Archives West Finding Aid

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.