The openness, visibility and participation of LGBT people in the American labor movement is closely linked to that of the American Gay Rights Movement. But gay activism flourished in a limited way in some sectors of the "house of labor." The National Union of Marine Cooks and Stewards (NUMCS), which represented workers on luxury liners, included among its leaders the openly gay Stephen R. Blair. NUMCS was derided as "red, black and queer" for its leftist politics, racial integration and the large number of gay members. A sign in the union hall proclaimed, "Race-baiting, Red-baiting, and Queer-Baiting is Anti-Union." Blair's life-partner, Frank McCormick, was a vice president of the California Congress of Industrial Organizations and an important leader in the 1934 West Coast longshore strike. Harry Hay was an organizer for the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union in New York City. Attending the Southern California Labor School, he met many of the men who would later become some of the first members of the Mattachine Society, whose initial five members were all union activists.