Unalaska, AK – Employees at Delta Western Fuels elected to join the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Friday afternoon. The outcome of a similar election held Thursday at North Pacific Fuels remains undecided.

All six eligible Delta Western employees voted in favor of unionization, although those results have yet to been certified by the National Labor Relations Board. If certified, the vote would put the fuelers under the same union as the employees of the containerized shipping companies operating out of the harbor, APL and Horizon Lines.

Delta Western and the ILWU have until Friday to file challenges to any of the ballots cast in the election, and Delta Western representatives won't say whether they plan to do that. If the election outcome stands, Delta Western's Dutch Harbor office will be the first of the company's operations to be unionized, and it means the employees here will negotiate a contract with the company for the first time. Brian Bogen, the CEO of Delta Western's parent company, North Star Utilities Group, said he doesn't expect much to change.

"We believe that we have treated our employees very well and fairly for a lot of years in Dutch Harbor, and we would hope we would be able to continue that relationship going forward," he said.

Employees at Delta Western and local ILWU leaders reached today for comment didn't want to speak publicly about what they would be seeking from the company under the contract.

It's a different story at North Pacific Fuels, where five employees voted in favor of joining the ILWU and five voted against, resulting in a tie. Four of those ballots have been challenged, three by the union and one by North Pacific. If the results stand as a tie, the union loses that election. The NLRB will consider the questioned ballots after the challenge period ends, on Thursday.