The Dockworkers' Board Member

A longshoreman on the San Francisco docks, who had been an open member of the Communist Party for more than twenty-five years, was elected to the executive board of his dockworkers' union local for consecutive terms. A federal labour law made it a crime for anyone who was, or within the previous five years had been, a Communist Party member to serve as an officer or executive board member of a labour union. He was indicted for knowingly and wilfully serving on the board while a party member. There was no evidence that he had advocated illegal union activity or proposed political strikes, and the court refused his offer to prove the union had avoided strikes for years. The defence argued the statute was unconstitutional, punishing him for party membership without any showing of wrongdoing in the union.