Unalaska, AK – The International Longshore and Warehouse Union experienced a pair of setbacks on Thursday in its attempts to organize Dutch Harbor's two biggest fuel providers. A final tally of ballots cast by North Pacific Fuel employees in a union election last week ended up in an 8-6 vote against joining the ILWU. Meanwhile, according to union representatives, Delta Western Fuels has filed an objection to Friday's election there, which resulted in a unanimous pro-union vote.

The text of the objection submitted to the National Labor Relations Board, which oversaw the elections, wasn't available today, and executives at Delta Western didn't return calls for comment. According to ILWU organizer Jan Gilbrecht, who had seen the complaint, Delta Western had two grievances about the election, one having to do with pamphlets distributed by the ILWU and the other alleging misconduct by the NLRB representative who ran the Dutch Harbor election.

"They're alleging that [the misconduct] was so bad, it affected the outcome of the vote," she said. "And when you've got every single person voting for the union, that's a little hard to prove."

Following the election at North Pacific, the ILWU challenged three of the ballots cast and the company challenged a fourth. The remaining 10 ballots were split evenly for and against union membership. But both the union and the company withdrew their challenges on Thursday, resulting in the 8-6 vote against membership.