Why should Delaware care?
The Port of Wilmington is one of the last anchors of good-paying, blue-collar jobs in Delaware. It also has suffered a string of financial and personnel acrimony over a dramatic six-year period.
Last spring, a judge from the federal agency that oversees labor laws ruled that a prominent Delaware union leader retaliated against a Port of Wilmington worker by preventing him from securing jobs through the longshoremen’s union’s exclusive hiring hall.
A week later, the Delaware union appealed the scathing ruling. The case now sits before a federal appeals court in Philadelphia.
The worker, Stanford Fowler, first filed a retaliation charge with the National Labor Relations Board in 2021, claiming that Bill Ashe — president of the International Longshoremen’s Association Local 1694 — had prevented him from seeking work through the union’s hiring hall.
He claimed it came in retaliation for raising questions about a union merger and a request to switch union locals.
Around that time, the Port of Wilmington was facing major strife, particularly among workers from Fowler’s initial union local who claimed they had been targets of a series of anti-worker maneuvers, Caught up in several of the claims was Ashe, who also serves as a vice president for the international ILA.
Fowler’s legal claim progressed over the subsequent years. In one court document from 2023, an NLRB judge called him “a vocal and prominent dissident member” of the International Longshoremen’s Association.
By April, the NLRB finally issued a decision with a ruling that largely sided with Fowler’s claims. In it, the NLRB judge ordered the union to cease and desist from threatening to bar employees from union work “because they engaged in dissident union activity,” or for “other arbitrary or discriminatory reasons.”
The NLRB also ordered the union to make Fowler whole for any loss of earnings or other benefits suffered when the union failed to refer him for employment.
A week after the ruling, Ashe’s ILA Local 1694 appealed the decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
Ashe declined to comment on the case.
A spokesman for Fowler’s attorney’s firm — the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation — said he believes the union’s appeal “lacks any merit.”
The spokesman, Patrick Semmens, pointed to the initial 2023 decision by the NLRB administrative law judge favoring Fowler, and the April decision that also sided with him.
“Union officials’ arguments have never carried the day in any forum, and we are confident the same will be true in the U.S. Court of Appeals,” Semmens said.
The fate of the case now remains in the hands of the federal appeals court in Philadelphia, which has jurisdiction over Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and the Virgin Islands.
Fowler’s attorney filed an official motion to intervene in the case, which a judge approved last week.
What were the facts of the case?
The alleged retaliation began in 2021 after Fowler wrote a letter to the International Longshoremen’s Association secretary treasurer, expressing concern about securing access to top-notch health benefits after a union merger.
Fowler’s initial union — then called Local 1694-1 — had a health care contract directly with the port operator, GT USA Wilmington. But Ashe’s Local 1694 provided better health benefits through a union sponsored plan. To gain access to the local, Fowler began to work as a so-called casual worker in an attempt to gain full membership.
Later in 2021, Local 1694-1 dissolved and its members, including Fowler, were dispersed into the other Port of WIlmington locals. Despite the reorganization, those workers’ employment remained under the terms of the dissolved union’s contract.
Concerned about his ability to continue accruing hours with Local 1694 after the merger, Fowler challenged the decision to dissolve his local in a letter to national union secretary-treasurer Stephen Knott.
Knott received the letter and then forwarded it on to Ashe.
According to court documents, Ashe and others then confronted Fowler at the hiring hall, telling him he should never write letters to the international union’s leadership, and that they would no longer let him work through their hiring hall.
“From that point on, Ashe interfered with Fowler’s attempts to seek work out of the [union] hiring hall on about 20 occasions,” the NLRB opinion stated.
Later in 2022, after Fowler filed his charge with the NLRB, Ashe reversed his position, according to court documents, telling him he was permitted to seek employment through the local union.
Fowler returned to work in March. But while on the job, he was driving a truck at the port when the vehicle became stuck in a ditch. In response, the port’s operator, GT USA, placed Fowler on administrative suspension until an investigation was complete.
Not knowing he was suspended, according to court documents, Fowler returned to the hiring hall later in the week. He eventually secured a job with a different port company that day. While at work, a union official approached and said he was “barred from the port.” He then called security who escorted him off the facility.
He had not sought work at the port since, according to the NLRB decision.
Fowler subsequently filed an official grievance with the union about his removal from the port, asserting Ashe and Hall were “conspiring” to stop him from working.
Another similar port worker lawsuit against Ashe and the union
Fowler is not the only port worker to claim retaliation by port union officials in recent years.
Donald Zimmerman, a former crane operator and union shop steward, filed a federal lawsuit in September 2022 against the union and Ashe, asserting that he was wrongfully expelled from the union.
The complaint alleges the union and Ashe expelled Zimmerman to prevent him from running for union office and from “interfering with their cozy relationship with GT (port) management.”
The court granted the union’s motion for summary judgment on March 30 , meaning the case will not proceed to trial.
Subsequent court documents stated that the parties reached an agreement to settle the case. Zimmerman’s complaint states that he “could make approximately $200,000 per year” at the Port.
Lance Geren, the union’s attorney, did not respond to a request for comment.
Zimmerman’s lawyers said they have no comment on the case.
According to the lawsuit, Zimmerman, as a shop steward of local 1694-1, “aggressively” filed grievances in 2019 and 2020 to try and force his employer, GT USA, to honor the terms of the collective bargaining agreement with the local 1694-1.
It further claimed the Local 1694-1’s officers “cut side deals” with GT management. In 2020, Zimmerman filed internal charges of neglect of duty against the Ashe and the Local 1694-1 business agent.
Later that year, GT USA fired Zimmerman because of alleged “negligence.”
By December, 2021, the Local 1694-1 executive board voted to take Zimmerman’s grievance to arbitration.
But in March, Ashe and his union withdrew Zimmerman’s grievance from arbitration, after the reorganization of the union locals.
Ashe denied Zimmerman’s request for a vote on the arbitration decision and his petition for the board to reconsider, the complaint alleged.
A June letter from Ashe’s union claimed Zimmerman was ineligible for membership because he was “barred from the Port of Wilmington.”
