U.S. Attorney’s Office Files Lawsuit Against Local 1456 to Compel Fair Election of Union Officers

NEWARK, N.J. – The U.S. Attorney’s Office today filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey to compel Port Police and Security Guards Union, Local 1456, to hold a fair election under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger announced.

The lawsuit alleges that Local 1456 established bylaws for the election of union officers that rendered 98 percent of the union’s membership ineligible to be elected to leadership positions. The suit alleges that any union member who missed the union’s September 2021 meeting – more than a year before the election – was rendered ineligible by that fact alone. The suit alleges that Local 1456’s officers disqualified at least four individuals who were or sought to be nominated at its nomination meeting on Nov. 1, 2022. A slate of five officers – four of whom had voted to disqualify candidates who might have opposed them – was then elected unopposed.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul W. Kaufman of the Camden office.

The complaint is an allegation of unlawful conduct. The allegation must still be proven in federal court.