Transitioning from military to civilian life is a well-documented struggle, and returning soldiers often feel like they’ve slipped through society’s cracks.
If you’re a union member there is a lot to be thankful for this Labor Day.
The National Labor Relations Board’s new rules governing union representation elections spring have shortened the time between a petition for an election and a binding vote by nearly 40 percent, according to NLRB statistics released in August.
Huddled in near-freezing temperatures on the steps of the U.S. Capitol in January 2013, observers might have been forgiven for neglecting to think about global warming. But when President Barack Obama stepped to the podium to take the oath of office and lay out his second-term agenda, he made clear that his priorities were squarely focused on the looming threat of climate change.
For Caleb Long, hard work, public service, and the importance of education were values instilled early on in life. Long’s father, Eddie Long, is a 41-year veteran of Chattanooga’s Local 175, and growing up in a union household meant security and a chance to chase not only a college education, but a master’s degree as well
The days of companies hiding behind subcontractors and taking an intentional arms-length approach to employment matters appear to be numbered, following an Aug. 27 ruling by the National Labor Relations Board.
The IBEW prides itself on having the best trained workers in the business, and no skill claims a higher priority than safety.
If hunting and fishing top your list of leisure activities, the Sportsman Channel has a Labor Day lineup for you.
Labor supporters in Missouri are spending less time relaxing this summer and devoting more of their time to knocking on doors, writing letters to legislators and filling town-hall meetings across the state.
Every summer, drivers are confronted with a dire choice. They can jump straight into the car, blast the A/C and hope nothing important gets too burnt before the temperature drops below the melting point of tin. Alternatively, they can open all the doors and risk sun poisoning standing around waiting for a breeze to make the car tolerable.
With no end in sight to California droughts, multiple wildfires continue to rage. Among the 14,000 firefighters grappling with multiple fires across the state, are Vacaville, Calif. Local 1245 members.
It’s the closest three-way race since the 1980s and the longest election in over a century. If the building trades have their way, it will also be Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his conservative party’s bon voyage.
Larry Thomas, a solid high school linebacker, shared the dream of millions: an NFL career and a big paycheck.
The U.S. Department of Energy on Aug. 6 announced the formation of a working group in partnership with labor designed to maximize job creation from President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan.
CEOs raking in massive pay packages will soon have to disclose just how much more they make than their employees.
Hundreds of thousands of full-time workers are misclassified as independent contractors, depriving them of labor protections, overtime pay, Social Security and unemployment insurance, among other lost benefits.
IBEW members know how to mobilize, and that doesn’t stop when they retire. They are a formidable force who know the issues that affect working families. They also vote, in large numbers. That’s why they were in Washington, D.C., July 7-10 to attend a national conference of the Alliance for Retired Americans.
IBEW leaders pledged to carefully review President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which sets a goal of dramatically reducing carbon emissions from America’s power plants.
What makes a good photo? Is it the lighting or the contrast? Is it the colors or the subject?
July 30 marks the 50th anniversary of Medicare and IBEW is joining the AFL-CIO and supporters across the country to celebrate. A National Day of Action will include rallies, birthday parties, teach-ins and more in support of the federal program that guarantees health care for every American over 65. The Alliance for Retired Americans is planning more than 120 events over the next two weeks in 35 states.
Nearly 11,000 IBEW members working for Verizon in the Northeast voted to authorize a strike if negotiations fail to produce a new contract by the current deal’s expiration Aug. 1. The parties remain far apart, with Verizon publicly demanding reductions in health and retirement benefits and a reduction in job protections that pave the way for greater outsourcing of jobs.
A new Occupational Safety and Health Administration rule on confined spaces in construction will affect anyone who works in spaces such as manholes, pipelines and tanks, just to name a few. It also adds new requirements to the safety training employers are required to provide their employees.
With tree trunks sometimes serving as utility poles, the small South American country of Suriname is largely in need of critical energy infrastructure upgrades. Fortunately, rigorous efforts by electricians in the nation of 540,000 are continuing to get a boost from the IBEW.
A little known tourist attraction in New York’s Finger Lakes region is the birthplace of the 13th U.S. president, Millard Fillmore. Born on Jan. 7, 1800, in Moravia, the replica house sits in the namesake park Fillmore Glen four miles from the family log cabin that is no longer standing. But the imitation house was falling into disrepair, until the members of the Union Sportsmen Alliance went to work last spring.
Conservative senators approved anti-union bill C-377, late last month, forcing labor unions to publicly disclose all their financial transactions to the federal government — everything from office supply purchases to salaries — creating onerous reporting requirements for union leaders and staff.
When an emergency happens, quick thinking by 911 dispatchers can mean the difference between life and death.
Go to any IBEW conference, rally or gathering of activists, and you’ll frequently see a popular slogan on T-shirts and bumper stickers: “A woman’s place is in her union.”
Telecom employees who climb cell towers for a living already take enough risks. In the past decade, more than 90 workers have lost their lives from deadly falls, sometimes from over 1,000 feet.
New bargaining units in the IBEW’s railroad branch are rare. U.S. freight and passenger carriers are already union dense. While some smaller commuter carriers have been organized, big opportunities can be opened up at some of the companies that manufacture and service rail equipment.
Denver Local 111 member Nate Gutierrez was an 18-year old looking to change his life and advance his prospects when he started an apprenticeship with the IBEW. As a journeyman lineman he was working 40 hours a week, but he wanted to do more
In the June issue of The Electrical Worker, we featured members who serve in public office in the U.S. They are not alone. Across Canada, dozens of IBEW members serve their communities and provinces in elected and appointed offices. Here are some of their stories.
The Supreme Court on June 29 struck down a proposed Environmental Protection Agency rule that would have potentially shuttered more coal fired power plants, undermining the viability of the electrical grid while playing havoc with thousands of good-paying jobs.
Good public policy and consensus should be the products of study and collaboration by a nation’s leaders. All too often, however, the leaders doing the studying and collaborating are detached from the day-to-day lives of people affected by their decisions.
Anti-worker West Virginia lawmakers effectively scrapped the state’s prevailing wage law on July 1, following a tense legislative session which saw working family supporters standing up to a recently emboldened GOP that won control of both houses in the state Capitol last November.
Each year, Union Plus helps the children of union members in the pursuit of higher education. Out of over 5,000 applications 106 were chosen this year, including 11 representatives of the IBEW.
IBEW members’ good works are expressed through volunteer efforts by hundreds of brothers and sisters in communities throughout the United States and Canada each year.
Two years ago, maintenance workers at REC Silicon in Butte, Mont., voted 30 to 22 to be represented by Helena Local 233. It was the IBEW’s first organizing campaign following three failed attempts by other unions at the company that produces silane gas and polysilicon used in the production of computer chips.
In a move that dismayed the growing chorus of labor leaders, environmentalists, clergy and other activists who had sounded the alarm on the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Senate voted 60-37 on June 23 to help clear the way for fast-track approval for the trade deal.
Hardball. That’s the best way to describe generations of collective bargaining between unions and the U.S. copper mining industry.
Following a House vote two weeks ago that momentarily derailed fast track authority for the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership, a new vote on June 18 sends the trade deal back to the Senate, which is expected to vote Tuesday.
Trying to organize shops at Comcast is, for many union activists, the ultimate David vs. Goliath situation.
For more than 34 years, Billy Roach had worked as an electrician on heavy industrial and commercial construction projects for nonunion contractors around his hometown of Baton Rouge, La.
Misclassification of workers costs taxpayers billions of dollars, harms companies that follow the law and is much more widespread than previously thought, a new report from the Economic Policy Institute says.
The battle lines are clearly drawn on right-to-work legislation in Missouri. On June 4, Gov. Jay Nixon vetoed a bill from the Republican-led legislature that would have made Missouri the 26th right-to-work state.
Months of rallies, lobbying, letters and phone calls by members of organized labor and dozens of coalition partners paid off on June 12 as the House rejected a fast track trade package for the controversial Trans Pacific Partnership sent over from the Senate.
It takes a certain sort of courage to return to a site of trauma. The attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, are etched onto the nation’s memory, but for those who lost someone that day, the pain can be even more acute. So on May 18, when members of New York Local 1212 stepped into the One World Trade Center, their four lost brothers who were working on 9/11 were with them.
Nearly 2,000 FairPoint workers throughout New England went on strike for five months last October after the company sought millions in concessions, canceled health benefits for strikers, slashed pensions and sought to outsource jobs to low-paid, out of state contractors.
