Lundeberg, Harry (1901–1951)

Norwegian-born US labour leader. He joined the Sailors' Union of the Pacific in 1926 and was a leader of the 1934 San Francisco waterfront strike in California. 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 labour movement but he never gave up wearing the clothes of a working sailor. Lundeberg was born in Oslo, Norway. A sailor, he emigrated to the USA in 1923.