Workers at the Ketchikan Shipyard have voted to unionize after the new operator, JAG Ketchikan, which began managing the yard in September 2025, declined to recognize the crew’s previously existing bargaining unit.

Traveling employees are not included in the unionization efforts.

Of the 34 uncontested votes cast by the union at the Sept. 22 election, 27 voted in favor of the union and seven voted against, according to Randy Golding, a representative from Local 23, an Alaska-based sector of SMART: The International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers.

Uncontested votes were cast by individuals who met the definition of a qualified crew member filed with the National Labor Relations Board.

The NLRB officially recognized the results of the Sept. 22 election on Sept. 30. The union and the shipyard operator have one year to negotiate and ratify a new collective bargaining agreement, according to Golding.

As of Oct. 16, the shipyard operator had not responded to the union bargaining team’s requests to begin negotiations.

“The next step in the bargaining process is for JAG Ketchikan and Local 23 to conduct an initial collective bargaining session,” the company said in a prepared statement.

JAG Ketchikan is part of JAG Marine Group, which also operates a shipyard in Seward and is looking at possibly building its largest Alaska shipyard in Wrangell, at the 6-Mile industrial site the borough is developing.

JAG was selected by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority — which owns the Ketchikan shipyard — after the state agency decided not to renew the final 10-year option of its operating agreement with the previous management company, Vigor Alaska.

The workers selected Local 23 to represent them in June 2022 and successfully negotiated a three-year collective bargaining agreement with Vigor at the start of 2023. That contract hadn’t expired by the time JAG began operating the yard in September 2025.

Golding said the decision by local yard crew to vote to unionize under JAG came after making multiple failed attempts to carry over the union contract they had with Vigor.

Golding said that although the previous contract with Vigor holds no legal weight over their next union agreement, Local 23 plans to use that document as a starting point for beginning negotiations.

In particular, he said that union wants to put an emphasis on improving healthcare insurance.