Manila's waterfront used to be run by a combination of the tough Union de Obre-ros Estivadores de Filipinas (U.O.E.F.) and certain employers and politicians who played ball with U.O.E.F. The union capataces (work-gang leaders) collected money from the shippers, paid off the workers themselves. In the days when there were as many as 25 ships in the harbor, the capataces' rake-off amounted to $25,000 a week.
The U.S. Air Force was the first to buck the U.O.E.F. successfully. In 1949 it insisted that workers unloading cargoes for Clark Field should be paid...
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