What does a responsible union do when a deep recession causes work to dry up, and prospects for long-term growth appear limited? Do we wait passively for the market to dictate when our people can go back to work? Or do we take steps to shape our own future?
These are the choices faced by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) as we confront the ravages of the current economy and plan for the post-recessionary period. Like all change designed to achieve a long-term goal, our plan to capture the work we are not doing has caused some pushback by those who only understand the traditional way of doing business or, worse, those who will do or say anything to undermine the trade union movement.
Several media reports have trumpeted as fact that the IBEW is "hiring" less-qualified lower paid electricians to staff its jobs (unions don't hire; we provide the workforce), at the expense of its current membership. Others have crowed about our admitting that we are overpaid. This may pass for truth in today's world of 24/7 media, but neither gets at the truth, which is, as usual, requires more thought and analysis.
To put it simply, the IBEW is embarking on a program in its construction branch designed to increase our membership, provide more work for current and future members, expand our market share and ultimately raise standards of quality, safety, wages and benefits for worker across the electrical construction industry.
In 2011, the IBEW will celebrate 120 years of existence. We have built our reputation by working with our unionized contractors to provide the best-trained, safest and most productive electrical construction workforce in the world. We are proud that our journeymen earn a wage and benefit package that provides a solid, middle class living and, like people everywhere, are fighting to maintain our standard of living in an era of constant erosion of real wages, health care and pensions. Our goal is to raise everyone in our industry to our standards.
We can only do that and serve the best interests of our construction membership (the IBEW also has members in utilities, manufacturing, telecommunications, railroads, broadcasting and government) by having a presence in all aspects of our industry. A reality check, however, shows that even in good times, our members have been working mostly on large commercial and industrial projects where their skills are most in demand. These are the kind of big-ticket projects that have been cut back most severely during the recession. What has been missing is the kind of day-to-day work that we and our contractors either chose not to pursue or found ourselves unable to compete. I'm talking about jobs like wiring a big box store, a fast food restaurant, a gas station and market or a small strip mall. Bread and butter jobs like these provide a solid basis to keep people working even in a downturn and open up more opportunities for more electricians to join our ranks.
In a pilot project in Florida that started in 2005, the IBEW learned that cracking new markets required new thinking, even challenging long held traditions. If we wanted to compete for residential construction and smaller commercial projects in a state where our presence was unacceptably low, we needed to try something new. By creating classifications between those of apprentice and journeyman, as had been tried in other areas from time to time, we gave our contractors the ability to offer mixed work crews on jobs where they previously would not have been competitive. Better, we were able to organize new contractors and their work and bring new members into our ranks. As a result, our Florida journeymen got more work because they were called onto projects that they would not otherwise have been working on instead of sitting on the bench.
The nationwide use of the construction wireman and construction electrician (CW/CE) classifications is voluntary for the IBEW and its contractors as part of our standard agreements. However, it is not voluntary in a new program to launch recovery agreements. These are separate contracts that can be offered to existing contractors or used to sign up new employers and are designed to go after work that locals currently are not doing. They will not be used to lower wages of journeymen or to undercut our current market. They will allow us to compete for the types of jobs I mentioned above or any others on which our members do not now have the chance to work.
Not only will this bring new members and a new scope of work to the IBEW, it will give our new members a chance to upgrade their skills through our apprenticeship programs. When the recession eases, and the expected pent-up demand for high level electrical construction is felt, we anticipate putting our journeymen to work and needing more to staff the jobs and fill the places of those who retire in the next 2-3 years. The IBEW that emerges will be stronger, bigger and in a position to raise standards of excellence across the board in our industry.
I understand the concern that some union brothers have about our program. The scourge of unemployment that currently affects our industry has caused a great deal of fear and uncertainty. Our program is intended to build a stronger future, their future.
I also recognize that there are those who wish us ill no matter what we do. These are the same people who believe that only corporations and well educated professionals have the right to organize into associations to improve their bargaining power and secure their collective goals. To them I say that the street runs two ways, and those whose skill involves working with their hands at one of the trades most vital to our modern wired world have all the same rights and can use the principles of the marketplace to our advantage just as every business attempts to do.
The effort to reverse decades of wage stagnation and to ensure that hard working Americans have health care and pension benefits -- as once was common throughout our economy -- will not be won overnight. Our recovery program is our marker in the game and our best shot at making sure that a good day's pay for a good day's work along with health security and a retirement with dignity once again becomes the norm in our great country.
Follow Edwin D. Hill on Twitter: www.twitter.com/IBEW
Passive may not be IBEW President Ed Hill's middle name ... but it may as well be.
In that respect he resembles Mr. Trumka, organized Labor's designated bellower-in -chief, who will probably be hoarse by the time 100% of U.S. workers either belong to busted unions or no unions at all.
Both of these officials think that talking or shouting a good game is sufficient effort for a day's work .
Nope.
- John A. Joslin ( Detroit , IBEW Local Union # 58 )
What Pres. Hill is doing here is attempting to create a nationwide "M" division. The right thing to do would be to give primary rate union electricians the option of filling these "market recovery" jobs if there are no other jobs to fill. A National Strike seems inevitable with they way were going.
To me this stinks of politics as usual and anyone supporting this would make the founding fathers of our local roll over in their graves.
I understand that one of the objectives of the IBEW is to organize all workers in the electrical industry, but please dont forget Ed the remaining objectives
To promote reasonable methods of work,
To cultivate feelings of friendship among those of our industry,
To settle all disputes between employers and employees by arbitration (if possible),
To assist each other in sickness or distress,
To secure employment,
To reduce the hours of daily labor
To secure adequate pay for our work,
To seek a higher and higher standard of living,
To seek security for the individual,
And by legal and proper means to elevate the moral, intellectual and social conditions of our members, their families and dependents, in the interest of a higher standard of citizenship.
