUP sailors. The jurisdictional disputes between maritime unions in the late 1940s and early 1950s are documented in the assorted maritime union publications, the subject series file "Tonnsina", and a draft by an unknown author of an open letter to SUP members in "Speeches and Writings."

Files generated by Maloney, John Mahoney and others are collectively grouped as the Mahoney Defense Committee subgroup. These materials, which date from the late 1940's to the middle of the 1950s, document the expulsion of Mahoney and his supporters from the SUP and their legal fight to win reinstatement. Among the publications are issues of The Defender, the voice of the Mahoney Defense Committee, and the West Coast Sailors Journal, the paper of the SUP rank and file. The "Case Files" series appears to have been generated by the attorneys handling the suits of the expelled seamen. "Manuscripts of Frank Lovell" includes the history of the Mahoney Beef. The John Mahoney Papers are Mahoney's files that do not relate to the Mahoney Beef, but are related to his work as an SUP patrolman.

The International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU) subgroup is comprised largely of material dating from 1970 and earlier, i.e., prior to his election as Local 19 president. However, for certain series the subgroup contains materials from later time periods to simplify access to them. Agreements, caucus and convention files, ILWU financial reports and Local 19's newsletter, The Hook, for all dates can be found in this subgroup. (It should be noted that there are many gaps, sometimes of several years, in the issuance of The Hook.) Also included in this subgroup are the bound volumes of handwritten minutes of Local 19 from 1941-1946 and 1955-1984 that were found among Maloney's papers.

These materials document Maloney's growing influence in the ILWU. The major correspondent is Martin Jugum, president of Local 19 in the mid-1960s, to whom Maloney suggests courses of action for dealing with the waterfront employers. The Penalty Cargo Subcommittee and Safety Subcommittee subgroups contain materials from his service on these committees in 1967-1968. These committees were charged with negotiating changes in safety rules and rates for penalty cargo.

The government's anti-Communist campaigns in decades following World War II are also recalled. Evidence of the attempt to purge the waterfront of leftists can be found in the "Subject Series" file on Screening. Internal union conflict against this backdrop is documented in the "Transcripts" series, which covers the union trial of an ILWU Local 3 official.

ILWU Local 19 subgroup consists of files created during Maloney's five years as local president. The "General Correspondence," "Minutes," and "Subject Series" files, which retain Maloney's own folder headings, provide a glimpse of the day-to-day operations of the local, as well as the union's response to changes in the industry confronting the union. Documentation of the 1971 coast-wide strike can be found throughout this subgroup. Among the newsletters are strike bulletins from Local 19 and other locals. News articles on the strike are included among the clippings. Minutes of the Joint Local Negotiating Committee relate the progress of negotiations. Files regarding "9.43," the section of the contract dealing with steady men, can be found in "Negotiations" and "Subject Series." Pacific Maritime Association's suit against Local 19 is documented in the "Court Papers" and "Transcripts" files.

The Post-Retirement ILWU subgroup documents Maloney's continuing influence within the union after his retirement in 1976 up until the year before his death. The materials consist largely of photocopies of letters to and from ILWU local and international officials (identified as "Outgoing Letters"), minutes of various longshoremen's meetings, and Maloney's drafts of correspondence and statements which he wrote for his political allies within Local 19. This subgroup also contains a large number of files identified as "Notes." Many of these files include the contents of spiral-bound notebooks in which Maloney used in the last years of his life to write recollections or drafts of letters.

The "Subject Series" files include materials on issues to which Maloney directed his energies post-retirement. They included the issues of the dispatching of casual foremen, Liverpool dockworkers' strike, and the reinstatement of Burt Nelson, a member of Local 19 who was expelled for his political views. On the issues of pension benefits ("SPD/Pension History") and the grievance of Local 19 officials Pat Vukich and Wayne Erickson ("G.P. 1372"), Maloney, in addition to drafting correspondence and statements, collected supporting material that he collated into packets of "evidence."

The Rose Mary Meecham Gordon subgroup consists of seven microcassette tapes and transcripts of interviews with Maloney conducted by Gordon in 1999. In all, Gordon conducted ten interviews. The transcripts include notes of the interviews which were not tape-recorded. The bracketed numbers in the transcripts correspond to locations on the respective microcassette tape. In the interviews Maloney discusses his experiences with the Wobblies, the events leading to the 1934 Teamsters strike, and the battles among the West Coast maritime unions. Also included are the transcripts from an oral history interview of Maloney and his half-brother Don Severson conducted in 1988 by Sal Salerno as part of a project documenting 20th-century radicalism in Minnesota. Maloney discusses working conditions for unskilled laborers in the 1920s, the 1934 Teamsters Strike in Minneapolis, and his union associates from that period. The tabs indicate topics which are covered in Gordon's interviews and stem from her efforts to reconcile inconsistencies between these two sets of interviews and other sources.

