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Thank you to everyone who submitted their names and essays for the 2022/2023 IBEW First District Scholarships Award; we received entries this year from 239 applicants.

A random draw was made this morning at the First District Office and Congratulations to these ten applicants!!!

                                                   Matthew Connolly – Local Union 625, Halifax, NS

                                                   Bennett Nohavicka – Local Union 2034, Winnipeg, MB

                                                   Taylor Clement – Local Union 230, Victoria, BC

                                                   Dominic Hachey – Local Union 37, Fredericton, NB

                                                   Mitchel Whelan – Local Union 2330, St. John’s, NL

                                                   Aleck Bowen Sun – Local Union 636, Oshawa, ON

                                                   Adrian Van Gorkom – Local Union 258, Vancouver, BC

                                                   Emalee Gallant – Local Union 502, Saint John, NB

                                                   Jessie Anene – Local Union 636, Oshawa, ON

                                                   Manraj Randhawa – Local Union 213, Vancouver, BC

We, at the First District Office, and the other sponsors (TD Insurance Meloche Monnex, MWG Apparel and AIL) wish all the winners a successful year in their continued education.

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                         FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  February 17, 2023                                                                                              CONTACT:  Matt Wayland 647-465-6167

International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) International Vice-President for the First District (Canada), Russ Shewchuk issued the following statement on the Government of Canada’s announcement of the Sustainable Jobs Plan:

“The IBEW’s almost 70,000 active members in Canada strongly support the Government of Canada’s Sustainable Jobs Plan that delivers the tools to tackle climate change and create well-paying, high-quality jobs that can support workers and their families.”

“Today’s announcement clearly lays the foundation for the path forward towards net-zero, while making sure no worker is left behind. Workers are at the foundation for today’s announcement. The Sustainable Jobs Plan outlines support for clean energy projects that will create new union jobs, provide training and apprenticeship opportunities to Canadians across the country in areas such as renewable energy production, expanding our electrical grid, clean tech, deep building retrofits, and growing our electrical vehicle charging station infrastructure, all of which are creating good jobs for IBEW members.”

“The IBEW looks forward to continuing to be at the table to work with the Government on this plan and the pending legislation to support these issues of importance to working families in every province and territory. The IBEW’s electrical training and apprenticeship programs are second-to-none, and the jobs created by this ambitious plan will help contribute to training Canada’s next generation of skilled electrical workers that will power our net-zero future.”

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The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) represents approximately 70,000 members in Canada and 775,000 members and retirees in North America who work in a wide variety of fields, including construction, utilities, manufacturing, telecommunications, broadcasting, railroads and government. For more information visit IBEW Canada or IBEW.org

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Sixth District International Vice President Paul Noble, a longtime IBEW leader in his home state of Illinois, has been appointed international secretary-treasurer. He began his duties Jan. 4.

Noble replaces Kenneth W. Cooper, who was appointed international president following the retirement of Lonnie R. Stephenson. Both moves were made and unanimously approved by the International Executive Council.

The secretary-treasurer serves as the IBEW’s chief financial officer and oversees its many health, benefit and pension funds. He also is the chief adviser to the international president.

“Whenever he’s been called to serve the Brotherhood, Paul Noble always said yes,” Cooper said. “He’s worked closely with all our branches and partners and has experience running large pension funds. He’s ideally qualified for this role, and I welcome him and his wife, Gina, to Washington, D.C.”

The appointment capped off a busy seven months for Noble, a former business manager at West Frankfort, Ill., Local 702.

He was appointed and took over as Sixth District vice president April 1 following the retirement of David J. Ruhmkorff. Six weeks later, the Sixth District hosted the International Convention in Chicago, where Noble was reelected to a five-year term. In June, he and Gina welcomed their first grandchild, Adeline.

By January, he had moved to the nation’s capital and the International Office to begin his new duties.

“I was surprised,” Noble said. “I wasn’t expecting it. I’ve had several conversations with Coop not only about the position but really sharing his vision. We think alike. I’m just excited knowing what he wants to do.

