Cleaning Up
After the Storm
Severe Weather No Match for Iowa Lineworkers

National Lineman Memorial
A Monument to the Fallen Set to Rise in PA

Sticking to the Code
Regional Approach Brings Diversity, Excellence to Stadium Project

North of 49°
Quebec Locals Score Big Wins During Open Period

Au nord du 49° parallèle
Les sections locales du Québec font des gains importants lors du recrutement syndical

Kurt Heinz

'The Worst Fire Season I've Ever Seen'
IBEW Members on the Front Lines of Record West Coast Fires

After 16 days working 16 hours a day, Medford, Ore., Local 659 member Colin Farrell took a break to make a phone call.

Less than 200 yards away, a small stand of trees in a charred field of ash stood burning. They were all that survived the flame front that had passed days ago destroying three towns along Interstate 5 and racing into the suburbs of Medford itself before being turned back.

Now, they too were burning.

"There's half an inch of ash on my truck every morning," he said. "It's like a black snowstorm; absolute devastation."

Farrell has been a lineman in Oregon for more than two decades. He just turned 61. His father, Charles, was a lineman for more than 40 years. Neither of them, he said, had seen anything like the ocean of fire burning from British Columbia clear down to the Mexican border.

No one has. And no one saw anything like the year before, or the year before that.

At one point this fall, five of the six largest fires in California history were burning. The sun over New York and Washington, D.C., was dimmed by the ashes of West Coast fires.

And everywhere that fire and people came together, there were IBEW members there to keep them safe, protect their connection to power and, where the fire tore through, to repair the damage.

Oregon

Labor Day weekend unleashed a windstorm that shattered forests across the West Coast.

The worst part of the windstorm wasn't the speeds, though; it was the direction. It wasn't coming from the west — the prevailing wind — the direction the 150, sometimes 200-foot-tall fir trees have grown to resist.

It mowed them down, said Portland Local 125 Business Manager Travis Eri.

"When the fire gets into the canopies, it makes its own windstorms and embers can be blown a half-mile ahead,' he said.

Stephenson:
United For Working People
Cooper:
Time to Get Outdoors

Darrin Golden;
Brian O. Threadgold;
Ryan T. O'Leary

Gallup: A Majority of Americans Support Unions;
How Unions Help Workers During the Coronavirus — and How Employers
Cripple Those Efforts;
Stephenson: Union Jobs, Baseload Power Key to
New Energy Economy;
Labor Department Proposes New Pro‑Employer Rule on Gig Workers

After a Bumpy Ride,
First-Contract Talks are Underway for Casino
Workers in Boston

Inaugural IBEW Strong Workshop Lifts Up Efforts
to Expand Diversity
and Inclusion;
Local 257 Volunteers Brighten Missouri Crisis Center with LEDs;
Indiana Local, Signatory Contractor Partner with NAACP to Expand
Solar Training Program;
New York Member's Alaska Adventure Featured on 'Brotherhood Outdoors'

A Word of Thanks;
Honoring Our Veterans

September 2020

Extraordinary Team Effort
in New York Saves a Brother's Life