IBEW 2006 Convention Updates

Electrical Workers Minority Caucus
Confronts Issues of Changing Workforce

September 9, 2006

The banquet room of Cleveland’s Crowne Plaza Hotel was overflowing with delegates and leaders from all levels and branches of the IBEW. It wasn’t food they came for, but a meeting of the Electrical Workers Minority Caucus (EWMC), which combined healthy servings of inspiration, advice, honors for fighters of the past and dialogue to recruit the leaders of the future.

Among the many high points of the meeting was moving testimony from Louisiana members who detailed their ongoing problems in recovering from Hurricane Katrina and expressed their gratitude for the IBEW’s support.

“We furnish math classes before we give our apprentice tests. After doing this for a few years, more young people know about us.”

Chantel Childs
San Francisco Local 6

EWMC President Robbie Sparks presented Resolution No. 14, to be introduced on the floor of the 37th IBEW Convention, which provides for a strategic goal-setting and outreach program at all levels of the union to hire, train and mentor and promote minorities to leadership positions in the union. The resolution derived from discussions between the IBEW leadership and the EWMC. Sparks expressed the caucus’s support for the resolution and to seek the support of their local union delegations.

Russell Ponder, Vice President of the EWMC and a business representative of Chicago Local 134, called the meeting to order. The Pledge of Allegiance was led by Michael Jones of Columbus, Ohio, Local 683. Participants then bowed their heads for the invocation delivered by Richard Herrell, also of Local 683, which has one of the newest caucus chapters.

“I was just elected vice president of my local. I’m a journeyman lineman. When I first told my relatives that I was a lineman, they asked what team I play for. We have to go to the schools to teach young people about the trades.”

Lamar Williams
Detroit, Mi. Local 17

Fourth District Vice President Paul Witte welcomed the EWMC to Cleveland, drawing applause when he said, “Each of us is unique. Each of us possesses talent. We must pool that talent and make it work for us.”

Carolyn Williams, recently appointed IBEW Director of Human Services, recounted how she first became involved in the caucus in 1996 and come to know “its vital role as one of the most inclusive organizations in the labor movement today.”

President Hill described how—out of all the meetings that he attends—the EWMC always guarantees enthusiasm and spirit. “Let no one doubt that the IBEW does not have the time or the patience for anyone who clings to the old ways of doing business, especially when those ways are not just useless but downright harmful to any of our people and to our goals of progress and excellence. We are not going to tolerate that,” said President Hill to loud applause.

Secretary-Treasurer Jon Walters drew strong support when, after describing the current situation facing working families, he said, “Brothers and sisters, this is not about the color of one’s skin. It’s not a black and white, brown and yellow issue. It’s about the haves and the have-nots.”

“I am one of two local members on the Los Angeles Committee on Career Opportunities. We work with the support of Mayor Villaraigosa and religious and community leaders to bring more candidates for the trades forward. Our interviewers need a better understanding of the people that they are interviewing.”

Eric Brown
Los Angeles Local 11

Robbi Sparks introduced one of the founders of the EWMC, Gus Miller of Portland, Ore., Local 48 to a standing ovation. Miller, one of the subjects of the IBEW Journal’s story on the EWMC in the June 2006 issue, was a pioneer for equal rights in the Brotherhood.

The meeting turned into a classroom--with rich student participation-- when Ninth District International Representatives Keith Edwards, Juanita Luiz and Brian Ahakuelo lead a workshop entitled “Diversity Matters.”

Proceeding through a series of PowerPoint presentations, the reps challenged attendees to understand the nature of diversity in the IBEW. They noted that different generations have varying attitudes toward labor and social issues, and how approaches to organizing must take these viewpoints into account.

Speaking of the so-called Generation Y, those born between 1982 and 2000, Luiz posed the question, “What will the union density of this group be?” She answered, “We just don’t know.” The key will be communication, she said. Generation Y will need to understand the history of unions and working people and we must understand their needs.

After the attendees listed what they thought to be the causes of IBEW’s membership losses, a lively discussion ensued detailing what different locals are doing to help revitalize IBEW and the labor movement.

“I have been an organizer in the Puget Sound region for many years. We have much experience organizing women and people of color. But most of them spoke English. We have to get multi-lingual training now if we are going to organize in the future.”

Darrell Chapman
Everett, Wash., Local 191

Following the workshop, a panel addressed the theme, “Embracing Cultural Differences.” John Easton Jr., business manager of Houston, Tex., Local 716 described his childhood in public housing in a poor white neighborhood in Ohio, separated by railroad tracks from the neighboring black community. “No matter what color we were, we were all poor,” says Easton, adding that he appreciates his upbringing because it taught him that folks at the bottom of the economic ladder can only make it by helping each other. Easton defended the need for a separate minority caucus against those who claim that it is “divisive.”

Larrry Greenhill Sr., newly-elected vice president of Washington, D.C., Local 26, the next panelist, one of the first minority training directors in IBEW, outlined the need for members to be “PRAISERS,” incorporating the goals of promotion, recruitment and retention, innovation, selection and [understanding the] environment of the local union, as seen through the eyes of new members. “We rarely do exit interviews when apprentices leave us,” says Greenhill. Leaders need to learn how to make the environment more inviting for newly-organized members.

Jane Templin of Los Angeles Local 11 praised the leadership of her local, under Business Manager Marvin Kropke, for sponsoring an active EWMC chapter and sponsoring members to attend the convention as guests to better understand the union.

Milton Frazier of Nashville, Tenn., Local 429, who is also IBEW’s Tennessee state political coordinator, delivered a presentation entitled: “Mobilizing for Progressive Change.”

The caucus meeting closed with reports from the chapters and remarks by EWMC executive committee members Victor Uno, business manager of Dublin, Cal., Local 595, Fred Naranjo of Houston Local 66 and Sparks.