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The new International Office as it appeared in 1971.

1970-1980 Building for The Future

The IBEW proved its power and resiliency in the 1970s. Despite a prolonged, severe economic down-turn, runaway inflation and unemployment following the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo, the Brotherhood continued to grow, building for its future, reaching the one million-member mark by the middle of the decade.

Financially sure, the IBEW bought land one block south of the cramped International Office in downtown Washington, D.C., into which it moved January 1929, and built a modern, all-electric office building. And International President Pillard further strengthened the IBEW’s financial foundation by renegotiating the National Electrical Benefit Fund contribution scheme and hammering out a reciprocity agreement among IBEW locals which allowed locals to help each other through hard times.

And there were hard times. By 1975 the overall unemployment rate in the United States reached 8.5 percent, the highest rate since the Great Depression. In Canada unemployment reached a high of 8.3 percent in 1978. The inflation rate in Canada in 1974 was at the alarming rate of 10.9 percent. And in the United States in 1975, inflation was increasing at an annual rate of’ 9.5 percent. National and international events seemed to follow the 2conomny. President Nixon’s foreign policy achievements of opening relations with China and easing tensions with the Soviet Union were eclipsed by the decades-old war in Vietnam. By the end of 1973, all U.S. troops had left Vietnam, and by 1975 the South Vietnamese had surrendered. And the world was shocked and outraged by the scandalous revelations of Watergate, which led to Nixon’s resignation. Gerald Ford assumed the presidency August 9, 1974.

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1970-1980 Building for the Future

The nuclear-powered submarine U.S.S. Groton just after its launch from the General Dynamics Electric Boat facility. The sub, wired by Local 261, Groton, Connecticut, members was named for the men and women of Groton who built it.

Then - AFL-CIO President George Meany at the IBEW's 31 International Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 1978. Brother Meany died two years later.