“I know we’re in a better place because of Lonnie’s service,” Noble added. “We’re in a better place because of what he accomplished.”

Noble and Cooper have been close friends and worked together for more than 25 years. Noble was a young organizer for Local 702 and he met Cooper — then the business manager of Mansfield, Ohio, Local 688 — for the first time at an IBEW conference in Dallas in 1995, he said.

“It’s just fun when you go to events like that to be around people who are like-minded and want to do whatever they can to move the Brotherhood forward,” Noble said. “That was what Kenny was all about. It wasn’t about assigning blame for past mistakes. It was, ‘What can I do to make things better?'”

Stephenson brought Noble onto the Sixth District staff in 2010, when Stephenson was the district’s vice president. Noble later served as the district’s desk representative under Ruhmkorff.

“There’s a lot of people who would have done a fine job,” Ruhmkorff said of Noble’s secretary-treasurer appointment. “The IBEW is blessed with a lot of talent.

“But Paul is very qualified, and I couldn’t be happier for him and the IBEW. I’ve known Paul since he was a service rep for his local and I was the international representative servicing it. He wasn’t even the business manager yet. We go back a long, long time and we’ve developed a deep relationship. I think the only thing Paul cares for more than the IBEW is his family, but he knows the IBEW and its work is what takes care of his family.”

Noble, 56, was born in Granite City, Ill., a St. Louis suburb. Robert Noble, his father, was a journeyman wireman and member of St. Louis Local 1. The younger Noble worked summers as a material handler and stock boy before graduating from high school and attending classes at the ITT Technical Institute.

He briefly worked as a telecom service technician for Contel, where he was part of a unit represented by Local 702. It was then that Noble decided to apply for the local’s wireman apprenticeship program and he became a member in 1990.

He served on numerous Local 702 committees, including the pension committee and the health and welfare committee, and was brought on staff full time as an organizer in 1996.

“I would volunteer for anything,” he said. “If they had a picket, I’d walk the picket line. Any volunteer project, the Labor Day parade, I was always involved.”

Serving Local 702, which has members across a large swath of southern Illinois and a few utility members in southeast Missouri, provided Noble with a breadth of experience few leaders can match. The majority of the local’s nearly 5,000 members work in utility, but it has members in every IBEW branch except Railroads.

Noble was elected business manager in 2006. In addition to construction organizing, he negotiated contracts for municipal and utility employees, nurses and even employees of a publicly owned golf course. He negotiated a collective bargaining agreement with Ameren Illinois, the state’s second-largest publicly-owned utility, while he served as chairman of Utility System Council U-5. That council includes three other Illinois local unions besides 702: Springfield Local 51, Collinsville Local 309 and Alton Local 649.

“As business manager, he was engaged with everyone — utility members, manufacturing groups, line clearance,” Stephenson said last year when Noble was promoted to district vice president. “It didn’t matter. He was a hands-on leader and very well respected in his local. That’s why when I was appointed vice president of the Sixth District, I asked Paul to come on staff.”

Ruhmkorff also noted Noble was a trustee and active participant in the administration of the Decatur Fund, a multi-state health and welfare/pension fund with more than 30,000 participants. The fund services 19 local unions in four states on the health and welfare side and 12 local unions on the pension side.

“He has experience making sure we spend our money wisely and ensuring our members and their families can retire with dignity,” Ruhmkorff said.

Throughout his career, Noble has been active in major political wins for working families. He was among the labor leaders who successfully convinced the Illinois legislature to pass the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, a plan for the state to transition to power generation methods that help prevent climate change while also supporting good jobs and historically overlooked communities.

Last year, he was part of the charge that persuaded Illinois’ voters to pass the Workers’ Rights Amendment, which added to the state’s constitution language that bans so-called right-to-work laws, which allow employees to enjoy the benefits of a collectively bargained union contract without paying membership fees.

Noble and his wife have two daughters: Jayci Costello who is Adeline’s mother, and Jasmine. His brother, Russell, is a member of St. Louis Local 1. A nephew, Russell Jr., is a journeymen wireman out of Local 702.

