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Mr. John Bowers
President Emeritus
International Longshoremen's Association, AFL-CIO
After serving five terms as International President of the 50,000-member International Longshoremen’s Association, AFL-CIO, John Bowers was unanimously elected International President Emeritus. In his new role, Bowers will continue to serve the ILA in a number of capacities where the ILA will utilize his 20 years experience as the union’s Chief Negotiator and more than 60 years on the waterfront.
Bowers was elected as the seventh international president in the ILA's 114-year history in July 1987, after having previously served as ILA Executive Vice President for 24 years.
The ILA, first organized along the Great Lakes region in 1892, today represents workers on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, Great Lakes, major U.S. Rivers, Puerto Rico and Eastern Canada. The International Organization of Masters, Mates and Pilots; the United Marine Division Tugboat Workers; and Supreme Court Officers' Association are all affiliated with the ILA.
Mr. Bowers held elected positions as a Vice President and Executive Board member of the AFL-CIO. He also was President of the ILA's Atlantic Coast District for 20 years; and was Vice President on the Executive Boards of the AFL-CIO's Transportation Trades Department and Maritime Trades Department.
Bowers continues to hold elective office as President of ILA Local 824, his home local on Manhattan’s West Side.
During his term as president, Bowers served most capably as the union’s Chief Negotiator in Wage Scale Meetings with shipping employers and was responsible for bringing stability and growth to the industry for past two decades. He was the architect of the current six-year Master Contract covering ILA longshore workers from Maine to Texas which is in effect until September 2010 and brings wage increases and protection of health benefits to tens of thousands of ILA members and their families.
Mr. Bowers also continues to serve on the Executive Board of the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF), a worldwide labor organization representing more than six million transport workers in 78 countries. He was elected as a Vice President to the ITF in March 1990 and reelected in 1994, 1998 and 2002. He is also the one-time Chairman of the ITF’s Dockers Section.
In 1991, Bowers founded the ILA's Civil Rights Committee and, at the personal invitation of the late Coretta Scott King and the Martin Luther King Center, Mr. Bowers served as Grand Marshal for the 1994 Martin Luther King Day Parade in Atlanta.
Mr. Bowers also established the ILA Children's Fund in 1993, where the charity has raised more than $2 million for the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp in Ashford, Connecticut, benefiting children with cancer and life-threatening illnesses.
A highly decorated veteran of the U.S. Army which he served in during the Second World War as a radio operator in the Fourth Armored Division throughout Europe, John Bowers’ unit won a Presidential Citation and five battle stars. Mr. Bowers has been honored throughout his career by numerous organizations and serves on a number of labor and maritime committees.
In October 1992, Mr. Bowers was awarded the maritime industry's top honor - the Admiral of the Ocean Sea Award - presented by United Seamen's Service. He was also the recipient of the 1994 Connie Award presented by the Containerization and Intermodal Institute. Other maritime honors include the Golden Compass Award, presented by the Seafarer’s House at Port Everglades and induction into the International Maritime Hall of Fame by the Maritime Association, Port of New York and New Jersey.
Other organizations to honor Mr. Bowers in recent years include: American Cancer Society; Irish American Labor Coalition; Intrepid Sea-Air Space Museum and the Greater New York Councils Boy Scouts of America. He was the Man of the Year of the Irish American Labor Coalition in January 1992.
Mr. Bowers has been in the forefront of instituting scholarship programs for ILA dependents, beginning in 1960 with the formation of the ILA Local 824 Scholarship - later named the Michael Bowers Memorial Scholarship Fund in honor of his father - to the present time where he serves as the labor co-chairman for the NYSA-ILA Teddy Gleason Scholarship Program.
A native of Manhattan, Mr. Bowers and his wife, Marcy, are the parents of two children—John and Christine— and reside in Nassau County on Long Island. They also have one granddaughter, Meagan.
John Bowers
President Emeritus
17 Battery Place
Suite 930
New York, New York 10004
212-425-1200