John Daggett

General Vice President, Atlantic Coast District, International Longshoremen’s Association

Vice President, ILA Local 1804-1

Port Administrator, ILA Port of Discovery

John Daggett is General Vice President of the Atlantic Coast District, International Longshoremen’s Association, and Vice President, ILA Local 1804-1, ILA. He was unanimously re-elected to that post in July 2023.

He was named ACD General Vice President in late 2020 to fill the unexpired term of William Bernard Dudley, who had passed away. Daggett had served for almost a decade as ACD Vice President prior to the ACD Executive Board appointing him District General Vice President. John Daggett was first elected Business Agent of Local 1804-1 in 2011. In 2020, John Daggett was elected Vice President, ILA Local 1804-1.

John Daggett also holds the title of Port of Discovery Administrator with the International and Local 1804-1, ILA.

A New Jersey native and a fourth generation ILA member, Daggett is a 28-year veteran with the ILA, beginning his longshoring career in 1995 with Universal and as a member of ILA Local 1804-1. His longshore career included working in TIR, terminal maintenance and crane department.

He became an assistant hiring agent in 1998.

Daggett continued his elevation in the ILA with his appointment as Office Manager at Local 1804-1.

He would also become Administrator for the Port of Discovery in the Port of New York and New Jersey. As Administrator, John Daggett developed modernized tracking systems for containers that initially protected and increased job opportunities for his local membership and in later years, become the model used by the International Longshoremen’s Association.

In 2011, John Daggett was first elected Business Agent/Sergeant-At-Arms with his Local 1804-1 and elected to the Executive Board with the Atlantic Coast District, ILA. The ACD represents ports on the Atlantic Coast District from Maine to Virginia, Canadian and U.S. Great Lakes ports; Eastern Canada, Puerto Rico, and the Bahamas.

For over two decades, John Daggett has served as Wage Scale Delegate and Convention Delegate with ILA Local 1804-1, and a key negotiator in Collective Bargaining Agreements between ILA maintenance workers and Metropolitan Marine Maintenance Contractors’ Association, Inc.

For the past two ILA Master Contract negotiations in 2012 and 2018, John Daggett served on the ILA-USMX twenty-man negotiating committee that built the framework for two landmark agreements that were passed overwhelmingly by ILA membership from Maine to Texas.

As a young and progressive labor leader, John Daggett has been instrumental in introducing and advancing the ILA to use new communication methods to better reach members. These include video production and social media.

In 2014, John Daggett was awarded the Labor Heritage Award from the Irish Echo Newspaper where he was named one of 50 Top Irish Labor Leaders in America. He received the 2018 Maritime Industry “Good Scout Award” by the Boy Scouts of America.

John Daggett is the son of the current ILA International President Harold J. Daggett. John’s brother, Dennis is International Executive Vice President and President of ILA Local 1804-1. His sister Lisa Bess Daggett. is part of the International Executive Staff and serves as Welfare Fund Liaison.

John Daggett currently resides in Sparta, New Jersey with his wife Bridget and their two children, Ava Elizabeth, and Johnny Joseph.

July 2023