Dennis A. Daggett

Executive Vice President, International Longshoremen’s Association, AFL-CIO
President, Local 1804-1, ILA, AFL-CIO
General Coordinator, International Dockworkers Council

Dennis A. Daggett was unanimously re-elected to a third four-year as Executive Vice President of the International Longshoremen’s Association, AFL-CIO, at the union’s International Convention held in July 2023. He was first elected to this position in July 2015.

Daggett also serves as President of Local 1804-1, International Longshoremen’s Association, AFL-CIO. He has served as Chief Negotiator for the ILA-Metropolitan Marine Maintenance Contractors’ Association, Inc. negotiations since 2005. Daggett has also served on ILA-USMX Wage Scale committees since the mid-1990s.

In November 2019, Daggett was overwhelmingly elected General Coordinator of the world-wide International Dockers’ Council (IDC) at their Eighth General Assembly held in Lisbon, Portugal. In this position, Daggett leads the IDC which represents more than 100,000 affiliated members from over 92 docker unions in 41 countries around the world.

Daggett led the campaign in 2011 for the ILA to affiliate with the worldwide IDC to further strengthen solidarity with Dockers unions around the world.
Prior to his ILA election in 2015 to one of the top Executive leadership positions in the 85,000-member union, Daggett had served four years as President of the Atlantic Coast District, International Longshoremen’s Association, AFL-CIO. He was first elected to a four-year term as Secretary-Treasurer of the ILA’s Atlantic Coast District in 2007.

A fourth-generation member of his family to work in the longshore industry, Dennis Daggett followed the path of his great-grandfather to the New York-New Jersey waterfront. Dennis Daggett is the oldest son of Harold J. Daggett, who currently is in his fourth term as the ILA’s International President. Dennis’ paternal grandfather and great-grandfather were ILA members working as longshoremen in the Port of New York and New Jersey.

Dennis Daggett’s own longshoring career began when he was employed in container repair for Maersk Line with Universal Maritime Service Corporation in Port Newark, NJ. With his ILA local, Daggett was elected Business Agent in December 2000.

On the International level, Dennis Daggett previously was Safety Director for the ILA, a position he was first appointed to in December 1997 by then ILA President John Bowers.

In 2006, he received the President’s award from the A. Philip Randolph Institute of Union and Essex Counties of New Jersey. In November 2011, the Labor Advisory Board of the United Negro College Fund in Edison, New Jersey honored Dennis Daggett.

In August 2017, Dennis Daggett delivered the keynote address at the 48th Annual National Educational Conference of the A. Philp Randolph Institute.
The Irish Echo Newspaper named Dennis Daggett one of this nation’s top 50 Irish American labor leaders in 2012.

In October 2014, Daggett received the ILA’s top Civil Rights Award from the International Longshoremen’s Association Alexander Talmadge/Edward L. Brown, Sr. Civil, Human and Women’s Rights Committee at an event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The Coalition of Black Trade Unionists honored Dennis Daggett at their Annual Honoree Reception in September 2019 in Southeast Florida.

Daggett studied political science and public speaking at Iona College, Hunter College, and the University of Vermont, and completed studies in Collective Bargaining for Local Union Leaders and Occupational Safety and Health at Cornell University for Industrial Labor. He did course work at Notre Dame University.

Daggett resides in Sparta, New Jersey with his wife, Marisa and two children, Alexa and Joseph.

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August 2023