Labor Agreements in the West Coast Fishing Industry: Restraint of Trade or Basis of Industrial Stability?

Abstract

In the West Coast commercial fishing industry, a problem of serious import has arisen, in recent years, pertaining to the legal status of fishermen and their right to bargain collectively. Although the questions that are here raised are applicable to other fishing areas as well, the problem has been intensified and more sharply defined on the West Coast by the much greater development of trade unionism in the industry. The unions involved allege that approximately 90% of the West Coast boat fishermen are covered by some form of labor agreement-price agreements or working agreements; yet a basic determination of the propriety and legality of such agreements under the particular circumstances of the industry has still to be achieved. The central question to be settled is whether the relationship between fishermen and the cannery operators or wholesale fish dealers for whom they may be fishing is essentially that of employees to employers or that of independent vendors to buyers. In this article the problem will be treated in three interrelated phases: (1) a discussion of the available facts of the actual relationships between the parties; (2) an examination of the rather confused and largely indeterminate status of these relationships in the current application of pertinent laws; and (3) a consideration from an industrial relations point of view as to how the relationships should be regarded. (Author's abstract courtesy EBSCO.)