Bresgal v. Brock, US District Court for the District of OR

The DOL will refer back to a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision from 1987, Bresgal v. Brock, as the origin of the phrase “forest fire fighting” in Fact Sheet #63. With the duty of an appellate court being only to affirm, reject, or remand a decision from a lower court, we must first look at the original case heard in US District Court in Oregon, that was decided in 1986. The plaintiffs were the Northwest Forest Workers Association and individual migrant agricultural workers who have worked in forestry on a seasonal basis. They sued the Secretary of Labor to cease refusing to enforce the MSPA on forestry workers. The ruling was in favor of the plaintiffs, resulting in a declaratory judgment reading, “Defendant has a mandatory duty to enforce the MSPA, as to recruiting, soliciting, hiring, employing, furnishing or transporting any migrant or seasonal workers as tree planters, thinners, and other forest laborers”, and an injunctive relief reading:

“Secretary of Labor William Brock and his successors in office are enjoined to cease refusing to enforce the MSPA as to forestry work and to take the following actions in addition to other appropriate enforcement actions: 

(1) Integrating forestry work into the U.S. Department of Labor's Coordinated Enforcement Plan, when the Plan is next reviewed by the Department; 

(2) Amending the regulations implementing the MSPA to reflect that the MSPA applies to forestry work, within 180 days after entry of this judgment; and 

(3) Informing the U.S. Department of Agriculture (including the U.S. Forest Service) and of the Interior (including the Bureau of Land Management), and all persons on the lists maintained by the National Forests and the Bureau of Land Management of bidders on contracts for forestry work, that the MSPA applies to forestry work, by providing copies of this judgment and injunction or otherwise, within 90 days after entry of this judgment.” 

There is no mention of wildland fire in neither the declaratory judgment nor the injunctive relief, nor in the entirety of the published opinion, leading to the conclusion that, while the application of the MSPA to forestry was being tried, extension of that application to wildland fire contractors was not.

Applicability to Wildland Fire 

Fact Sheet #63 – Not Applicable 

29 CFR 500 – Not Applicable 

29 USC 1801 et seq. – Not Applicable 

Bresgal V. Brock – US District Court Oregon – Not Part of Trial