ILWU Secretary-Treasurers Conference meets in Portland
The ILWU Secretary-Treasurers Conference brought together over 80 ILWU members, officers, and staff responsible for local finances to Portland, February 15-19, for a five-day training organized by the ILWU’s Education Department. T
The conference featured interactive exercises and expert-led presentations to help participants understand their legal and ethical responsibilities to safeguard membership dues, as well as their obligations under federal labor law and local and International union constitutions. The conference emphasized the importance of open and transparent financial practices so members can see that their dues money is fully accounted for and properly spent.
Topics included labor laws regulating union governance, transparency, and democratic accountabilPostmaster: Send address changes to The Dispatcher, 1188 Franklin St., San Francisco, CA 94109-6800. ity; internal control measures and bookkeeping practices; ongoing oversight by elected trustees; budgeting; maintaining union records; cybersecurity threats and precautions; and a union’s legal obligations as an employer. The conference also covered conducting local union elections properly, laws regulating the use of political action funds, bonding requirements for staff and officers managing union funds, and the proper management of current and archival union records.
Expert speakers
Speakers at the conference included legal experts and experienced secretary-treasurers: ILWU Secretary-Treasurer Ed Ferris, ILWU Canada Secretary-Treasurer Bob Dhaliwal, ILWU General Counsel Lindsay Nicholas, Coast Longshore Division General Counsel Kirsten Donovan, Local 142 Secretary-Treasurer Michael Victorino, Local 5 Secretary-Treasurer Ryan Takas, Local 18 Secretary-Treasurer Rena Way, Alaska Longshore Division Secretary-Treasurer Darryl Tseu, and ILWU Education Director, Librarian, and Archivist Robin Walker.
Welcome from Secretary-Treasurer Ferris
The conference began on Sunday evening with a short program and a welcome by ILWU International Secretary-Treasurer Ed Ferris, who thanked the presenters. Ferris said he attended the conference in 2013, and it helped him develop as an officer in Local 10 and played an important role in his leadership journey to become International Secretary-Treasurer.
Ferris shared three principles that have served him well as a secretary-treasurer for a local union and the ILWU International:
- Transparency: Be transparent with union finances to build trust and reduce internal division.
- Do the Right Thing: Administer union funds according to the constitution and laws, recognizing that the union’s money belongs to the membership.
- “No.” is a complete sentence: Be prepared to say no when necessary, even if it’s uncomfortable.
Landrum-Griffin Act
One of the conference’s objectives was to ensure that participants clearly understood the rules and laws governing labor unions, union officers, and officials. ILWU General Counsel Lindsay Nicholas spoke about local union constitutions and the law. She highlighted the 1959 Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA, also known as the Landrum-Griffin Act), which oversees the internal operations of private-sector unions. Her discussion focused on key aspects of union governance under the LMRDA, such as a “Bill of Rights” for union members, financial reporting requirements, fiduciary duties, regulation of officer elections and trusteeships, and the law’s practical effects on union officers and members. The session also addressed internal governance practices, including maintaining current constitutions, procedures for adopting amendments, and organizing resolutions for easy reference.
International Constitution
The next session covered the ILWU International Constitution, the responsibilities and duties of local unions and affiliates, and the rules governing International conventions and elections for local unions and the International. The ILWU is composed of voluntarily affiliated, autonomous local unions. Each local manages its own affairs but must adhere to ILWU affiliation requirements. Locals are required to establish their own governance policies, but these cannot conflict with the ILWU International Constitution.
Fiduciary responsibility
The next two sessions emphasized the importance of open and transparent financial practices to ensure dues money is fully accounted for and properly spent. Nicholas conducted a session on the fiduciary duties of union officers and, in some cases, union staff under the LMRDA, highlighting their ethical and legal duty to act in the best interests of the union’s membership. The session defined who is considered a fiduciary, outlined their core responsibilities, and stressed the need for strong internal financial controls to prevent conflicts of interest and potential personal or criminal liability. It also included hypothetical scenarios to explore the complexities of financial decisions, emphasizing adherence to local union and International constitutions, obtaining membership approval for uncertain expenditures, and maintaining transparency.
The role of union trustees
Local 142 Secretary-Treasurer Michael Victorino, Local 18 Secretary-Treasurer Rena Way, and Local 5 Secretary-Treasurer Ryan Takas participated as panelists in a session that focused on the role of trustees within local unions, the financial oversight processes, policies used to ensure accountability, strategies for building a culture of trust and transparency, and practical approaches for engaging and training trustees. The speakers compared structures across large and small locals, described approval and audit processes, shared challenges, and offered specific practices, such as introducing stress tests into the auditing process and rigorous review of receipt and voucher procedures.
