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1980-1986 Hanging On - Labor in the Reagan Era

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Some of the over 2,000 IBEW members protesting in Washington, D.C., in 1981 against President Reagan's planned cuts in government Railroad Retirement contributions and in Amtrak and Conrail funding.

Redevelopment projects from Boston and New York to Minneapolis, St. Louis and Seattle, along with construction for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, kept IBEW members busy. And the new building, together with increased use of more energy-demanding machines like computers, medical, industrial and communications equipment, and domestic appliances, kept the American and Canadian demand for electricity high. The country grew less and less concerned about a world-wide energy shortage as oil prices moderated in the ‘80s. But the IBEW continued to press for increased use of safe and environmentally acceptable alternatives to oil, including clean coal-, nuclear- and solar-generated electricity.

The "Smile Shuttle," entered by Local 569, San Diego. It was the first-place float in the 1982 San Diego Columbus Day Parade.

Continuing involvement in the U.S. space program kept IBEW members in business through the 1980s. Local 756, Daytona Beach, Florida, members were very involved with the construction of the space shuttle launch facility at the Kennedy Space Center. Their work paid off when, on April 12, 1981 the shuttle Columbia, with its crew of two, orbited the Earth and landed on a California desert runway for the first time. Columbia was in orbit again seven months later.

IBEW members were saddened by the loss of several long-time leaders of the Brotherhood in the early and mid ‘80s. In its special tribute to former International President Gordon Freeman, the July 1983 IBEW Journal wrote, The entire Brotherhood and all of organized labor was saddened upon learning of the death of’ President Emeritus Gordon M. Freeman, who succumbed to bronchial pneumonia in Kensington, Maryland, on May 13, 1983.”

The following year, on July 22, 1984, the IBEW mourned the loss of former International Secretary Joseph Keenan. He was 88-years old. Brother Keenan, out of local 134, Chicago, served as International Secretary for 22 years, from1954 to 1976.

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1980-1986 Hanging On - Labor in the Reagan Era

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland (left) and Secretary-Treasurer Thomas Donahue (right) respond to the applause following their unanimous reelection at the 1985 AFL-CIO Convention.

Local 773, Windsor, Ontario, member Mike Warden in 1981 working on stringing lights on the cables of the Ambassador Bridge linking the United States and Canada.