Virginia Port Union Official Resigns After Audit Finds Unauthorized Fund
The business agent for one of six dockworker union offices in the Port of Virginia has resigned and will be removed from other union posts he holds after an internal audit found an “unauthorized and previously undisclosed account,” the port’s top labor official confirmed April 19.
Robert J. Smith III, business agent-financial secretary of International Longshoremen’s Association Local 970, resigned after the audit found that “union funds were deposited and withdrawn allegedly for nonunion purposes,” Thomas Little, international vice president for ILA in Hampton Roads, wrote in an e-mail.
Local 970 has not filed any financial reports with the U.S. Department of Labor for 10 years, according to a spokeswoman.
The amount of money involved could be as much as several hundred thousand dollars, sources familiar with the matter said.
The account was discovered within the past week, and the Norfolk Police Department is investigating. The money that moves in and out of Local 970 comes from union members’ dues and is used to pay for expenses such as rent and salaries of union officers.
“ILA Local 970 is required to file annual financial reports with the U.S. Department of Labor,” wrote Joanna Hawkins, a department spokeswoman. She added that Local 970 has not filed any of the required reports from 2006 through 2015.
“It is unusual for a union to not file for that length of time,” Hawkins wrote in a follow-up e-mail. “To date, there have been no criminal or civil actions against this union.”
The last filing with the Department of Labor by Local 970 was its fiscal 2005 report, received April 12, 2006, department records show. It reported a membership of 559, assets of $598,507, liabilities of $1,561, receipts of $472,546 and disbursements of $378,491.
Smith, who signed the report as treasurer, received a gross salary of $99,683 for the year, along with “disbursements for official business” of $5,281, for a total of $104,964.
Total officer disbursements for the year came to $161,456, the 2005 report says.
Little, the vice president, oversees about 2,100 dockworkers in the port, who are represented by six union “locals” or units, including Local 970, made up of dockworkers who load and unload ships that call on the port.
They, in turn, are part of the New Jersey-based International Longshoremen’s Association, a union whose members include an estimated 15,000 dockworkers at ports from Maine to Texas.
Smith’s office is at the ILA’s complex on Princess Anne Road in Norfolk. Little said Smith will be removed from other positions he holds within ILA.
Those positions include serving as a “labor trustee” on the board of the Hampton Roads Shipping Association-International Longshoremen’s Association Pension and Welfare Funds, which is funded by deductions from dockworkers’ pay and used to cover health and dental benefits, among other things. Those funds are unrelated to those involved in the pending investigation.
Local 970 members are paid by port employers.
They include Virginia International Terminals, the Virginia Port Authority’s operations affiliate, and Ceres and CP&O, stevedoring companies that have a contract to hire workers who load and unload ships at Norfolk International Terminals and Virginia International Gateway, the port’s two largest container facilities.
“Local 970 and the International Longshoremen’s Association are taking every action necessary to determine the extent to which members’ funds have been misappropriated,” Little said.
He said “this unfortunate situation” will not interfere with the ILA’s commitment to serve the Port of Virginia.
