September 2019
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Also In This Issue A New Path for Veterans
VEEP Offers a
Career in the Trades read_more

The IBEW's Newest Local
Atlanta Local 1997
Has Its Coming Out read_more

North of 49°
A Win in Ontario, but Labour's Battles Continue read_more

Au nord du 49° parallèle
Une victoire en Ontario, mais les batailles du syndicat se poursuivent read_more

IEC Minutes
February 2019 read_more

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Cover Photo

Has the NLRB
Lost Its Way?

Sen. Robert F. Wagner was matter-of-fact in his call for Congress to pass the National Labor Relations Act in 1935: The New Deal's labor board was failing American workers.

The oversight agency had become a "maze of confusion and contradictions… a sham and a delusion," Wagner said. Workers were struggling to survive while business and industry reaped the rewards of the nation's recovery from the Great Depression.

With the stroke of Franklin D. Roosevelt's pen that July, the NLRA was law.

It laid the foundation for a National Labor Relations Board with the power to enforce the right of workers to organize, bargain contracts and lawfully strike when management refused to play by the rules.

The Act wasn't perfect. It excluded many workers and its remedies were weak. But it was a huge step forward.

As union membership grew over the next 40 years, so did the economy. Working families prospered, able to buy homes, send their children to college, take vacations and look forward to a secure retirement.

If unions were the nails in building America's middle class, the NLRB was the hammer.

Wagner, who authored the Social Security Act that same year, understood that.

What would he think now?

TODAY's National Labor Relations Board is knocking down workers' rights and affirming management abuses at a breathtaking pace.

Recent rulings give employers a green light to eject union organizers from public spaces, to more easily withdraw union recognition, to discriminate against union members in the workplace, to thwart protests and to run roughshod over the rights of people working for subcontractors and franchises. The list goes on.

"You have a board under this administration that is rolling back policies of an Act that was limited from the outset, interpreting it in a way that continues to diminish the rights and protections of employees," former NLRB Chairman Mark Gaston Pearce told The Electrical Worker. read_more

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Officers Column Stephenson:
Speaking Up for Workers read_more
Cooper:
A Win for Pension
Promises read_more

TransitionsBenny Hunnicutt;
James A. McAteer read_more

PoliticsNew Senate Energy Bill Supports Union Jobs, Priorities;
Capitol Hill Lineworker
Events Celebrate
Recognition Resolution read_more

CircuitsIBEW Effort Helps
Move 'Butch Lewis' Closer
to Passage;
IBEW, Entergy 'Sticking'
with Code of Excellence read_more

LettersFighting Addiction;
Adventures Past;
Atlanta's Finest;
Say 'No' to Florida
Energy Deregulation read_more

Who We AreStandout Detroit Tree Trimmer is Special, But Not for the Obvious Reason read_more

IBEWMerchandise

Change of Address