Recruiting Cleanup Workers--’You Can’t Be Picky’

Tino Castro, president of the Ship Scalers and Painters Local 56 in San Pedro, was asleep when he got a call at 2 a.m. Sunday saying that there had been an oil spill in Santa Monica Bay and more than 300 workers were needed for emergency cleanup.

From the two phones in the small local’s office, Castro and his staff started calling union members and other workers who had been given the required federal safety training to help mop up an oil spill.

But as the buses rolled toward the beach, Castro estimated that only three-quarters of the workers on board had any safety training at all. Many were relatives of workers, or friends out of work.

“You have to realize that if you just have so much time to get these people, a lot of times you can’t be picky,” Castro said. “But if they’re not trained, for one day I don’t think it’s gonna hurt nobody.”

Last year, scores of untrained laborers were about to work around cancer-causing toxins when they were called to mop up the Orange County coastline after the massive Huntington Beach oil spill, according to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). OSHA officials stopped them before they began work.

OSHA cited Chempro Environmental Services, one of the cleanup contractors, for failing to provide training and proper gear for workers in that incident. Most of the workers called to the spill site Sunday worked for Chempro.

“Everyone out there has had a minimum of eight hours and some have had up to 64 (hours of training),” said Bill Sheffield, Chempro operations manager, when asked about his workers’ abilities Sunday afternoon.

When told that some of the workers had said they were not trained, Sheffield said he was unaware of that. He added that it was the union’s responsibility to assure that workers were trained. The union is a unit of the International Longshoreman and Warehousemen’s Union.

No oil reached Dockweiler State Beach near the oil spill Sunday, and workers spent the day clearing the sand of litter to which oil might adhere. Had winds carried oil onto the beaches earlier, Sheffield acknowledged, Chempro would not have had enough boots for all workers until noon. Those workers without boots would not have been allowed to work with oil, he said.

Chempro is a division of the oil and timber company Burlington Resources Inc.

Some workers on the beach said the only training they had was a 20-minute talk on the buses on the way in from San Pedro. Others said that they had several hours of instruction. Those with more experience said they tried to help “the new ones.”

“Some are not experienced, it’s their first time out,” said Brenda Ortiz, 18, a senior at San Pedro High School, who said her whole family works cleaning up chemical spills. “It’s (the work) not something you can depend on. But I do it for the money.”

The workers are paid $8 to $16 an hour, depending on training, experience and union status, officials said.

Ortiz said she worked the Huntington Beach spill and believes conditions have improved since then. When she worked last year’s spill, she said, she had to translate instructions for Spanish-speaking workers.

Since then, Ortiz said, Chempro has hired some Spanish-speaking supervisors, some of whom gave quick brushup courses on the buses Sunday. Ortiz said proudly that she had received eight hours of training and frequently works cleaning oil spills on tankers, refineries and other sites.

“Most of us know what we’re doing,” Long Beach construction worker Hector Vazquez said, adding that he and other experienced workers would help the newcomers stay away from dangerous substances.

By late afternoon, the crews at Dockweiler had not only removed all litter from the beach, but virtually all visible shells as well, leaving the sand impeccable.

Sheffield said the cleanup was more than make-work; any debris left on the beach would have to be removed if covered with oil.

Times staff writer Larry B. Stammer contributed to this story.