Inlandboatmen wage 36-hour strike at McCall Oil


Workers at McCall Oil and Chemical returned to work Dec. 6 following a 36-hour strike in response to a National Labor Relations Board complaint against the company for bargaining in bad faith.

The 11 workers at the plant at 5480 NW Front Ave, Portland, voted unanimously last March to join the Inlandboatmen’s Union, the marine division of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. But after 11 rounds of negotiations, talks went nowhere.

“At one of the bargaining sessions we were evicted; they threw us out. And we’ve just proceeded on from there until it’s culminated at this point,” union member Charlie Finger told reporters.

“The NLRB has issued a complaint that includes four counts for the company’s behavior at the table and behavior at the workplace,” said Mike Conradi, a patrolman and business agent for the Inlandboatmen’s Union. “We took three counts to the NLRB, and they wanted to enlarge it to a fourth count to include their behavior at the workplace.”

McCall serves as a transfer station for petroleum products where oil, asphalt and other petrochemical products move between barges, rail and truck.

The workers walked off the job at midnight Dec. 5, where they were cheered by nearly 100 supporters. They returned to work 36 hours later.


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