Steve Yurista spends a lot of his time training and participating in long-distance canoe races. It’s all about stamina, preserving his energy for the long haul, he says.
As he takes the helm of one of North America’s leading unions, Lonnie R. Stephenson, IBEW’s new international president, credits President Emeritus Edwin D. Hill for setting a “clear path” to follow in growing the union’s numbers and influence.
Members of Tacoma, Wash., Local 483 donated a record 4,015 jars of peanut butter to the Emergency Food Network in Pierce County on May 13.
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers announces the retirement of International President Edwin D. Hill, effective June 1.
Gov. John Kasich has stripped child care and adult home care workers of collective bargaining rights they have enjoyed as a result of an executive order issued by his predecessor, Democratic Gov.Ted Strickland, seven years ago.
As a self-described member of “the 1 percent of the 1 percent,” Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner doesn’t exactly have his finger on the pulse of working people, his critics say.
At 9:02 a.m. on April 19, 1995, when the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed, Local 1141 journeyman Mikey Smith was at work a few blocks away when he heard the explosion.
Among the list of national priorities supported by red and blue voters is funding America’s passenger railroad, Amtrak. Almost 31 million passengers took an Amtrak train last year. That’s up 4 percent over the previous year.
A GOP-led move to create so-called right-to-work zones in Delaware has been scuttled by the state Senate’s Democratic majority.
The Obama administration released a report April 21 that calls for billions in funding to move the nation’s aging energy infrastructure into the 21st century.
New car buyers are more concerned than ever with gas mileage and emissions. But if you want to go truly green, it helps not just to look at the car’s carbon footprint, but also the factory where it’s built.
Man-made disasters can be far more devastating than those over which we have no control if we ignore warnings or apply the wrong solutions.
The Long Beach, Calif., City Council unanimously approved a project labor agreement that guarantees prevailing wages on all projects over $500,000 for the next five years. Three weeks after the city-wide agreement on April 7, the independent Long Beach Harbor Department also ratified a $700 million dollar PLA.
An IBEW office and clerical bargaining unit at Windsor Regional Hospital in Ontario was put to the test in October 2013 when the hospital initiated a merger with Hotel Dieu Grace Hospital.
The legislative battle over whether to grant the Obama administration “fast track” authority to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership is spilling out to the neighborhoods where members of Congress expect to escape controversy.
Somerset Waters, a journeyman wireman member of L.A. Local 11, believes one of the keys to success for a company, or any enterprise for that matter, is placing trust in one’s co-workers
No one had to persuade Adam Hentschel to join the IBEW. He’s a fourth generation union member.
Greg Myerson is a giant in the sport fishing world, breaking the record for the largest striped bass and beating his own record three times since. The record he set in 2011 still stands at 54 inches long and 81.8 pounds.
Anyone watching the political landscape in Wisconsin knows how easy it is to see the ill effects of Gov. Scott Walker’s policies toward working families.
“All politics is local.” It’s one of those truisms that can be engraved on a bumper sticker, or tossed out in the middle of a debate over how power is won.
At a time when much of the U.S. is experiencing record levels of drought, good environmental stewardship is needed.
They work side-by-side with IBEW members, but they don’t belong to the union. Delegates to the Membership Development Conference pledged last September to reach out to approximately 27,000 of these nonmembers in right-to-work states and convince them of the benefits of standing under the union’s umbrella.
New rules governing how workers petition and vote for union representation took effect April 14.
Working families and their allies will be hitting the streets and hoisting signs on April 18 in cities nationwide to send a message to Congress: Just say no to fast track authority for the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Not many cities in America have seen more ups and downs than Duluth, Minn. Located on the shore of Lake Superior, the city was once the largest port in the U.S, shipping tons of iron ore to the nation’s steel mills and lumber to fuel construction booms.
Anchorage, Alaska, Local 1547 member Scott Faeo and his teammate Eric Quam won the 2015 running of the longest snowmobile race in the world, the Iron Dog, Feb. 28.
If you build it, they will come.
In response to declining natural gas prices and new Environmental Protection Agency regulations, the Tennessee Valley Authority – the federal utility created by Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s – has been weaning itself off coal-generated power, retiring 11 coal-fired units and idling seven more in the last few years.
For millions of injured workers, workers' compensation insurance means a broken bone or sprained muscle doesn’t result in bankruptcy.
After a fall from a horse left him without use of his limbs, the late actor Christopher Reeve, said, “Some people are walking around with full use of their bodies and they’re more paralyzed than I am.” .
President Obama on March 31 vetoed a proposed bill that would have scrapped new rules designed to streamline union election procedures.
Stories. They pour out when you retire from a job after 26 years.
Imagine a future where companies looking to make a profit off of overseas sweatshops can sue countries trying to eliminate child labor. The corporations can also sue governments that enact any kind of labor law that puts people before profits. And health care costs in impoverished nations rise as big pharmaceutical companies fight to keep cheaper, life-saving drugs off the market...
The eighth annual gathering of IBEW leadership and investor-owned utility executives drew nearly 200 attendees from across the country to Washington, D.C. March 17.
The budget plan released by the House Budget Committee March 17 makes infrastructure investment, health care and the nation’s most vulnerable citizens victims while rewarding corporations and the wealthy.
The city of Grand Island, Neb., has voluntarily recognized five community service officers as members of Local 1597.
We do the challenging work providing your power – and we deserve a decent contract.
An Indiana law that leveled the playing field for building and construction workers on public projects for 80 years is on the verge of repeal by the state’s Republican-led legislature.
ADT workers and supporters held an informational picket in Winston-Salem, N.C. March 17, protesting the security company’s ongoing lockout 19 of its employees.
One new house built – from start to finish – every day.
“I feel horrible and betrayed. It’s depressing, life-changing, stressful. What other words can I come up with?” says Deb Kubala, a 37-year member of Lancaster, Pa., Local 1666.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration settled a lawsuit last month brought by a group of investor-owned utilities, with the end result clarifying new standards that will affect many IBEW members.
The late writer Kurt Vonnegut once said, “A step backward, after making a wrong turn, is a step in the right direction.”
As any soccer fan knows, the key to success is having a sharp group of professionals at the top of their game.
Asplundh tree-trimmers in Indiana recently voted 67 to 6 to join the IBEW, the 22nd successful organizing election at the company in less than two years.
A force to be reckoned with. That’s how the St. Louis Labor Tribune describes Local 1 first-year apprentice Jurmain McDonald.
When Andrew Absher started working as a security technician with ADT, he looked forward to a good career that would provide for him and his wife in Winston-Salem, N.C.
Madison, Wis. – More than 2,000 people rallied at the state capitol building Feb. 24, protesting right-to-work legislation that would weaken the ability of workers to collectively bargain.
More than 1,800 IBEW and CWA members throughout Northern New England have ratified tentative agreements with FairPoint Communications after three days of voting.
After four months on strike, unions representing thousands of FairPoint Communications employees in New England announced Feb. 19 that they have reached a temporary agreement with the company.
Newly elected Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner made union-busting one of his campaign themes in last year’s election.
IBEW line workers know more than just how to replace a transformer or properly climb a pole. They are also masters of safety.
High above the earth, linemen carefully replace high-voltage structure that was battered by Washington’s winter. By framing the scene with towering evergreens and a mountainous backdrop, Seattle Local 77 member Derek Williams turned this moment into the most popular shot of the 17th IBEW Photo Contest.
Anti-worker politicians in the land of enchantment are pushing to make New Mexico the latest state to go “right-to-work-for-less.”
Millennials – those born between 1980 and 2000 – face an economic Catch-22. Most good-paying jobs require at minimum a four-year college degree. But those degrees come with a hefty price tag. The average 2013 graduate owes nearly $30,000 in student debt, an onerous burden for someone just starting out in the world.
Nonunion Texas electrical contractors looking to turn a quick buck on prevailing wage projects often look for projects in El Paso.
Construction unemployment last year was at its lowest level in nearly seven years. At 8.9 percent, 2014 was the first time annual construction unemployment was below 10 percent since 2007, according to data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
After launching successful advertising campaigns during NFL games and cable news channels, the IBEW is extending its message to new audiences.
More than 40 percent of Americans east of the Mississippi, and just over a third of those to the west, are willing to pay at least $10 a month more on their utility bills for grid upgrades according to a poll released this summer by Harris Interactive. The average U.S. utility bill in 2012 was just over $105 a month according to data from the Energy Information Agency.