Restrictions on Access

Open to all users.

Access to archival recordings: Due to the fragility of archival tape recordings, potential users may be required to arrange for transfer to digital format before the material can be accessed. Please contact Special Collections for further information.

Note: This material is not available for use on Saturdays and holidays.. For general information on our normal business hours, please see our hours of operation listing.

Restrictions on Use

Literary rights to the Shaun Maloney papers have been transferred to the University of Washington.

Acquisition Info

The Shaun Maloney papers were donated by the Maloney estate in Apr. 2000. Prior to their transfer to the University of Washington Libraries, the papers were stored in Maloney's home in the Beacon Hill area of Seattle. The Local 19 minute books that were found among Maloney's papers remain the property of ILWU Local 19.

Materials in the Rose Mary Meecham Gordon subgroup were donated by Ms. Gordon in 2001.

Processing Info

The accession was processed in 2001.

Maloney's papers generally were not neatly organized into clear groupings either by subject or chronology. Much of the older material (including the Mahoney Defense Committee, Local 19, and personal correspondence files) was filed and labeled, but the more recent materials were simply stored loosely without categorization. Maloney's penchant for photocopying (with the intention of sharing the materials with his family and friends) compounded the problem of lack of organization. A large amount of material—dozens of copies of newspaper and magazine articles, correspondence, and union minutes which were "filed" in brown paper copy shop bags—was duplicative. With increasing frequency as Maloney health's deteriorated, the photocopies did not reach their intended recipients and simply piled up. Moreover, documents that were pulled from their files for photocopying often never made it back to their original locations.

In an effort to provide an organizational framework for the papers, subgroups representing labor organizations with which Maloney was involved were created. Because of the large amount of ILWU-related material, it was divided into three subgroups: pre-1970, 1971-1975, and post-1975. In addition to their chronological distinctions, these ILWU subgroups also represent Maloney's differing status vis-à-vis the union during these time periods, namely rank-and-file member, Local 19 president, and retiree. These subgroups are admittedly somewhat artificial. For example, the Teamsters subgroup contains mostly materials relating to the Teamsters, rather than materials generated in the course of Teamsters activities. (The materials from Maloney's work as a Teamsters organizer in the 1930s was separated and offered to the Minnesota Historical Society.) However, the large amount of Teamsters materials, stored in boxes labeled "Teamsters," justified the creation of a Teamster subgroup. Moreover, the chronological divisions are subject to some overlap. During the early 1950s, Maloney was both working as a longshoreman and fighting for reinstatement into the Sailors' Union of the Pacific. He was thus involved in the affairs of both unions.

Similarly, many of the subject series files are subjects that suggested themselves by the groupings of loose papers. Six inches of loose material on the effort to instate Burt Nelson resulted in the creation of a Burt Nelson subject series file. A box of largely loose material on pension benefits was weeded of duplicate material to create a rather large SPD/Pension History subject series. Maloney's own file names are indicated by quotation marks.

Four cartons of audiocassette tapes, which were temporarily held by Ms. Gordon separate from the bulk of the collection, were received late in the finishing stages of processing. Time constraints did not allow for the identification of all the cassette tapes, many of which were unlabelled. A sample of tapes was spot-checked and labeled when the speakers and/or content could be identified. Only a few clearly defective or empty tapes were discarded.

Of the 83 boxes that originally comprised the donation, approximately 25 boxes of duplicate materials were discarded during processing. Also discarded were three cartons of labor arbitrator's decisions. Files from Maloney's presidency of ILWU Local 19 related to individual members' grievances (approximately one carton of material) were returned to Local 19.

Separated Material

In accordance with Maloney's wishes, materials related to his Teamster activities were offered to the Minnesota Historical Society. These materials included files generated while he worked as a union organizer, and correspondence with Farrell Dobbs in his capacity as Teamster official. Dobbs' subsequent correspondence was retained as part of the Maloney Papers at the University of Washington Libraries. Materials related to histories and commemorations of the 1934 Teamsters strike, including dozens of audio cassettes, were also offered to Minnesota, which holds tapes and transcripts of Maloney's 1988 oral history interview.

The publications West Coast Sailor, Washington Teamster, Dispatcher, Progressive Labor, Minority of One, and assorted publications from the Port of Seattle were offered to other units of the University of Washington Libraries.

Inventory