I truly believe what you have done is contrary to all the other objectives, in fact you've created a climate that is more divissive and less conducive to solidarity.
You can keep believing what you are spouting, but dont think for one second we buy it.
increase membership for more dues payments. In many locals the Journeyman Wireman cannot even
take the lower paid job to feed his family, thus we cannot support our needs and have no work.
I can understand the need to tailor market recovery in areas that need it, but many areas don't.
Would things be different if we could Democratically vote for who our President is? One Man, one vote!
In Brotherhood,
Art LeDoux
Local 364 Rockford Illinois
Do boards of directors submit themselves to a 10% pay cut to be more competitive? I think not. It is always expected that the
peonslabor force give up what they have fought so hard for so that companies can be more profitable.Unions are about bringing everyone up, not undercutting their own members for an elusive market-share. We demand quality from our members and that is our strongest selling point. Seeking a race to the bottom of the wage scale is not the best way to negotiate. Giving in without anything meaningful in return is simply asinine.
Adapting to changing conditions is surely a commendable goal, but there has to be ways to solve our current dilemma without setting up continued wage erosion for years to come.
IBEW Brother Local #551
Ans: Have meaningful discussions with all members, I'm sure IO can afford it.
Ed: "Like all change designed to achieve a long-term goal, our plan to capture the work we are not doing has caused some pushback by those who only understand the traditional way of doing business or, worse, those who will do or say anything to undermine the trade union movement."
Ans: We are not doing business Ed, we are doing union. You are doing for busisness while current members are being tossed aside by the contractors for better profits. What a sweet deal you have given them at the expense of the members who have built and paid for this union. There are no incentives offered here by you for current members, only despiration for those who are about to starve on the list system without being able to use their skill to find employment. Who is watching to see that this program is used only for new market share?
Ed Hill wonders. He is mystified that union workers would recognize when they are being sold down the river.
Ed Hill's says he want to prepare the IBEW for the future and gain market share and attract new membership but what he really is doing is "hiring" people off the street, creating new classifications to allow for mixed wage tiers and skill levels, and giving their contractors a choice: rotate the traditional work force out and bring in the new hires off the street at less than half the wages and benefits.
Ed Hill basically wants to exchange his membership and who he is supposed to represent with a new set of under educated and willing dues paying drones he can act as an agent for like any owner of a temporary work agency.
And it won't increase membership in the IBEW. For that you have to have the work and the market to sustain that work.
I am a journeyman wireman with Local 58 in Detroit and there are many of us who believe we've been put in an untenable position by our leadership, local and international, to prefer an across the board wage and benefit cut to what Ed Hill is proposing. At least with across the board wage/benefit cuts we have a chance at preserving our union by walking this excruciating economy together and a chance at the future when we bargain together for the restoration of our lost incomes.
Allow me to take issue with some of things you’ve said in your article and hopefully you can clarify for me and others as well. You said, “They will not be used to lower wages of journeymen or to undercut our current market” Are there job calls for CE CW on projects that are not classed as “small work”? If that is the case would your CE CW Program not be lowering job opportunities for current IBEW JWs? Is your CE CW Program being abused to allow lower cost less skilled unlicensed people to do JW/apprentice work? Also, are CE CW jobs calls being made available to desperate JWs? If so, does this not undermine every union principle you were brought up with?
Who will be responsible for possible breaches that undermine the status of IBEW apprentices and JWs. I believe it should be you. I also believe IBEW members should be allowed to have a direct vote on who serves them as IBEW President to hold you responsible for your “risky” policies.
In the past you avoided open debate about IBEW democracy by pointing out to members you were concerned about making comments because the Washington Post was across the street. Today you embrace social media and write a column online. I salute this kind of openness. I am concerned that it does not apply to our IBEW Facebook Page where censorship is practiced. Why do you allow IBEW members to be censored online?
Market share? Isn't that the word IBEW officials have been jabbering , lately, like so many trained parrots ?
When the IBEW began , union 'market share ' was ZERO. But IBEW organizers didn't believe people were like boxes of nails . They knew that cheerleading for low wages wasn't a smart way to increase 'market share' .
They knew that people , unlike nails, can speak for themselves and with each other , deciding if and how they will work and under what conditions. For how much money , too ! In fact, quiet as it is kept... if the nails, oops, people , stick together and agree never to work for lousy wages ... Guess what ?
Bargain hunting nail-buyers suddenly can't get ANY under-valued nails! Imagine that !
Might mystify Ed Hill , but people are not products, and realize they can actively participate in markets. Not passively sit on some shelf dangling a price tag, hoping to sell for low- end money... like a helpless box of nails !
- John A. Joslin ( IBEW # 58 , Detroit )
Nuclear power may be the single issue republicans and democrats remotely agree upon. Again, driving the employment of electrical workers.
These markets will drive the employment of electrical workers for years to come. As a result, electrical workers will define the labor movement in the coming decades.
The IBEW ought to be the foundation for training and career development of solar power, wind power, nuclear energy, and electric vehicle charging stations.
President Hill is advocating lower wages and benefits, he is a republican in Union clothing.
as we know it after 18 years as a proud card carrying member of local 134 chicago i never thought i would have to change careers as this is the job i live and die for since 18 yrs of age maybe its time to pick a successor sir happy holidays please enjoy all you receive from the contractors
Let's hope it works; we've got to do something if we're to survive.
IBEW Local 1220
ibew lu 424
laughing