The history of West Virginia is intertwined with the history of the union movement. Some of the biggest labor battles in American history took place in the hills and mines of the Mountaineer State.
Giving back. It’s a fundamental premise of the IBEW and the labor movement in general.
A special Massachusetts state commission recently confirmed what the IBEW has been saying for decades: project labor agreements work.
For 22 years, Union Plus has helped union members and their children attend college.
See that frigid winter landscape? The lineman expertly scaling a pole to perform storm repairs? That’s not just any old snapshot – it’s a perfect example of art in the everyday work of the Brotherhood.
Allison Beck, acting director of the U.S. Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, issued a statement behalf of FairPoint Communications, Inc., the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Communications Workers of America.
Members of Springfield, Ill., Local 51 in Bartonsville have operated and maintained the Edwards coal-fired power plant for generations, all through the national debate over the role that coal will play in our nation’s energy future.
With IBEW facing a wave of retirements in its leadership ranks over the next few years, new leaders and activists are needed to carry the union forward in a challenging political and economic climate.
The holidays are hard times for families in need. But St. Louis Local 1 and the St. Francois County Sheriff’s Department helped make some children’s holidays a little brighter.
The International Labor Communications Association’s 2014 Labor Media Awards honored the union’s accomplishments in print, video and Web productions.
Union leaders representing employees at FairPoint Communications will join the company in talks with mediators from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service on Jan 4. in an effort to restart contract negotiations that stalled last October.
January 2, 2015
The seventh season of Brotherhood Outdoors kicks off Jan. 4, featuring a member of the Sheet Metal Workers union on a big hunt for moose and deer in the wilds of Idaho.
The first project labor agreement in Contra Costa County, north of San Francisco, was signed in November between the city of Martinez and Local 302.
Kentucky Democrats successfully maintained control of the state house last November, effectively dashing Republican lawmakers’ goal of passing right-to-work-for-less legislation.
Carhartt and the Union Sportsmen Alliance are giving away an all-inclusive trip to the 2015 CMA Music Awards.
L.A Local 11, community groups and a national coalition have won a neutrality agreement covering taxpayer-funded rail car manufacturing using local residents.
Anti-worker lawmakers in Missouri admit that right-to-work lowers wages – but they’re still in favor of it.
Popular musical acts in Maine are teaming up with union activists to help raise money for FairPoint strikers this holiday season.
Asplundh’s tree trimmers in Kentucky are joining co-workers in Ohio, Michigan, West Virginia and Virginia voting for IBEW-negotiated protections and benefits.
Members of San Diego Local 569 are helping overcome their state’s water scarcity, building the largest seawater desalination project in the Western Hemisphere.
Nearly 40 members of Minneapolis Local 292 are helping build a wheelchair-accessible home for a Marine who was seriously injured in Afghanistan.
Activists are calling on Congress to reject fast track and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a global free trade bill that will costs jobs and drive down working conditions.
Wisconsin Republicans are threatening to pass right-to-work-for-less in 2015.
After his firsthand glimpse of 9/11’s devastation, a Local 3 member memorialized fellow union members in a flag displayed at the New York museum.
IBEW members throughout Louisiana are mobilizing to re-elect pro-worker Sen. Mary Landrieu this Saturday.
The Union Plus mortgage assistance program has helped workers like Philadelphia Local 98 member Eric Hudson during lean financial times.
Gas line locators at an infrastructure construction company prevailed in a unique campaign to join Toledo, Ohio, Local 245.
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Local 529 filed an unfair labour
practice application against Alliance Energy Industrial Ltd. in
June, accusing the company of intimidating pro-IBEW workers at
its Agrium pot ash mine in northern Saskatchewan.
For many Bakersfield Local 428 members, California’s
thriving solar industry is an opportunity for job growth and
stability. For some of the local’s newest members,
it’s a second chance.
IBEW members often say that the union’s apprenticeship
training, delivered by the NJATC, is the union’s
best-kept secret.
One of the biggest stories already shaping up in this
year’s election cycle is the influence of deep-pocketed,
extremist organizations and their fight against everyday
American workers.
Popular songs and advertisements have inspired generations
of Americans to get behind the wheel and step on the gas
pedal.
One of the biggest stories already shaping up in this
year’s election cycle is the influence of deep-pocketed,
extremist organizations and their fight against everyday
American workers.
Two years ago, IBEW locals in Ohio played a critical role in
winning a ballot initiative to defeat legislation supported by
Republican Gov. John Kasich which would have taken away the
right of firefighters, teachers and other public workers to
collectively bargain.
It turns out the first, second and third time is the charm,
at least for members of El Dorado, Ark., Local 2284.
Thousands of union members rallied in Pittsburgh July 31 to
protest the Environmental Protection Act’s Clean Power
plan, which they say will kill good jobs and weaken the
electrical grid.
A six-year contract between FairPoint Communications and
1,700 members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical
Workers and 300 members of the CWA expired at midnight Aug. 2,
as the parties agreed to continue talks to forge a new
agreement.
Thugs. Goons. Bullies. Anti-worker politicians love to use
colorful language when talking about unions and their
members.
The 400 members of Chicago Local 134 who maintain the
city’s bustling railways are looking forward to some
major changes in the next few years.
IBEW members and family members were awarded $10,000 of
scholarships from the Union Plus Educational Fund.
The number of homeless children in rural Whatcom County,
Wash., has doubled in the past two years. Most of these
children are being raised by a single parent.
IBEW members are testifying this week in four cities in
opposition to the Environmental Protection Agency’s
proposed Clean Power Plan.
Crumbling bridges. Damaging potholes. Dangerous traffic that
contributes to fatalities.
If you’re reading this on your computer or your phone,
you have local unions like Portland, Oregon, Local 48 to
thank.
If Mark Brochu is an adrenaline junkie, his friends and
co-workers will tell you he’s one of the best one they
know, putting adventurous exploits into productive work.
Americans live in the only developed nation that does not
guarantee paid parental leave. To make matters worse, 40
million workers in the country do not have access to paid sick
leave to take care of themselves, their children or aging
parents.
The U.S. Department of Commerce is charging South Korean
producers of steel tubing with unfairly “dumping”
their products below their fair market value in the U.S.
A looming strike at the Long Island Railroad – the
busiest commuter rail system in the nation – was averted
July 17 when IBEW leaders and other union activists announced a
tentative deal with the transit agency’s management.
It’s common sense. Federal money shouldn’t line
the pockets of known law-breakers. But many government
contractors routinely violate labor and wage and hour laws,
costing employees – and taxpayers – millions of
dollars
Every weekday, more than 335,000 passengers ride the Long
Island Railroad, flowing into Manhattan in the morning and back
out to Long Island at the end of the day.
This Fourth of July, the St. Louis Science Center’s
James S. McDonnell Planetarium celebrated with a light
spectacle much closer to the ground.
The IBEW, along with other unions that represent energy
workers, are criticizing the Environmental Protection
Agency’s proposed Clean Power Plan, saying it will kill
jobs and put the electrical grid at risk.
Republican legislators in Fort Wayne, Ind., voted June 24 to
terminate collective bargaining for 500 public employees who
help maintain services and infrastructure in the state’s
second largest city.
Thanks to the hard work of members from the IBEW and other
unions, visitors can remain safe while appreciating the beauty
of the Horicon Marsh wildlife refuge in Wisconsin.
CSX Transportation’s Selkirk repair shop is a massive,
loud throwback to America’s industrial past.
It has cost 5.8 million American jobs and millions in
Canada, too. It’s called currency manipulation, a tricky
device by which one country (like China) plays around with the
price of its currency and hurts its trading partners (like the
U.S. and Canada).
More than 700 technicians working for Comcast across the
U.S. enjoy better wages and a voice on the job, thanks to the
collective bargaining agreements they have negotiated.
Thousands of home care workers were already burdened by
trying circumstances on their jobs before a Supreme Court
ruling on June 30 made their lives and their service to
disabled persons more difficult.
Northwest Alabama has been a hard place for union workers
for decades.
The United States’ transportation infrastructure is in
desperate need of massive federal investment to rebuild
crumbling roads and bridges.
When the Seattle City Council started considering proposals
to raise the city’s minimum wage, Seattle Local 46 knew
it was their duty to step right up to help.
Last year, a public policy center at Northeastern University
in Boston released a
report stating that the lack of affordable housing in
Beantown could hurt the city’s e conomic recovery.
