We took an oath

We took an oath to defend the IBEW constitution. From one end of the country to the other I see it slaughtered. Especially Article 26, I see electricians doing our work, street signals to outside secondary. There is one huge project where they are doing primary underground primary terminations and installation.

BAs, managers, presidents call me meddlesome when I point something out that isn't right. I call them, they think I am crazy. I have been chased by rats trying to hurt me, when I see they are doing are work in an unsafe manner. I challenge management when something unsafe, and they should be accountable. I told one utility someone should be fired for closing a 230 switch on a crew- and was blacklisted. If that happened anywhere else- SCE,PPL, anywhere their last paycheck would be at the end of the day.

To be in a union it takes a lot of work. Not only the union member, the BA, the organizer, and all the brothers. I seen the conditions decline in this industry for 10 years. Last year we had the worst fatality rate in thirty years. No one is accountable. No one takes responsibility. I like being a lineman, I like doing the work- I have no taste for a pickup truck.

The old rules I was taught, by older lineman. The foreman defended his men, 80 to 20 for your men. The general foreman should be 50 to 50 par men and company. The superintendent should be 80 20 company. Now we have foreman that our 100 to 0 "I and me". And there are lot of lies flying and a lot of high school type clicks of one way three county boomers. I worked for a foreman who went through 8 lineman in one month??? Nothing was done.

Enoughs enough, when you guys get to your meetings. Take that oath seriously, defend the constitution. Locals get steward training, Weingarten Rules...read the constitution. Call your BAs to support you. Harass those men that want the pickups, that want the title but don't to do the work or the responsibility of the job. I am tired of seeing 50 year old lineman working, and a twenty something foreman--- something's wrong.
When you are a foreman, you have to think two days ahead, a GF a week ahead, a sup a month ahead. Now its so goofy, GFs are like foreman, babysitting.

The members are the union. The people that run the hall work for us. We pay for those comfortable chairs they sit in-computers-the hall- the electric bill. If they are not doing their job they have to answer to you. We are losing the old ways, and unionism is on a tangent: politics, public relations, and other assorted bs. We have to get to fixing our jurisdictions-training our apprentices- taking care of our brothers.

I love working for PAR, midwest PAR, they do things the old way. Call me a Par Star, though I only worked for them a total of 4 months. But I was really impressed, if you had problems they took care of it. If you needed something they got it for you. If someone was lazy they got a bus ticket and their last paycheck. If you were working a low rate area, KC rate was as low as they went. They have older guys that knew the old ways- and it felt good. And they knew linework, if you never did something before they would teach you. The one great secretary catered a hot meal, after we got off the right of way. It was a great experience.

I took the oath, and I will always remember that oath, even the world is changing and things are different- corporate contractors owned by corporate utilities...etc. I will be committed to the oath of this union. I will try to keep the traditions, uphold the constitution, so when I meet Henry Miller in the great Heaven, I don't have to apoligize for myself.

[electric squirrel]

Bill I agree with you a lot!!! You got narrowbacks doing our work ,and when they wont do it you got RATS doing it. Out here in So Cal you got RATS pulling and terminating primary cable,doing whole subdivisions!!! I haven't seen a line crew doing any street lights in a LONG time.Why ? Because we (outside lineman) didn't want to do it ! Why not? It's our job.I think a lot of the younger guys think its boring or there isn't any glory in it. We keep bitch'n we don't want to do shit and then the RATS come in and take the work from us.Then the power companies see they can farm it out to them for next to nothing!!

You got guys that don't know "come here" from "sick 'em" trying to do electrical work.I through the word RAT around a lot,thats because I went thru the IBEW for my apprenticeship,now there are some good non union hands out there so don't take it personal (Swamp). But what business does some guy who never had any formal training got making up elbows and plugging 'em in? Just because he can do it and it works ,don't mean he's as qualified as me or the rest of my crew!

I was on a service crew a few weeks ago,go to a job hang a 480v service to a temp pole. Foreman flips the mains off , I make the connections up at the temp pole then the pot.He is ringing the meter base out and checkin' for backfeed before stabbing the meter,standard business out here. The whole time the narrowback is asking questions, for example, Whats the voltage ? Are we hiring? Why are we checkin' for voltage before we have the mains closed stuff I would think an electrician would know( I hold a ticket for the inside too).Anyway, we leave job finished. But we gotta drive back, the foreman forgot to write down meter number,what do we see when we get back???
The jackass is up an aluminum ladder , in shorts ,tennies,tank top and no brainbucket no less, tapping into the weatherhead connections to heat up another sub panel that wasn't on our work order. We hadn't been gone for 5 minutes , the foreman JUST got done telling the guy it was hot to the meter!!! Here he is untapeing my connections on a 480v service 10 feet up a conductive ladder,next to an exposed rigid weatherhead riser,with bare hands.Honestly is he qualified ???? Not to mention he was all by himself.

But this kinda stuff happens all the time,we as a UNION need to put a stop to this.The RATS do all the conduit work nowadays ,why cant we have a crew of first step apes and one older JL doing that kinda work? Teach the apes the correct way to install pipe,with glue and gentle bends . We all know how many times we've had it go south on us.Or why not a traffic signal crew, it's outside running conduit and setting poles with a crane right? Isn't that LINEMANS work??? The RATS are taking it from us everyday!!

All hands should think about this,, it seems the hall doesn't have time for it out west, so the hands need to stand up..... E.S.

[BigClive]

Here in the UK the guys who do traffic lights and street lighting are often just labourers on shit wages who got the most rudimentary training in "electrics" by one of the big name "multi trade" companies.

