Rare When the Employer Wants the Mail Ballot for a Union Election

Here’s a role reversal. In a Region 19 election, the employer asked for a mail ballot and the union demanded an in-person vote. The Regional Director sided with the employer.

Foss Maritime runs tug and mooring operations out of Seattle and Tacoma. The Inlandboatmen’s Union (an ILWU affiliate) petitioned to represent a tiny unit — six line superintendents, three per port, 30 miles apart. Nobody fought over the unit. The only dispute was how to run the vote.

Normally the script runs the other way. Since the pandemic, unions have generally pushed for mail ballots — a longer voting window and more time to work the room — while employers push for manual elections held on company time. Manual voting tends to mean higher, more informed turnout. So a union asking for in-person voting is worth a second look.

The reason is in the schedules. Per the decision, these six rotate “two days on, four days off,” one person covering each shift, and when they’re on they’re “on call” — they can be pulled to a pier up to 20 minutes away to handle a mooring that runs 2.5 hours. So a manual poll might find an empty room.

The standard is San Diego Gas & Electric. A Regional Director can order mail ballots when voters are “scattered” by geography or by schedule, and the Board weighs the efficient use of its own resources. The RD found the on-call rotation scattered the voters in time and that staffing two polling sites 30 miles apart for maybe two voters wasn’t a good use of agency staff. Mail ballot it was.

The takeaway: the method of election is discretionary, fact-driven, and worth fighting over before the ballots issue. Which way the ballots go often shapes who wins. Don’t sleep on it.