Critics of raising the minimum wage claim it will hurt
businesses and cost jobs, but the experience of one California
city is refuting the naysayers.
North Carolinians from all walks of life continue their
Monday protests against the state GOP’s extremist
agenda.
In the race of advancing telecommunications technology, the
National Coalition for Telecommunications Education and
Learning is helping workers keep up the pace.
IBEW Locals in California are standing up for housing rights
for our nation’s veterans.
Hundreds of IBEW sisters are expected in San Antonio Sept.
17-20 for the Seventh IBEW International Women’s
Conference.
Manufacturing workers at Greenbrier Rail Service in Hershey,
Neb., are the newest members of the IBEW family after voting to
join North Platte Local 1920.
President Barack Obama announced the creation of a
presidential emergency board June 15 to end four years of
stalled contract negotiations with the Brotherhood of
Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, the IBEW and the
Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority.
Through helping residents, building a reputation as a good
neighbor and working in coalition with other community
organizations, Modesto Local 684 is winning new work.
Union members recently volunteered to build a roof on the
youth archery range at the J.W. Corbett Wildlife Management
Area’s Everglades Youth Conservation Camp in West Palm
Beach, Fla.
When it comes to renewable energy, Rhode Island lags far
behind its neighboring New England states.
Two hundred and ten graduates crossed the stage to receive
their diplomas from the National Labor College at the end of
this spring semester. It was the institution’s largest
graduating class, and also its last.
Outsourcing by state and local governments increasingly
means that the middle-class jobs of today are becoming the
poverty-level jobs of tomorrow.
Moms employed by the mega-retailer Walmart walked off the
job in more than 20 cities last week to protest continuing low
pay and disrespect.
In Minnesota, everyone agrees that when it comes to
taxpayer-funded construction projects, contractors must obey
the law.
Summer is here, but only a few months ago, North America was
suffering through record freezing artic temperatures, ice
storms and massive snow flurries.
Billions of dollars of new transmission work is coming to
the Midwest and Great Plains, making outside line construction
one of the hottest job fields in the country.
The EPA has a track record of underestimating the impact of
its rules, making faulty predictions that have cost tens of
thousands of good jobs.
Nearly 2,000 ADT employees across the U.S. and Canada enjoy
better job security, fair wages and other benefits of an IBEW
contract.
As you get ready to hit the highway this summer, crews
working on or near roads have a request: slow down and stay
alert.
Approximately 30 skilled tradesmen donated their time to
rehabilitate a fishing pier at Houston’s Sheldon Lake
State Park May 3.
A power outage… A college graduation. They mix about
as well as electricity and water.
A big crowd at a local meeting is often one of the most
reliable signs of a union’s strength.
In 2007, as Congress considered approval of the
U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, the IBEW joined 10 other
unions in a letter opposing the pact with the most dangerous
country in the world for unions, with 72 trade unionists
assassinated the year before.
The 2014 legislative session in Missouri ended May 16 with
the defeat of two major anti-labor bills long sought after by
anti-worker special interests.
IBEW members are usually on the go. Many depend on their
phones or tablets to check the latest news and keep in
contact.
In the days and weeks after March’s tragic and sudden
mudslide that devastated the small Washington community of Oso,
the nation watched as newscasters and reporters piled up grim
figures.
The Trans-Pacific Psartnership – a trade agreement
under negotiation by the United States, Canada and 11 other
Pacific Rim nations – could end up making it harder for
consumers to fill their prescriptions.
A popular button often seen at labor rallies and conferences
reads, “A woman's place is in her union.”
The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority
(SEPTA) rejected federal efforts to end four years of stalled
contract negotiations with the Brotherhood of Locomotive
Engineers and Trainmen and the IBEW on May 8.
On May 12, executives and shareholders of Charlotte,
N.C.-based FairPoint Communications gathered for the
company’s annual shareholders meeting. The meeting took
place amid widespread rumors, reported on
www.ibew.org, the company is
seeking a merger or sale.
The Erie County Vietnam Veterans Memorial is shining a
little brighter after a new set of lights were unveiled May
3
For years, high-school students have been told there is one
path to success – a four-year college degree.
Business and labor may not agree on everything, but when it
comes to investing in America’s aged industrial
infrastructure, both sides are sounding the alarm.
Members attending the 2014 Broadcasting, Manufacturing and
Telecommunications Conference in Connecticut in late April
loudly applauded after hearing from George Farrell, a retired
fire chief who coordinates Rhode Island’s “honor flights”
program.
Like many high school seniors, Brian Hobbs and Jacob Bates
weren’t looking forward to four more years of sitting in
the classroom – all while racking up major college
debt.
Talgo is vacating its factory in Wisconsin, four years after
Gov. Scott Walker rejected millions in federal stimulus money
to create a commuter line.
During President Obama’s recent tour of Asia, many
issues were discussed with foreign heads of state. At the top
of Obama’s agenda was the Trans-Pacific
Partnership, a proposed trade agreement among the United
States and 12 other Pacific Rim nations.
GlobalFoundries ,the world’s largest semiconductor
manufacturer, is building a new manufacturing campus in upstate
New York.
Letter carriers across the country are getting ready for the
22nd annual Letter Carriers’
Food Drive.
Just weeks after failing to garner enough support
to put right-to-work-for-less on the Missouri ballot,
anti-worker state legislators are resurrecting another bill
aimed at weakening workers’ rights.
When telecom company FairPoint Communications first bid to
take over Verizon’s New England landline service in 2008,
there were both promises and worries.
Business and labor leaders are in agreement that President
Obama’s April 16
announcement of $600 million in federal grant programs to
boost workforce training is the right decision for the
economy.
As president of the AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka hears and reads
a lot of horror stories about workers being abused by
employers.
Last year, one story struck home in a uniquely personal way
for Trumka, a former coal miner whose father, grandfathers and
uncles died from black lung disease, suffocating from the
effects of years of breathing coal dust.
Vistas at Providence Canyon State Park, known to locals as
Georgia’s Little Grand Canyon, will be enhanced by seven
miles of restored trails, thanks to union members.
IBEW and NECA are recognized for their concern for the
environment and support for their cities.
Matt Harlow, an inside journeyman wireman member of
Birmingham, Ala., Local 136, learned a lot about the value of
on-the-job training during his five years as an apprentice
instructor.
After Dan Sullivan topped out of San Diego Local 569’s
apprenticeship program in 2001, he went back to the training
center for the class that changed his life.
Seven years after the onset of the Great Recession, nearly
all economists agree that we are in an economic recovery.
Drive down any wide, open highway across Missouri and
you’ll see something big, heavy and plentiful on the
plains.
An IBEW request has helped initiate a timely hearing to
discuss how the shutdowns of coal-fired power plants will
affect the nation’s electrical grid, especially during
extreme weather emergencies.
Automated electricity meters have been a double-whammy for
many locals. Meter reader jobs disappear and the replacement
work has proven extremely resistant to organizing on both sides
of the border.
The U.S. Senate voted April 7 to restore unemployment
benefits for the 2.8 million Americans who have been out of
work for six months or longer.
Efforts to make Missouri the 25th right-to-work-for-less
state came up short April 9, with anti-worker state legislators
failing to garner enough votes to send their bill to the state
Senate.
Muskegon, Mich., Local 275 invested in a camcorder and asked
the local’s new members to say on camera why they decided
to join the IBEW – in their own words.
Leading union activists representing broadcasting employees
cheered a move that will help promote diversity in local media
markets while saving jobs.
With technology moving so quickly, success in the
telecommunications industry requires commitment to lifelong
learning.
Lineman put their lives on the line every day to ensure that
electricity is safely delivered to our homes and
businesses.
Flat wages have been pushing American workers backward for
decades, but Minneapolis Local 292 member Kent
Blachowiak’s employer was trying to push him all the way
back to the 19th century.
Trentice Hamm and Robert Bausch started out their day hoping
to inspire some nonunion Oklahoma construction workers during
an organizing blitz.
It is unlikely that most of the long-term unemployed will
find their way back into the labor market without an effort by
Congress and business leaders, a new report says.
It can seem tougher these days to find products on store
shelves that don’t have a “Made in China”
label.
It’s one of the inevitable laugh lines in tens of
thousands of workplaces, public and private. A senior manager
tells workers that some of their duties will be outsourced to
cut costs. Around the water cooler employees snicker about how
contracting out work often backfires, costing employers more
than they save.