One company we compete with for outdoor lighting in the winter uses casual labour to do electrical work. One of our access unit drivers was working with them and said that the two guys doing the electrical connections were a motor mechanic (automobile mechanic) and a guy who usually does grass cutting with the council. Strangely their installation didn't work for very long. But still they get used. Likewise the same company put up a load of lighting where you could clearly see the neutral was floating on a three phase supply and some circuits were way too bright and some were dim. Instead of tracing the fault the blamed the lights and charged more for replacing the melted lighting transformers and sets of lights.

Cheap unskilled labour is the future I'm afraid.

[CHICAGO HAND.]

Local 9 in chicago is notorious for shipping boys out of the hall to henkles & mccoy who are inexperienced.
As far as steward training for local 15 forget about it, that is the very reason i will not take steward. They wont support us.

no offense taken squirell! ya want to here another good one. on state jobs in minnesota all contractors have to pay prevailing wage. this means by me not getting prevailing wages the contractors that we hire make more than me but i work with them at times and watch so they do the work similar to what we would do it. (kind of supervise but not really) most of our contractors are union. they seem to get a kick out of their apprentices making more than the only journeyman do at this utility. and they wonder why i drink. nothing like knowing the groundman filling your water bottle makes more money than you do!!

I worked for a lot of mom and pop companies, as an apprentice. In Ohio every union electrical outfit had a linecrew- like Dickey Electric in Youngstown, or JW Didado in Akron, Main Lite in Warren. And Chapman from Pittsburgh (PA). In between the substations, and linework, we would work street signals and lighting. In Ohio, and by federal law, you have to have your IMSA 2 to work in the controller. I didn't know what the technician actually did, I had a real nice gal that would tell us what wires to pull through the ducts. There were traffic loops that signalled the controllers to tell if there was car in the cut. I never got a chance to learn the work, I was a 6th step grunt at the time I just put the wire throught the duct. But it was great fill in work while they were gearing up for the next line job. I had another great job, my superintendent put me with an electrician at a ski resort, I rode the lift climbed and installed the lighting for the new ski runs. It was great.

The thing is we are losing the work, we need it for the older guys. Those guys that cranked a thousand hoists, climbed a thousand poles, and are sore. In California, I was driving with a lineman friend that had his hip replaced. We were in San Fransisco, and they re-did all there signal systems and it was done by non- union. That guy wanted so much to work again, he was going in for a second surgery. I told him if you had this work you could go back to work, he knew the streetcar controllers- its not to different. I told him to take his IMSA test. And ask NECA to back you, or get the hall to get some training into controllers and street signal systems.

What bugs me is that we aren't taking care of the older lineman. There is the generation that gave us everything, our wages, our benefits and retirement. And we didn't hold the work, that would be nice for an older lineman. The guys that have replaced knees, hips, rotator cuffs gone. We need to get back that work.

I am glad Ohio kept it and man it. I know Wally was big into holding jurisdiction.

[woody]

Hey chi-town...the membership is as good as the members. Know of your struggles and feel your pain(not really...Only you know the frustrations); anyways...if you don't have good stewards then where are you really? The shop steward is nothing more than a strong tree in the face of uncertainty with strong unfriendly winds and storms approaching. With voice of reason and whatever support from the hall... they are the forward scouts and collective voice of the membership. My hats always tipped to them for the often-timed thankless job that they and I hold. It's actually an easy job...what's right is right...whats wrong is wrong. Real simple...kinda...sorta...sometimes. woody

A large multi-trade union hall with electrician Business managers in the very north, have turned Article 26 into a mockery.

Electricians are there worst enemy. I am not knocking all good narrow back brothers, but the ones without integrity. Lineman cant do sidework, because its hard to fit a line truck in our back pocket. They don't want to work on homes, because they get a lower rate and have to get dirty in attics and basements. They can't do much commercial work, since they won't do residential work. And the non-union spread to commercial, and they lost their market share- so the inside BMs have to appease the masses. And get a share of our work.

Why can't do what they do in Local 5, Pittsburgh. Set up a fund to help underbid the non-union. And get the organizer working, to organize; not play solitaire on his computer. Local 5, has a huge market share and they don't do 126 or Wilkes Barre outside locals work. Because they have too much.
Across the country, they have residential wireman programs of a two year apprenticeship, then they use those hours for commercial apprenticeship. You start small then go big- thats how the inside rats have 70% market share. You have got to do the same

I wouldn't mind it if they signed our books, or was dispatched on book 4. But don't take our jurisdiction. The lighter jobs are for those men, that had their legs broken, no rotator cuffs, no cartilidge in their backs and knees, knees and hips replaced. They are not for the electrician that lost his market share. We are not in the building trades council. Telephone and Electrical workers need to put a stop to losing jurisdiction, you have worked too hard for it.

Read Article 26, its probably on the IBEW website. And the jurisdictions are laid out. Your business manager is the one who is suppose to be your fighter, and hold that jurisdiction. Not take it away and parse it out.

Wally, 126 BM, Appleman, east coast business managers they need your ideology out here in the west!!! Help!!!!

God Bless the men in their 60s. They started this trade with nothing. No NEAP, no medical or dental. They gave us the most sought after trade with the highest rates among skilled workers. They worked too hard, for us to give up our jurisdiction. They need to skate or fade their careers working in a control box, terminating URD, putting bulbs in cobra heads, or laying their butts on a nice comfortable trencher or backhoe listening to Gordon Lightfoot and Johnny Cash on the radio. Not out of work on comp or disability, watching electricians and thinking of themselves "I wish we didn't lose our jurisdiction, then I could still work!"

Its the ugliest to see a non union dirtwork outfit, with union electricians putting in duct for telephone and power. Proud union moment!!!

Go to your meetings and tell your reps, we won't tolerate this!