TV News Consolidation Threatens IBEW Jobs

IBEW Locals Stand Up

IBEW Green-Job Training Facilities Around the Country Open Doors
to Public

Membership Cards Land
in Mailboxes Across
the Brotherhood

North of 49°
Northern Exposure: Frozen Tundra No Deterrent for IBEW Organizers

Au nord du 49° parallèle
Exposition au Nord:
La toundra glaciale n'a
pas d'effet dissuasif sur
les recruteurs syndicaux
de la FIOE

IBEW Members Repair Hurricane-Ravaged Texas Chemical Plant

As the U.S. presidential election campaign captured the world’s attention last September, Hurricane Ike ripped through the Gulf Coast. Far away from the cameras, Beaumont, Texas, Local 479 surged into action, helping its own members recover from the catastrophe and welcoming travelers to bring a battered ExxonMobil chemical plant and a lesser-damaged adjoining refinery back to operation.

Work on the chemical plant, which produces six different substances from petroleum, was completed in late May, putting back to work more than 1,500 production workers and returning much-needed capacity to the U.S. market for synthetic oil.

At its peak, the project employed more than 700 journeymen working for Newtron Inc., one of the largest U.S. signatory electrical contractors, and 70 instrumentation technicians at Paton Engineering and Design Group. Working seven-day, 12-hour schedules, they completed two years of work in four months at the chemical plant that had been flooded with 10 feet of water. Local 479 invited electricians to live at the union hall for up to seven weeks—until housing opened up in the area—and served meals on several occasions. Many of the electricians slept on the floor of the hall or in tents and trailers in the parking lot.