U.S. Senators Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Rob Portman
(R-Ohio), members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources
Committee, are actively supporting a request from IBEW, the
United Mineworkers Union, the Utility Workers and others to
hold a hearing on the stability and reliability of the
nation’s electrical grid.
The Koch brothers are trying to buy elections. Anti-labor
lobbyists helped defeat VW workers’ effort to organize in
Tennessee. And right-to-work may be coming to states like
Missouri, Ohio and Maine if anti-union lawmakers succeed in
carrying out their corporate donors’ wishes.
The industry leader in the manufacture of arc-rated fabrics
is helping to create a program to help train the next
generation of electrical workers.
Many World War II factories operated with the assistance of
women, some of whom are coming to Washington, with the help of
IBEW members.
There is one television concert show where the technical
engineers behind the broadcast are as talented as the people on
the stage.
You never know when you could use a helping hand. Hardships
can hit at any time: layoffs, natural disasters, medical
emergencies or a strike.
Activists in Missouri are working to remind businesses that
everyone in the Show Me state benefits from good union jobs
– every time a member makes a purchase.
Each St. Patrick’s Day, we honor North America’s
Irish heritage.
Franklin Roosevelt was in office and Mickey Mouse first hit
the screen when most of New York City’s sewer mains were
installed. The Cold War was just starting and home TVs were
still a rarity around the time when most schools were built in
the five boroughs.
Collinsville, Ill., Local 309 has launched an unprecedented,
multiplatform advertising campaign that Business Manager Scott
Hassall expects will dramatically raise the profile of the
local and its signatory contractors throughout their southwest
Illinois jurisdiction.
America’s building trades unions are strongly opposing
President Obama’s recommendation to privatize the
Tennessee Valley Authority, calling it a budget gimmick that
would set back a model institution that has improved the lives
of millions.
Every economic sector reserves a special place for
pioneering companies. Respect grows when, more than a century
after the formation of an enterprise, it continues to provide
innovative leadership in its industry.
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers joins
the growing number of labor unions, community and civil rights
activists and lawmakers in calling for an end to Kellogg
Co.’s four-month lockout of more than 220 workers at the
company’s Memphis, Tenn., plant.
Union members and pro-worker activists took to the heart of
Toronto’s retail district Feb. 15 to call on Ontario
Premier Kathleen Wynne to raise the provincial minimum
wage.
Politicians talk a lot about jobs, but there is one surefire
way Congress can help create millions of jobs according to a
new
report from the Economic Policy Institute: crack down on
currency manipulation.
When legislators in Pennsylvania decided to follow the lead
of Wis. Gov. Scott Walker and propose a bill to weaken the
state’s public sector unions, so many unionists showed up
at Harrisburg’s capitol rotunda on Jan. 28, many were
forced to stand outside in the freezing cold.
With a New York Bank data center project, upgrades to a
General Motors auto plant and a new convention center job on
the books, leaders ofNashville Local 429
figured the time was right to move an electrical licensing law
through the Davidson County Council, a 40-member body that
covers the celebrated music city and surrounding suburbs.
For nearly 125 years, the IBEW has relentlessly fought to
improve on-the-job safety for electrical workers, and the
positive impact of the Brotherhood’s advocacy is
unquestionable.
The United Auto Workers is asking the National Labor
Relations Board to set aside the results of the certification
election at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga, Tenn. assembly
plant decided after a three-day vote Feb. 14.
On Valentine’s Day, while much of the nation faced
frigid temperatures, in Cape Coral, Fla., cancer patient
Frances Ballester wasn’t just struggling with a lack of
air conditioning. Her breathing machine, too, was shut down
after the local utility turned off her electrical power over
landlord’s unpaid bills.
Less than 200 Maine residents earn their living catching
lobsters. But nearly 20,000 state inhabitants work in call
centers, like legendary retailer L.L. Bean’s, employing
2,000.
Tens of thousands of people enjoy bass fishing. When they
are not on their favorite lakes, many watch fishing tournaments
on TV.
In a victory for American jobs and fair pay, the U.S. Court
of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld Department of Labor
wage rules requiring non-agricultural foreign workers be paid
prevailing wages.
The IBEW is asking regulators to carefully review the
proposed merger between Comcast and Time Warner.
Talk about a dirty job. TV host Mike Rowe is the voice for
Walmart’s new TV ad campaign promoting American
manufacturing
If you want to know where the jobs are, follow the sun.
That’s the conclusion of a new report from the Solar
Foundation, which says solar employment in 2013 grew by 20
percent over the previous year. That’s 10 times faster
than the national average employment growth rate.
Last week, we reported on Worcester, Mass., Local 96 member
Ekaterina Pashkevitch, who is in Sochi, Russia, playing
center for the Russian Women’s Olympic Hockey Team.
At any gathering of union members, you can always count on
one thing: T-shirts. Bearing the union’s colors and
announcing--often quite loudly and creatively –their
cities or towns, T-shirts help members express their pride.
The skewing of national income to the top 1 percent of the
country threatens upward mobility, which is the core of the
American dream, says a new study from the Illinois Economic Policy
Institute and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
School of Labor and Employment Relations.
For IBEW member Charles Horhn, the fight for civil rights,
voters’ rights and workers’ rights are one. In
honor of black history month, he told his story to the
AFL-CIO blog.
The Supreme Court of Canada struck a blow for pensioner
rights Jan. 30, reinstating a lower court’s decision that
a $43 million pension surplus that existed when Manitoba
Telephone was privatized in 1997 belonged exclusively to
retirees.
When most people think about solar power, New Jersey
doesn’t immediately come to mind. They might think of
thousands of photovoltaic panels sprawling across barren
stretches Southwestern desert. Solar, many people suppose,
thrives not in New Jersey but where New Jersey goes on
vacation.
Ekaterina Pashkevitch is taking to the ice in Sochi, Russia
this week, playing center for the Russian Women’s Olympic
Hockey Team.
You’ve heard the reasons why union manufacturing
can’t make it in America anymore: Union workers get paid
too much. American manufacturers can’t afford to build
here. Unions just get in the way of management.
Four project labor agreements between IBEW and PPL Electric
Utilities in Pennsylvania to upgrade miles of aging power lines
will soon require 400 to 500 outside journeymen linemen. This
is good news for Keystone State members and for travelers from
as far away as Alaska.
Vacaville, Calif. Local 1245 member Erick Varela was at the
White House Jan. 31 to introduce President Barack Obama at a
discussion with the heads of some of America’s top
corporations about combating long-term unemployment –
something the two-tour combat veteran is all too familiar
with.
Is the Show-Me State about to get a new motto? As in,
“Show me a smaller paycheck?”
The outlook for more than 50,000 American jobs in
manufacturing could be determined by a bill under consideration
in Congress that places more than a dozen significant new
restrictions on the export of civilian nuclear technology.
Two years ago, the Pennsylvania legislature, looking to keep
the state’s unemployment benefit fund solvent, came up
with a plan to alter an eligibility rule for collecting
benefits.
More than 30 freelancers working for Program Productions,
Inc., voted overwhelmingly to be represented by Boston Local
1228 in an NLRB-certified election Jan. 8.
Clergy, civil rights activists, union members and education
advocates from throughout North Carolina are converging on
Raleigh Feb. 8 for what is expected to be the largest ever
“Moral Monday” march.
IBEW members who become electrical contractors have the
advantage of knowing not just a trade and an industry, but how
to unleash the powerful contributions of the men and women who
work on their projects.
Activists are calling on Congress to say no to fast-track
legislation that would take away its ability to negotiate the
biggest free-trade agreement since NAFTA – the
Trans-Pacific Partnership.
A new system to increase the capacity of transmission lines
is being used for the first time by members of Syracuse, N.Y.
Local 1249.
Who said it?
“[Unions] are a key driver in the creation of the
middle-class, for the reduction of work hours, paid vacation,
all sorts of benefits that we all enjoy.”
Contrasting the chilly stillness of winter with the energy
of a lineman in action, Casper, Wyo., Local 322 member Levi
Gossard’s photo won top honors in the 16th IBEW Photo
Contest.
The best apprenticeship programs depend upon students who
are well-prepared at the secondary education level for success
in the academic rigors of the electrical trade.
For 20 seasons, “American
Woodshop” has been a favorite show on PBS channels
across the U.S.
It’s an innovative idea in education – a
maritime-trade focused school for students in the 5th to 12th
grades.
