Keeping the Lights On
Nuclear Refuels a
Priority in Pandemic

Healing a Community
New Center Helps Close Disturbing Chapter in
Cleveland's History

'I Can Buy a House'
Lightbulb Moment
with AGL Members'
First Contract

North of 49°
Traffic Controllers Provide Safety, Security in BC

Au nord du 49° parallèle
Les signaleurs routiers veillent à la sécurité
en C.-B

CRISES ARE A CALLING for the brothers and sisters of New York City Local 3. They were on the front lines when the towers fell. When Hurricane Sandy wreaked destruction. When other states and nations have cried out for help after storms and earthquakes.

Nothing prepared them for COVID-19.

By the end of March, the world's eyes had shifted from hotspots in Asia and Europe to the pandemic's new center: their hometown.

"There's nothing that's comparable," Business Manager Chris Erikson said nearly three months into a catastrophe he couldn't have fathomed. "Nothing."

Not even the unspeakable tragedy of 9/11, when Local 3 members ran toward the pile to aid rescue and recovery, then spent weeks in the toxic air of Ground Zero, rewiring Lower Manhattan. Not even the economic crash of 2008 that put 3,000 of Erikson's members out of work for a year.

Splice those nightmares and you get COVID-19. Sick and dying patients spilling out of emergency rooms. Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers jobless. A noisy, crowded, manic metropolis silenced, vacant.

No one has been left unscathed. Like the city at large, IBEW members have experienced illness and death, layoffs and furloughs, fear that their jobs will be next, fear they'll be exposed to the virus, fear they'll infect their families. They've had to make hard decisions affecting their lives and livelihoods, just as billions of others around the world have had to do.

But as always, they've risen to the occasion. They've built temporary hospitals and kept essential jobsites running. They've done the agonizing work of powering mobile morgues. They've given generously to charities, staffed food pantries and even helped get urgently needed protective gear to area hospitals.

"We need you to lead by example," Erikson, a third-generation Local 3 leader and chairman of the IBEW's Executive Council, told members in a video message in early April.

He never doubted they would.

Stephenson:
We Need Leaders
Cooper:
Now Is the Time
to Organize

St. Louis Member, Former Lawmaker is New Head of Missouri AFL-CIO;
IBEW, AFL-CIO Announce Earth Day Initiative to
Plot Future of the Energy Industry

Reno Local Transformed Parking Garage Into Temporary Hospital;
IBEW Members Make
Face Shields to Help
Fight COVID-19;
New Mexico Local Powers Overflow Hospitals for Coronavirus Patients;
Member's First-Ever Solo Marathon Raises Money, Inspires Community;
Chicago Member Snaps Pics of Blue Angels Flyover

How to Avoid Heat-Related Illness This Summer

On the Front Lines;
Giving Back

April 2020

Navy Commitment
Puts New Jersey Member
on COVID-19 Duty in
South Pacific