Cybersecurity threats
The cybersecurity session provided an overview of common threats and concrete practices unions could adopt to reduce the risk of a cybersecurity breach, emphasizing layered security such as two-factor authentication, firewalls, data encryption, regular security audits, vigilance, awareness of phishing scams, and rapid responses to security breaches. The session also covers common cyberattack types, how to respond to a cyberattack, and how to investigate system compromises. Nicholas also discussed several real-world scenarios in which labor unions have been targeted by sophisticated cyberattacks.
Union record keeping
Education Director Robin Walker presented on union recordkeeping and compliance under the LMRDA and the Department of Labor’s Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS), as well as obligations for ILWU locals under the International Constitution. The presentation explained which financial and governance records to retain, retention timelines, common OLMS violations and remedies through improved procedures and documentation, asset and liability tracking, digital recordkeeping and data backup, and records custody during officer transitions. Local union dues and International per capita
The final session on the first day covered the legal rules and requirements for union dues increases, initiation fees, and assessments under the LMRDA and International per capita under the ILWU constitution. The session included a group exercise in which participants calculated per capita for a hypothetical local. Labor-Management Relations Act
The second day began with a discussion on reporting requirements and prohibited union expenditures and transactions under the 1947 Labor-Management Relations Act (LMRA, also known as the Taft-Hartley Act), led by Lindsay Nicholas. The session included a brief overview of LMRA’s purpose and goals.
Combatting fraud
The conference also tackled the hard lessons of fraud. It featured a panel discussion that openly addressed rare cases in which local union officers or staff abused the trust of the membership. The ILWU has a strong record of protecting members’ dues from fraud and misuse. However, over the years, a few isolated incidents occurred in some locals. These challenging case studies were discussed so others could learn from them.
The panel included ILWU Canada Secretary-Treasurer Bob Dhaliwal, Alaska Longshore Division Secretary-Treasurer Darryl Tseu, and Local 5 Secretary-Treasurer Ryan Takas. They shared firsthand accounts of financial misconduct they encountered, including reimbursement fraud and embezzlement. They discussed the methods of fraud, identified failures that enabled them, and the extensive remedial actions taken to recover funds and prevent future incidents.
Federal and state reporting requirements
Nicholas led a session covering federal reporting, bonding, and compliance requirements for labor unions under the LMRDA. It also included an in-depth discussion on bonding requirements, including what a bond is, who must be bonded, and how to calculate the amount, electronic filing procedures, deadlines, and the legal responsibility of officers who sign the reports. Beck objectors
The last session of the day focused on the legal requirements and procedures stemming from the Supreme Court’s 1984 CW v Beck decision, and the rules governing Beck objectors in private sector unions including the distinction between representational and non-representational expenses, the procedural obligations for unions, and the rights and responsibilities associated with handling Beck objectors. Budget workshop
The next day began with a practical budgeting workshop led by Secretary-Treasurer Ferris. He stressed the importance of budgeting for union finances and explained the International’s comprehensive budgeting process, which involves analyzing past expenses, forecasting future needs, and considering factors such as inflation, salary increases, and benefit costs. He also highlighted the need to maintain a reserve fund equal to at least six months of operating expenses.
After the introduction, Robin Walker guided attendees through a hands-on exercise where participants acted as the secretary-treasurer of a fictional local and drafted an annual budget based on provided financial data.
The final three sessions included a presentation by Coast Longshore Division General Counsel Kirsten Donovan, who discussed the union’s obligations as an employer and provided an overview of federal and state employment laws, including those related to anti-discrimination, harassment, and other employer obligations. This was followed by an overview of local union officer elections, focusing on federal regulations and practical guidelines from the OLMS. The final lecture of the day covered campaign finance laws and procedures governing Political Action Committees (PACs).
Final project
The week ended with a nine-step trustee audit where attendees worked in groups to apply the skills and knowledge they acquired throughout the conference to audit the books of a fictitious union local.
Participant reactions
Several participants said the conference covered a lot of important material and was organized in a way that made it easier to understand. Newly elected Local 28 Secretary-Treasurer Jennifer Racine said she now has a better grasp of her responsibilities. “There’s a lot more to the role of secretary-treasurer than I thought there was in the beginning. I’m glad that I came here and learned this. There is a lot to learn, and I am very appreciative of how well laid out the information was,” she said.
“I liked that it was really broken down into sections,” added Local 142’s Rhonda Morris. “It was a really good week. It was very easy to learn, and it was organized in a way that all of us who are not naturally into finances could understand it.”