Following a dramatic campaign that tapped the resources and
verve of workers and organizers, 78 employees at Sunoptics
– a Sacramento-based manufacturer of high-tech skylights
– are the newest members of Vacaville, Calif., Local
1245.
We support the Jan. 14 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the D.C. Circuit affirming the authority of the Federal
Communications Commission to regulate broadband access.
Like your weekend? Well if you live in Wisconsin, a pair of
Republican state legislators has an unpleasant surprise for
you.
A policy think tank has a new fact sheet that shows that
worker misclassification is a serious problem everywhere
– even in states with relatively strong labor
protections, like Oregon.
As Kansas City and Local 124 host the 24th
annual leadership conference of the Electrical Workers Minority
Caucus on Jan. 16, members will reflect upon the legacy of
one of the longest-standing minority caucuses in the labor
movement formed
40 years ago in the same city during the 30th IBEW
Convention.
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers welcomes
the decision by the International Union of Operating Engineers
to formally re-affiliate with the Building and Construction
Trades Department, AFL-CIO.
One of the main arguments in favor of voting and engaging in
the political process is the importance of electing friends who
will appoint fair-minded judges. When we fail, important
gains won at the bargaining table or in legislation can be
negated by the courts.
The U.S. Senate narrowly voted to extend unemployment
benefits to the long-term unemployed Jan. 6. These expired at
the end of last year for 1.3 million workers who have been
unemployed for 26 weeks or longer.
Since 1950, New York State’s substantial hunger for
energy has historically been quenched by big servings of
coal-fired steam generation. And, since 1950, one of the
largest plants was Dunkirk Station, on the shore of Lake Erie,
55 miles southwest of Buffalo, employing members of Syracuse
Local 97.
Supporters of workers’ rights won an important legal
victory Nov. 21, after the Saskatchewan Labour Relations Board
found contractor Magna Electric Corp. guilty of unfairly
terminating pro-union employees.
Verizon Business technicians in Andover, Maine, voted
overwhelmingly to join Augusta Local 2327 Dec. 11.
While some members of Congress continue to push for further
cuts to federal spending, one government watchdog group says
our elected leaders need to focus on a more pressing debt: the
industrial investment deficit.
From contemplative landscapes to jaw-dropping heights,
participants in this year’s IBEW photo contest showcased
an array of stunning images – displaying that our
membership’s talent extends far beyond the tool belt.
The lockout that forced the 225 members of Vancouver,
British Columbia, Local 213 out of their jobs at FortisBC is
over after nearly six months.
St. Louis Local 1 electricians Sylvester Taylor and Leon
Arties were ready for the cold weather, adhering to the advice
of all workers who brave the elements on their jobs: “You
can always put on more clothes than you need and take off what
you don’t.”
The hectic life of an IBEW business manager offers few
reprieves and little free time.
But for Eric Patrick, leader of Rockford, Ill., Local 196,
such hard work was rewarded earlier this year when the Union
Sportsmen’s Alliance invited him to coastal Louisiana for
a fishing expedition.
In the surge of goodwill that accompanies the holiday
season, IBEW locals across the U.S. apply their skills to light
displays and community celebrations, winning praise in the
media and respect from hundreds of thousands of neighbors for
whom a visit to the displays is often a yearly custom.
The fate of a proposed $7.7 billion liquefied natural gas
export facility in Oregon will likely be decided in the next
few weeks and members of the IBEW are lobbying for the
project’s approval.
When workers vote “union yes,” it’s often
a hard-won victory. But tougher still can be the path to a
first contract, where the skills of newly-minted activists are
put to the test against the possibility of continued company
resistance and difficult negotiations.
Bridging differences between members is often difficult
enough for local unions. Deciding how apprenticeships will be
filled can sometimes be a point of controversy.
Unions representing more than 1 million federal workers in
Canada – including the IBEW – are coming together
to take on anti-worker legislation that threatens collective
bargaining rights and on-the-job safety
Longtime members of N.Y. Local 1212 who perform all video,
editing and broadcasting at the U.N. were deeply worried.
A record 67.5 million women are working today, but many
women suffer from low-pay and a gender-based wage gap that
makes it hard to get by.
Math isn’t just important for balancing checkbooks and
passing tests. It’s vital to a career in the electrical
trade.
Stan Osnowitz, an unemployed journeyman electrician member
of Baltimore Local 24, said he hates being unemployed.
“It is a waste of my abilities. I love being an
electrician,” he says. Out of work since July after
working for three years straight, Osnowitz is one of more than
two million unemployed job seekers who could lose federal
jobless aid if Congress does not act to extend it before the
end of the year.
Missouri Republicans are looking to start the New Year off
on the wrong foot, with another legislative battle over
right-to-work-for-less legislation.
Here are just five ways Comcast has given workers a raw deal
in one of its most financially successful years on record.
Fed up with poverty wages, fast-food workers across the
country are holding a one-day strike Dec. 5.
A new, custom-built deer blind in Texas Hill Country set the
stage for kids with mobility issues to experience the thrill of
the hunt safely and comfortably, due to the completion of a
conservation project organized and sponsored by the
Houston-area union community and the Union Sportsmen’s
Alliance.
When FairPoint Communications bought Verizon’s New
England landline holdings in 2008, the company announced that
fears among IBEW members who had worked for Verizon that the
new company would outsource and cut jobs were unwarranted.
Too often when school boards face budget shortfalls, music
education is the first to go.
But for Washington, D.C., students, music in the classroom
is alive and well thanks to a donation from Local 26 and
CBS EcoMedia.
Most
Americans reject slashing Social Security benefits, but
that hasn’t stopped well-funded lobbyists on Capitol Hill
from continuing to push Congress to make Social Security
cuts.
Ontario Conservative Party Leader Tim Hudak’s
antipathy toward unions is no secret, but a recently leaked
internal campaign document reveals just how anti-labour a
potential Tory government could be.
Across the breezy expanse of Iowa, clean wind-powered energy
is abundant.
But for workers in this booming industry, safety on the job
can be scarce. That’s one reason why nonunion employees
at the TPI Composites plant in Newton are looking to the IBEW
for representation.
Dick Yuengling, president of the nation’s oldest
brewery, has rarely kept his contempt for unions under
wraps. In 2006, he supported a move by workers in his
Pottsville, Pa., brewery to decertify their Teamsters
bargaining unit.
The deadline was already extended to Nov. 30, so you have no
excuses!
How the nuclear power industry will find enough qualified
workers to build, operate and maintain plants in the future was
the topic of an online conversation featuring International
President Edwin D. Hill and senior executives from
industry.
Ohio-based FirstEnergy Corp. announced Nov. 12 a
multibillion-dollar effort to overhaul and expand its
electrical transmission network, ensuring reliable service and
enhanced capacity to meet the demands of a growing economy.
As any member can tell you, the IBEW isn’t just about
good wages or strong contracts. It’s also about
commitment to community.
Alaska possesses one of the stronger labor movements in the
United States, with a union density rate only second to that of
New York State.
As the economy continues its steady recovery, demand for
telecommunications workers is picking up. But many of the best
jobs are only open to people who keep up with the
industry’s rapidly changing technology.
The Labor Department’s jobs report released last week
revealed some interesting data about the health of the economy
and the industries represented by the IBEW.
For many decades, IBEW members have skillfully brought news
and entertainment to local audiences across the nation, working
for major broadcasting companies like CBS, Fox and ABC.
Nova Scotia Power’s announcement that it was
considering outsourcing at least 250 utility jobs is being
criticized by workers and consumer activists as a threat to
good jobs and reliable service.
As millions of Christmas and holiday season displays take
shape across the nation, picking the best is surely a difficult
task. But some shine brightest.
The federal Davis-Bacon Act – along with its state and
local counterparts — helps keep construction jobs good
jobs and maintain high standards in the industry by requiring
contractors receiving public funds to pay the local prevailing
wage.
The 2010 midterm elections brought to power a wave of
anti-worker governors and legislators. Some are notorious for
their attacks on workers’ rights: Scott Walker in
Wisconsin, Rick Scott in Florida, Rick Snyder in Michigan.
Amtrak has long been the whipping boy of congressional
right-wingers, who decry federal spending on the nation’s
passenger rail line as wasteful.
You hear it from the mouths of young people every day: I
can’t afford college. The debt would be too big.
I’m not sure what to do.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative
government launched a sneak attack on federal workers’
rights earlier this month with the introduction of a new budget
bill.
