IFPTE Joins AFL-CIO Maritime Trades Department

IFPTE recently became the latest affiliate of the AFL-CIO’s Maritime Trades Department (MTD), agreeing to affiliate at the MTD 2024 Executive Board meeting on May 2nd. 

The MTD, which was chartered by the AFL-CIO in 1946 to bring unions representing workers in Maritime industries together in solidarity and collaboration, is comprised of unions representing workers in the United States and Canada in the ports and shipyards, on the waterways, and open seas.   

IFPTE Secretary-Treasurer, Gay Henson, was appointed to the MTD executive board to represent IFPTE.  She commented that “our affiliation in the Maritime Trades Department will not only allow IFPTE to work in collaboration with other unions in these critical maritime industries on issues directly impacting our members, including those at the four Navy shipyards and those working at Army Corps of Engineers locks and dams, it will also help to give IFPTE a stronger voice at the top levels of our labor movement concerning maritime policy.  We are honored to be an affiliate.”  

IFPTE was welcomed on board at the meeting by MTD President, David Heindel, and Executive Secretary-Treasurer, Mark Clements, who told IFPTE that, “the whole of the MTD now has your back.”   Read the full MTD press statement here.

Pictured from left to right:  MTD secretary-treasurer, Mark Clements; Sec-Treasurer, Gay Henson; President Matthew Biggs, and MTD president, David Heindel