The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled Feb. 15 that Marine Spill Response Corp. must recognize and bargain with the IBU, which represents the oil spill responders who protect the Southern California coast.
The responders joined the IBU in 1998 when they worked for Clean Coastal Waters, a local company that had handled oil spill response from Point Dume to the Mexican border since 1972. MSRC took over Clean Coastal in July 2004 and hired all but one of its employees. The workers demanded then that MSRC recognize the IBU. MSRC refused.
"MSRC told us repeatedly to take our case to the NLRB when we were demanding recognition," IBU member Garrick Gilham said. "We did what they asked and we prevailed."
Now the company needs to walk its talk, IBU Southern California Regional Director Pete Korody said.
"In a letter to me dated July 15, 2004, MSRC CFO Doug Ferrari wrote, ‘We will work with you in submitting this matter to the National Labor Relations Board for resolution in an expedited manner,’" Korody said.
After a three-day hearing in December 2005, NLRB Administrative Law Judge John McCarrick decided MSRC was a legal "successor" to Clean Coastal, because it continued offering the same service using most of the same people and equipment. Labor law requires legal successors to recognize and bargain with the unions in place at the companies they take over.
The responders at MSRC have repeatedly backed up their recognition demand with action. In September 2004, 15 of the 20 people then in the bargaining unit signed on to a petition stressing their desire for representation. Everyone who was at work Sept. 13 hand-delivered it to management. Just 10 days later, MSRC workers rallied with labor, political and community leaders in front of MSRC’s Long Beach offices. MSRC didn’t budge for months. In late June 2005, the responders walked off the job in a five-day unfair labor practice strike.
With the NLRB ruling in hand, the workers took another signed recognition petition to management Feb. 27, 2006. MSRC Southern California manager Ray Nottingham would only say that he would forward it to "the appropriate people" in the company.
—Marcy Rein