After a generator failed at a Montana coal-fired power plant
on July 1, the operator, PPL Montana, announced that some
members of Colstrip Local 1638 would later be placed on
furlough for at least 90 days.
The nation’s economy showed disappointing growth in
September, with only 148,000 jobs compared to 169,000 jobs
created in August.
The Northeast Line Constructors chapter of the National
Electric Contractors Association has donated $1 million to
support the national outside apprenticeship program. Chapter
Manager Mike Gilchrist said the donation was the groups way of
saying thank you to the linemen and contractors who helped
rebuild after Superstorm Sandy destroyed billions of dollars of
property and cut off power to more than 8 million homes across
New Jersey, New York and New England.
Labor unions and allies in the city of Watsonville, a
fertile agricultural center on the central coast of California,
have had much success in 2012 convincing progressive candidates
to run and win seats on their city council. Many council
members had labor union backgrounds, says Castroville Local 234
Business Manager Andy Hartmann.
A Michigan judge took an anti-union city manager to task
last week, ruling that Lowell City Manager Mark Howe lied and
unfairly targeted union activists – just to punish
workers for joining the IBEW.
The construction industry is making a strong comeback in
Arizona, with the number of construction permits up in 2012.
But the state actually lost construction jobs over the summer.
The reason, says many industry observers: worker
misclassification, which is a way for contractors to keep
employees on the worksites but off the books.
Leaders of the Danish Union of Electricians, along with
their counterparts on the employer side, visited the IBEW
International Office Oct. 1.
In the midst of the chaos of Hurricane Sandy, National
Grid, employing thousands of IBEW members in New York and New
England, decided to roll out a new computer system to account
for overtime pay and expenses.
Rice Electrical Services and Controls is the latest member
of the St. Louis Local 1 family after the business terminated
its contract with a rogue electricians union – the
Associated Electrical Contractors Local 57.
The officers of the International Brotherhood of Electrical
Workers sadly report that IBEW Government Employees Director
Chico McGill passed away Sept. 27. With a generous spirit and
an outsize personality, he was throughout his career an
outspoken voice for workers.
The
annual IBEW photo contest is a showcase for members to
demonstrate their skills with a camera and shine a light on
their too-often overlooked jobs. For 15 years, the IBEW Journal
and The Electrical Worker have printed hundreds of photos of
and by IBEW members at work—turning the lights back on
after storms, building architectural marvels and performing
hundreds of other jobs that contribute so much to communities
across North America and even beyond.
In today’s economy, education is vital to getting
ahead. And the National Coalition for Telecommunications
Education and Learning is the place for telecommunications
professionals looking to gain an edge through advanced online
learning.
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers President
Edwin D. Hill issued the following statement today:
“The draft regulations issued by the Environmental
Protection Agency regarding emissions from newly-constructed
power plants threaten economic growth and America’s
energy future. Read more...
More than 100 young IBEW members from across the United
States and Canada will be in Washington, D.C., Sept. 27-29 for
the first ever Reach out and Energize Next-gen Electrical
Workers conference.
We know the professionalism and skill that members of the
IBEW bring to the job every day.
Now hundreds of millions of TV viewers know as well.
Coming on the heels of last year’s national ad
campaign, a new IBEW spot – titled “Power
Professionals” – went on the air this month.
The Department of Defense has canceled repairs for a damaged
nuclear submarine and ended a program that monitors orbiting
space junk, two striking examples of consequences of a federal
austerity program that could lay off dozens, potentially
hundreds, of IBEW members.
The IBEW’s efforts to tap into good jobs in the
booming energy sector are seeing big results in West Virginia,
with hundreds of members hard at work building and maintaining
the infrastructure needed to get the Mountaineer State’s
rich natural gas load to market.
Two years after the launch of the first IBEW app, the IBEW
is putting the finishing touches on a new news app for digital
readers.
Volunteers from Richmond, Va., Local 666 joined members from
the plumbers and pipefitters and the Virginia Building and
Construction Trades Council on Aug. 21 to help create more
accessible walkways for York River State Park visitors with
mobility issues.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans are expected to be in
Washington, D.C., Aug. 24 to commemorate the 50th
anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and
Freedom, where Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous
“I Have a Dream” speech.
Diesel bus mechanics employed by the Delaware Transit Corp.
never had much need for a union. That is until one of their own
was fired – all because of his breakfast.
ADT alarm system installers know that when they finish work
at a new customer’s home, they’re offering
something priceless – greater peace of mind for the whole
family.
A toll-free call center connection to someone in India has
been a punchline for comedians and TV sitcoms for years, but
for the thousands of Americans who have lost their jobs in call
centers, outsourcing is no laughing matter.
The United Food and
Commercial Workers, which left the AFL-CIO eight years ago
to join the Change
to Win Coalition, is rejoining the nation’s largest
labor federation.
A coalition of 20 unions including the IBEW has already seen
progress from a campaign to challenge the furlough of 650,000
Department of Defense civilian employees. Since July 1, the
Federal Workers
Alliance has been urging members of Congress to eliminate
11 unpaid furlough days that are part of the federal
government’s budget
sequester. The furloughs amount to a 20 percent reduction
in pay.
Family members of IBEW members have been awarded
scholarships worth $6,250 by the Union Plus Educational Fund.
The grantees were among more than 100 winners, representing 36
unions who were awarded up to $4,000. They were chosen out of a
pool of more than 5,300 applicants based on their academic
performance, financial need and a 500-word essay describing
their career goals and their relationship with the labor
movement.
One year before his city made headlines as the largest
municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, Detroit Local 58 Business
Manager Mike Richard was meeting with his member of Congress to
underscore the need to give Detroit and Michigan residents the
first crack at construction jobs on several Detroit-area
projects that were in the planning stage.
Raise the Minimum Wage - President Obama reiterated his call
for raising the federal minimum wage in his speech on the
economy last week.
D.C. Apprentices Get Organized - Washington, D.C., Local 26
journeyman wireman Adam Reed started out in the work force at
just about the worst time imaginable.
In the midst of the Great Depression, a still photographer
shot a picture of 11 ironworkers eating lunch on a steel girder
840 feet above the streets of New York City. The photo,
entitled “Lunch Atop a Skyscraper,” was staged. But
the workers who demonstrated the lengths and heights people
will go to for a job, were real. And their lack of safety
equipment symbolized the sacrifices workers made just to find
any job and feed their families.
Union sportsmen take a back seat to no one when it comes to
expert, responsible hunting and fishing and working to preserve
habitats for wildlife from neglect or abuse. But the Union Sportsmen’s
Alliance, a union-dedicated outdoor organization, is
setting an even broader example by infusing the principle of
solidarity into a new program that brings together
volunteers—including IBEW members—to tackle
conservation projects in parks across the U.S.
Toronto, Ontario, Local 636 utility workers and Hydro Ottawa
partnered earlier this month to help power up a group home that
serves residents with physical disabilities and seniors.
Electrical workers and their employers are raising the alarm
about loopholes in the Affordable Care Act that threaten to
undermine quality coverage for more than 26 million
Americans.
Pittsburgh Local 5 members are being credited with saving
dozens of local senior citizens from a fire that tore through a
nursing home June 25.
The President’s statement on energy today is a step in
the right direction on the long road to reaching a balanced,
workable consensus on energy issues.
A recent poll shows a strong majority of citizens opposing
the use of more foreign guest workers in the trades. And labor
leaders are bringing that message to lawmakers as they debate
new immigration proposals that would have far-reaching effects
on the industry.
Some say religion and politics don’t mix. But
politicians often call upon their religion as an inspiration or
justification for their actions. Nowhere is this truer than in
North Carolina, where both houses of the state legislature are
under Republican control by Tea Party conservatives who often
cite scripture to support their agenda.
Like nonprofit organizations across North America, the Boys
and Girls Club of Green Bay, Wis., is scraping for funds to
keep its programs alive even while the need to help struggling
citizens grows due to a still difficult economy.
What if the controversy raging over the National Security
Agency’s surveillance of domestic phone calls is
overshadowing an abuse of privacy that could undermine our
nation’s democracy in a myriad of ways that the NSA
spying never could?
In what organizers are calling a stellar campaign victory, a
determined group of skilled technicians working for
SimplexGrinnell in Winnipeg stood up for rights on the job and
voted IBEW May 22.
In a genre best known for caped crusaders and mutants saving
the universe, one IBEW local is using comic books to tell the
story of another kind of hero: the union men and women who made
the American middle class.
