Director: Joseph Ashton
Joseph Ashton was elected director of UAW Region 9 on June 14, 2006, at the union’s 34th Constitutional Convention in Las Vegas.
Region 9 covers western and central New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, excluding the counties of Franklin, Cumberland, Adams and York.
Ashton served as assistant director of Region 9 from January 2003 until his election as director. As assistant director, Ashton played a key role in contract negotiations between the UAW and such companies as SPD Technologies Magna (formerly New Venture Gear), Dana and Boeing, and in helping 2,400 workers at A. K. Steel in Butler, Pa., win UAW representation in December 2003.
Ashton was appointed to the staff of the UAW in 1986 with responsibility for contract negotiations, grievances, arbitrations and otherwise servicing UAW local unions at numerous employers throughout the region. In 1996, he was appointed area director for Region 9 Pennsylvania.
Ashton joined UAW Local 1612 in 1969 while working at ITE Circuit in Philadelphia. He quickly became active in his local union and over the years served as sergeant-at-arms, vice president and bargaining committee chairman.
In 1977, Local 1612 members elected Ashton president, making the 28-year-old union activist the youngest president in the local’s history. Ashton served as president of Local 1612 until his appointment to the UAW staff. He also represented Local 1612 as a delegate to three UAW Constitutional Conventions.
In 1982, Ashton was elected president of the UAW’s Pennsylvania State Community Action Program (CAP), the union’s political action arm, a position he held until joining the UAW staff.
Active in labor and civic affairs, Ashton is executive vice president of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO Executive Council and a director of the Western New York Federal Reserve Bank. He is a member of the Multiple Sclerosis Association, the Statewide Labor Advisory Committee for Pennsylvania, the Northeast-Midwest Alliance for Labor, the Industrial Relations Research Association of Pennsylvania and the New Jersey AFL-CIO.
Ashton was born in Philadelphia on June 3, 1948. He graduated from Northeast Catholic High School in Philadelphia and attended Pennsylvania State University.
Joe and his wife, Denise, have four sons – Joseph, Daniel, Thomas and Patrick – and four grandchildren. Continuing the Ashton family’s strong union tradition, Thomas is business agent of UAW Local 1612, and Daniel is an attorney specializing in labor law at a Philadelphia law firm.