Locked-Out Workers Picket West Berkeley Store

They picketed the business last week and said they will be there again today (Tuesday).

“Powder can get into the air and cause chemical pneumonia and skin rashes,” Wilson told the Daily Planet on Monday.

The workers left the building and owners Lawrence Grown and Christa Rybczynski then locked them out.

Metro Lighting owners, however, said the concern about drum cleaning was insincere. The workers were looking for a way to assert the union, Grown told the Daily Planet.

Grown said he called in the city of Berkeley’s toxics department (which looks more at records than at worksite operations) and called both California Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the manufacturer. None of them said the way the drum was cleaned could present a health hazard, he said.

The dispute is not over the cleaning issue but over wages and union questions, Grown said.

Six of the seven workers, according to Wilson, have declared themselves unionized, a part of the Industrial Workers of the World, something they say is legally binding without a National Labor Relations Board election or a simpler card check, where a majority of workers sign cards to become unionized. (The employer must agree to a card check.)