October 31, 1955 – The tuna clippers “WEST POINT” & “STAR CREST” were the first two San Diego tunaboats to unload at VAN CAMP SEA FOOD CO. after a 4-MONTH LONG LABOR STRIKE (by AFL Steam Boiler Engineers) ended, and 600 Van Camp employees started work two days later. Demanding wage parity with their peers working in SAN PEDRO, the Engineers secured 52 hours of pay for a guaranteed 48-hour work week at $140.40 per week (for a Chief Engineer – equivalent to $1,360 per week / $5,440 monthly / $65,280 annually today [2021] – ed.), and $122.20 per week for Watch Engineers (equivalent to $1,183 per week / $4,732 monthly / $56,784 annually today [2020] – ed. — *For comparison: the Average Annual Wage in San Diego in 2020 is $77,000,000).
Meanwhile, the HIGH SEAS TUNA CO. Cannery (in Point Loma) also started up it’s boilers for unloading tuna and packing that same day, after having been *CLOSED ALL YEAR* due to a protracted cannery worker’s strike. Four hundred (400) employees returned to their jobs there. – A.T.A. (American Tunaboat Assn.) Mgr. Harold Cary was quoted as saying 26,000 tons of tuna worth more than $7,000,000 (equivalent to $67,770,900 today [2021] – ed.) were IN tunaboat holds when unloading finally began.
*Note: The mid-1950s were very tough years for San Diego’s tuna fishing industry, much of it due to fishermen being undercut by the canneries buying cheaper, imported, tariff-free Japanese (& other nations to a lesser degree) tuna since the late 1940s (quite ironically after American taxpayers helped rebuild that island nation’s economy / tuna industry after defeating them in WWII – ed.).