Unalaska, AK – Three months after the Teamsters unsuccessfully tried to unionize them, employees at two local fuel providers will vote on whether they want to organize under a different union.

Later this month, elections will be held at North Pacific Fuel and Delta Western Fuels, in which employees will decide whether they want to join the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. Six Delta Western employees in Dutch Harbor are eligible for membership.

The Teamsters had attempted to organize employees at North Pacific over the past two years and employees at Delta Western for two weeks earlier this year. Some pro-union employees at North Pacific picketed that business following disagreements over contract negotiations with the company in late February and early March, and the protest later spread to Delta Western. But the Teamsters' efforts ultimately fizzled, at which point the ILWU's Jan Gilbrecht said the longshoremen's union decided to step in.

"It was our advice to them that they go with the Teamsters, since they would then have more solidarity as fuelers," she said. "And now the Teamsters have pulled out, [so] both fuel units are now looking for the ILWU to represent them."

Fourteen people work for Delta Western in Dutch Harbor, and in March eight of them were eligible for union membership. This time around, there are two fewer eligible employees, and what exactly happened to one of them has sparked a confrontation between the ILWU and the company in the run-up to the union election.

Sol Hazen, a truck driver, was fired by Delta Western in April. Although Hazen couldn't be reached for comment today, Gilbrecht said Hazen was told he was being fired for calling in sick with a hangover. But Hazen was also a Teamsters and ILWU organizer, and Gilbrecht doesn't buy Delta Western's explanation for his termination, which happened days after he and other pro-union employees petitioned for this month's election.

"It's our belief that they really fired Sol to silence a union supporter and try to scare the other workers away from voting for the union," she said.

Hazen's position has since been filled by a contract employee, who isn't eligible for union representation, and the ILWU has filed a petition over the incident with the National Labor Relations Board.

Brian Bogen, CEO of North Star Utilities Group, of which Delta Western's is a part, was in the Dutch Harbor office today, and ILWU members staged a demonstration outside during his visit. Bogen described Hazen's firing as a confidential personnel matter, but defended the company's actions.

"We believe that we took a very appropriate course of action to deal with an issue we had inside of the organization," he said. "And if it is deemed that we did something inappropriate, we'll fix it. We don't believe it will be, but if it is we'll take care of it."

Union elections will be held at both Delta Western and North Pacific on June 22.

[Correction: KIAL originally reported in this story that the Teamsters had attempted to organize employees at North Pacific and Delta Western in late February and early March. While that is true of negotiations at Delta Western, the Teamsters had been in discussions with North Pacific employees in Dutch Harbor for more than two years. The story has been changed to reflect the correction.]