Organizing Lobstermen

A union that boosts boat crews’ bargaining power offers a model for the gig economy

- David Rocks

Lobstering is an inherently individualistic pursuit. Most boats are crewed by just two or three people, and some captains go it alone. They leave harbor before dawn, spend the day hauling traps up from the seafloor, then motor back to the dock to sell the creatures for the best price they can get. It’s hard work that draws rugged, self-reliant people—in other words, not your typical union members.

That’s what makes Local 207—the only lobstering union in the US—so unusual. The decade-old group in Maine represents about 200 lobstermen (as men and most women in the business call themselves). The union members own three 18-wheel trucks, a pair of smaller vehicles for hauling the crustaceans from wharves, and a so-called tank room—a warehouse packed with tubs of refrigerated ocean water in which the lobsters spend a final few days in something resembling their home environment before reaching their ultimate fate: a quick plunge into a vat of boiling water. “We work for the fisherman,” says Jason Rizzitano, manager of the tank room near Bar Harbor.

The lobster union offers a potential model for gig economy workers seeking to push back against large companies that siphon off the bulk of profits in many trades, says Rebecca Lurie, a professor of labor studies at the City University of New York. By working together, such groups have organized Uber drivers, home healthcare workers, and cable-internet technicians. Moreover, they can get a big boost from organized labor, which “offers unparalleled support, as well as an air of legitimacy,” she says.