William James Bailey (January 23, 1910 – February 27, 1995)[1] was an Irish-American Communist Party labor activist who fought in the International Brigades of the Republican Army during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939).
Motivated by his desire to fight poverty, he joined the Marine Workers Industrial Union (MWIU) in 1932 and the Communist Party in the same period.
After the 1934 West Coast Waterfront Strike, the MWIU disbanded and Bailey joined the International Seamen's Union (ISU).
Bailey fled Hawaii to avoid being charged with criminal syndicalism for his role in the strike, which likely would have landed him in prison for life.
[7] Bailey's autobiography, The Kid from Hoboken, was written with Lynn Damme and published in San Francisco by Circus Lithographic Prepress in 1993.
Bailey was featured in the film documentaries Seeing Red (1983) and The Good Fight: The Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War (1984).