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1960-1970 To The Moon

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Also lost to the Brotherhood in the 1960s was the Electrical Workers’ Journal Managing Editor Marie Downey. Sister Downey edited the Journal for more than 20 years, in addition to being International Representative and the IBEW’s director of public relations. A memorial fund in her honor was established shortly after her death, and it continues its charitable giving today.

The new technology of the 1960s allowed for considerable construction achievements during the decade. Local 80, Norfolk, Virginia, Press Secretary J.V. Hockman wrote in the March 1964 Journal, “Officially the first automobiles crossed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel on January 14....Our local officers and members who worked on that magnificent project look back [on the work] with pleasant memories.” The bridge-tunnel (including four man-made islands) is the longest roadway continually over and under open water in the world. IBEW members also helped build the first domed stadium, the Astrodome in Houston-in which the world was introduced to Astroturf. And St. Louis area members worked on the world’s tallest free-standing arch, the 630- foot-tall Gateway Arch.

Delegates to the 29th International Convention in 1970.

But no achievement captured the world’s imagination during the 1960s as much as the United States’ plan to land a man on the moon and bring him home. The Soviet Union had great success launching satellites and manned spacecraft orbiting the Earth in the late ‘S0s and early ‘60s. They launched the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, in 1961 and the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, in 1963. But they would never master the technology required for a manned moon landing.

The IBEW played a vital role in the U.S. space program. President Freeman wrote in a August 1965 Journal editorial, “Our IBEW members form an important corps of the thousands who perform the myriad tasks, intricate and exciting, that ready the spaceships for the big ‘count down.’” Four years later American astronaut Neil Armstrong took his “one small step for man, [and] one giant leap for mankind” on the surface of the moon.

In 1970 Armstrong spoke at the IBEW’s 29th International Convention in Seattle. Two years earlier International President Freeman had retired—October 1, 1968—and was appointed President Emeritus. The IEC chose IEC member, and former Local 41, Buffalo, New York, Business Manager, Charles Pillard as president. The same month, the IEC appointed Local 3, New York, Business Manager Harry Van Arsdale Jr. to the post of International Treasurer, filling the vacancy left after the death of Treasurer Jeremiah Sullivan. So the Convention was Brothers Pillard and Van Arsdale’s first in their new positions.

Armstrong brought a new perspective to the new decade. He said to the Convention delegates,

For me at least, and I think for many others, seeing the moon at close range and seeing Earth brought men to a turning point. The theories, the calculations and the applied skills like yours that took man to the moon are all accomplishments of the first order, but probably not in themselves turning points. The newness lies in the vision of the whole Earth taken at one glance, its smallness, its unity and its beauty hung in space....

Your work and your cooperation with the space program made it possible for man to travel beyond this planet and gain a vision of the unity and the beauty of the planet-Earth.

The war was escalating in Vietnam. Cynicism was growing at home. But the world saw itself at the end of the 1960s. It was the blue planet alone in the blackness of space. That’s what the moon mission turned out to be about-seeing ourselves. In 1970, in Seattle, after listening to Neil Armstrong, the IBEW saw itself as a part of that small planet, and it was changed.

Page 4 of 4
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1960-1970 To The Moon

1966 Medicare is provided to assist in paying the medical bills of U.S. citizens 65 years and older. National Organization for Women is founded. Walter Reuther of the UAW and AFL-CIO President George Meany face off publicly after U.S. trade unionists walk out of International Labor Organization meeting when a member from the communist Polish delegation is elected presiding officer. The IBEW begins education scholarship program. Integrated radio circuit is patented by Sony, Japan.






1967 Professional workers increase their collective bargaining activity, and the AFL-CIO endeavors to bring its professional - worker unions together in a spirit of cooperation. Thurgood Marshall becomes first black U.S. Supreme Court justice. UAW officials, including President Reuther, resign from AFL-CIO leadership positions. AFL-CIO rallies support for Israel in Six-Day War.






1968 Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated. Senator and Democratic candidate for president Robert F. Kennedy, is assassinated during his presidential campaign. The United States ends aerial assaults on North Vietnam. Representative Shirley Chisholm from New York, becomes first black woman elected to Congress. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act becomes effective, protecting the equal rights of older workers. The Consumer Protection Act of 1968 restricts the power of creditors to garnish employee wages. The Amalgamated Meat Cutters merges with three other unions with combined membership of 500,000. UAW disaffiliates from the AFL-CIO.





1969 Merger between four railroad unions: the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, the Switchmen's Union of North America, and the Order of Railway conductors and Brakemen, membership of 200,000. The National Alliance for Business JOBS program, a governmental advocacy program promoting the hiring of minorities in the construction industry, is begun by the U.S. Department of Labor. Vietnam peace talks and troop withdrawal begin. Neil Armstrong becomes the first man to walk on the moon.