Cornelio

MEMORANDUM *

Twenty-three employees who worked as fish processors aboard the S/S Ocean Phoenix petition for review of a decision by the National Labor Relations Board (“Board”) concluding that, as seamen, petitioners were not entitled to engage in a shipboard work stoppage in defiance of the captain’s orders. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 29 U.S.C. § 160 (f), and we deny the petition.

We are bound by Southern Steamship Co. v. NLRB, 316 U.S. 31 , 62 S.Ct. 886 , 86 L.Ed. 1246 (1942). In that case, the Supreme Court held that the Board lacked authority to order an award of reinstatement and backpay to seamen who engage in a strike or work stoppage. As the Court explained, “[w]e cannot ignore the fact that the strike was unlawful from its very inception. It directly contravened the policy of Congress.... Consequently, and despite the initial unfair labor practice which caused the strike, we hold that the reinstatement provisions of the order exceeded the Board’s authority....” Id. at 48 , 62 S.Ct. 886 .

In reaching this conclusion, the Court emphasized that “[e]ver since men have gone to sea, the relationship of master to seaman has been entirely different from that of employer…