Lundeberg, Harry

Lundeberg, Harry (1901–51) labor leader, born in Oslo, Norway. A sailor, he immigrated to the U.S.A. in 1923. He joined the Sailors' Union of the Pacific in 1926 and was a leader of the 1934 San Francisco waterfront strike. He was founder and first president (1938–51) of the Seafarers International Union and led a series of strikes that greatly improved sailors' wages and working conditions. A radical in his early days, he became known as a fierce opponent of Communists in the labor movement but he never gave up wearing the clothes of a working sailor.