On June 3, with a little over one year to go before their
contract with FairPoint Communications expires, business
managers and co-workers representing 1,700 IBEW members in
Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont traveled to the
company’s annual shareholder meeting in Charlotte,
N.C.
Two Harbors, Minn., power and water workers are going public
about stalled efforts to renew their two- year contract.
Dublin, Calif., Local 595’s new training center
formally opens on May 30, instantly becoming one of the most
efficient and technologically advanced commercial buildings in
the country.
With sadness, the IBEW announces the death of First District
Vice President Phillip Flemming on May 25. He was 68.
Federal shipyard workers across the United States won a
temporary respite May 14, when the Pentagon announced that they
were exempting employees from mandatory unpaid furlough
days.
Front and center of a new Memorial Day dedication in
Minnesota is an IBEW member and one of the once-anonymous
Marines who were the first to raise the American flag on Iwo
Jima.
Summer is coming. For many, this means vacations on the
beach, kids lounging at home and trips to the pool. But for
utilities, summer means raging thunderstorms and hurricane
season.
The Union Sportsmen’s Alliance, originally sponsored
by the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, has
maintained conservation as a core mission since its founding in
2007.
The mile-wide tornado that tore through Moore, Okla., May 20
killed dozens and left a swath of destroyed homes, businesses
and schools in its wake.
When it comes to attitudes about unions and our members,
Americans often summon the negative images spread by our
adversaries, rather than considering the contributions of union
members who could be their neighbors like the firefighters,
police personnel or nurses. Or electricians.
Seventh District International Vice President Jon Gardner
will retire from office on June 1.
For the IBEW's Darrell Taylor, organizing water treatment
workers at the Alberta oil sands has been a lot like the tricky
process of extracting raw fuel from the soil - slow and steady,
but promising in the end.
Effectively bridging the different perspectives and
experiences of three and, sometimes, four generations in the
same workplaces can be a daunting challenge for seasoned
leaders and emerging activists alike.
Eric Varela’s story is all too common. After serving
as a combat infantryman in Iraq with the 82nd Airborne
Division, Varela returned to California in 2008 to record high
unemployment.
When Dave Royle was a student at central New Jersey’s
Woodbridge (N.J.) High School in the late-1980s, he was well
known for his smile.
Missouri’s House Workforce Development and Workplace
Safety Committee approved “paycheck protection”
legislation on April 10. The bill would weaken public-sector
unions by prohibiting members from having dues earmarked for
political action from being automatically deducted from their
paychecks.
When Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, a Republican, joined with
his Democratic colleague W. Va. Sen. Joe Manchin, to propose a
bill on background check for gun owners, he was hailed as a
“voice of reasonable compromise.” Not so fast.
To honor those who have lost their lives as a result of
job-related illness or injury, dozens of countries around world
have designated April 28 as Workers Memorial Day.
The Edison Electric Institute (EEI) and International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) today salute the
nation’s men and women who risk their lives daily to keep
electricity flowing to the nation’s homes and
businesses.
Labor unions and progressive activists are speaking out and
organizing in opposition to President Obama’s proposal to
reduce Social Security benefits as part of his budget proposal
announced on April 10.
Labour activists in Western Canada are calling for a
moratorium on the federal temporary foreign worker program,
saying that the system is rife with abuse.
Celebrated poet Maya Angelou once said, “Living a life
is like constructing a building; if you start wrong, you'll end
wrong.”
If the same statement can describe a career, Michelle Braga,
a 17-year-old Pittsburgh-area vocational-technical high school
student who is aiming for an IBEW journeyman wireman
apprenticeship, is on the right track in both spheres.
The best way to keep working is to keep up with the work, an
increasingly demanding task with telecommunications
technology.
IBEW members in Canada are cheering TransCanada
Corp’s. proposal to build a pipeline to transport crude
oil from Western Canada to refineries in the east.
The Philadelphia City Council passed a bill last week that
would require virtually every employer in the city to provide
their workers with paid sick days – earning the enmity of
Comcast, a major player in Philly politics.
Workers across the nation rallied March 20 and 21 to protest
likely furloughs brought on by the more than $1 trillion in
automatic federal spending cuts known as the sequestration.
IBEW leaders are praising President Obama’s March 13
nomination of civil-rights attorney Thomas Perez for Secretary
of Labor.
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers President
Edwin D. Hill says President Obama’s nomination of Ernest
Moniz to be the next U.S. Department of Energy secretary
“is the right choice to lead our nation as we enter a new
era of energy policy.”
It’s not easy finding common ground in Washington,
D.C., these days. Getting Democrats and Republicans – not
to mention business and labor – to agree on anything
seems an impossible challenge.
Thousands of IBEW members who work for the federal
government or for private government contractors awoke Friday
morning facing a shaky economic future. The sequestration
– the series of draconian federal spending cuts totaling
$1.2 trillion – went into effect March 1, meaning that
more than 1 million federal workers face unpaid leave or worse
unless Congress takes action to rescind the cuts.
It’s one of the biggest challenges facing the economy
today: providing retirement security for America’s work
force.
If you think the looming “sequester” – the
series of automatic federal spending cuts set to go into effect
Friday, March 1 – doesn’t affect you and your
family, think again.
Few words are as chilling to workers as “corporate
merger.” Too often the aftermath is slashed jobs, cut
wages and managers acting unreasonably.
It’s one of the most powerful lobbying organizations
in the United States today, exercising an outsized influence in
the Republican Party and driving policy decisions in state
houses and governors’ mansions across the country.
And chances are you’ve never heard of it.
The Department of Defense is sending out dozens of contract
cancelations and preparing to lay off ten, possibly hundreds of
thousands of workers because they can no longer fund projects
started after 2009, dues to the inability of Congress to pass a
budget.
Years of management favoritism, lack of respect on the job
and the threat of declining wages had been wearing on hundreds
of Sears service technicians in the upper Midwest for
years.
Austin construction workers and workers’ rights
activists are accusing hotel developer White Lodging Inc., of
cheating employees out of tens of thousands of dollars in wages
on one of Austin’s most high-profile construction
projects.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has introduced a
bill on Feb. 5 that would impose so called right-to-work
laws nationally.
Union members and public safety officials are calling on
President Obama to finalize an Occupational Safety and Health
Administration standard that would reduce workers’
exposure to silica and save lives.
Dial One Wolfdale Electric Inc., was one of the Toronto
area’s largest nonunion contractors, performing millions
of dollars in commercial and industrial work each year.
The AFL-CIO Now blog is publicizing a
list of union-made food and drinks for members to enjoy on
Super Bowl Sunday.
Victor Lovelady’s family members say he was a hero
long before the project manager for a Houston-based energy firm
was killed at an Algeria natural gas plant after being held
hostage by Al Qaeda terrorists.
While gridlock reigns in the
legislative halls of Washington, D.C., states are churning with
anti-union bills, including Pennsylvania, where activists are
fighting back.
Kansas lawmakers are considering legislation that would
drastically curtail the rights of teachers, firefighters and
other public workers to participate in the political
process.
On Jan 15, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration
and leading freight railroad BNSF Railway Co., marked a big
step forward for on-the-job safety by signing an accord that
protects from retaliation workers who report on-the-job
injuries.
Ross Galbraith
The International Executive Council has appointed
Fredericton, New Brunswick, Local 37 Business Manager Ross
Galbraith Eighth District IEC member.
Summarizing the Obama administration’s accomplishments
in remarks to the IBEW Convention in Vancouver, now-retired
General Counsel Larry Cohen said:
We again have a Department of Labor that is a department
for labor. It is no longer an anti-labor labor department,
which it was throughout the Bush administration.
Henry Miller, the first President of the IBEW, died in 1896
without enough money for a decent burial... members of the IBEW
established a fraternal death benefit association in 1922 whose
essential purpose was to provide the named beneficiary of a
deceased member a sum that might permit our member to be
interred in a dignified manner.
2012 was a big year for union members with a passion for
hunting and fishing. The Union Sportsmen’s Alliance
– a national organization of union members committed to
outdoor sports and conservation – surpassed 50,000
members, its highest number yet.
Union folks shouldn’t be surprised when our
adversaries play word games. Terms like
“right-to-work” or “ownership society”
sound, to many, as American as the Super Bowl until people find
out that the first could cut their pay and benefits and the
second would put benefits like Social Security and Medicare in
the private hands of Wall Street.