The new secretary-treasurer expects his transition into the role to be a smooth one, noting that he’s been traveling to Washington regularly as part of his duties for more than two decades. He is a graduate of the Meany Center at the National Labor College, which was in nearby Silver Spring, Md., prior to its closure in 2014.

Closer to home, Noble served as president of the Southern Illinois Central Labor Council and as an officer for southern Illinois’ Egyptian Building Trades.

The officers and staff congratulate Brother Noble and his family and wish him much success in his new position.

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https://ibewhourpower.com/category/presidents-message/

Kenneth W. Cooper grew up in a house with no indoor plumbing in one of the poorest neighborhoods of a dying Rust Belt town and then joined one of the smallest construction locals in Ohio.

On Jan. 4, he took over as international president of one of the most powerful labor unions in North America.

“Every brother and sister in the IBEW knows there are no self-made men in a labor union. I joined the IBEW because I wanted to provide for my family the life, stability and opportunity I didn’t have as a boy,” Cooper said.

Cooper was chosen after six years as international secretary-treasurer and nearly four decades in the IBEW, rising steadily through the ranks since his election as business manager of Mansfield, Ohio, Local 688 when he was only 31 years old.

“The IBEW is at an extraordinary moment, and Coop is the right person for this moment,” said retiring International President Lonnie R. Stephenson. “Decades of work rebuilding our ranks has opened unprecedented opportunities over the next two decades. He’s a listener, a uniter and, when the time is right, decisive.”

After his appointment, Cooper thanked Stephenson and the International Executive Council for their faith in him.

“When Lonnie was appointed, we were still clawing our way out from the Great Recession. We faced the most anti-union U.S. government in decades, and we had to weather a global pandemic. But because of Lonnie, we have grown nearly every year, built a relationship with a sitting president that is unique in American history and delivered political victories that set this union up for decades of growth,” Cooper said. “Lonnie set the highest possible standard as a leader, a man and as a friend.”

Cooper will fill the remaining four years of Stephenson’s term. Cooper was replaced as international secretary-treasurer by Sixth District International Vice President Paul Noble.

Kenneth W. Cooper, then Fourth District international vice president,
signs the certification of the winning election at Baltimore Gas & Electric in 2017.
Welcoming the more than 1,400 BGE workers into the IBEW was one
of Cooper’s proudest moments leading the district.

Little Kentucky

Mansfield lies smack between Ohio’s two largest cities, Columbus and Cleveland. At first it was a farming town, almost a village. When three rail lines chose Mansfield for a crossroads, it grew into a small industrial powerhouse.

By the turn of the 20th century, Mansfield was home to dozens of union foundries and factories with a steel mill at its heart.

At its zenith, Mansfield was home to more than 50,000 people — nearly half the voting population were members of the trade council — and its economy was so strong, the local story went, that the Great Depression almost passed it by.

Ohio became a particular draw for families like Cooper’s living several hours south in Kentucky, where the Great Depression was felt to the bone. Throughout the 1930s, dozens of families made the trip north to Mansfield, cousin joining cousin in a settlement north of downtown eventually called Little Kentucky. It was close to the mill but far from municipal sewers, water or electricity.

“I think 90% of the houses were built from crates from stuff coming to the mill. People saved them and built houses out of them,” Cooper said.

Like all the houses near his on Belmont Street, Cooper’s had an outhouse in the back yard. The well his grandfather dug fed eight neighboring homes in addition to his own.

Cooper’s grandfather came to Little Kentucky to work at the mill and joined the Steelworkers. Until he became permanently disabled, Cooper’s father had been a United Auto Workers member.

That left Cooper’s mother the sole bread winner, a line worker in a nonunion factory that made kitchen supplies. A nonunion job leaves a family hard choices. Sometimes that choice was as basic as food or heat.  She was far from the only one forced to work without a union wage or decent benefits in those years.

Those union factories handing out jobs in the ’50s died, left or shrank, first slowly in the ’60s and ’70s, then fast in the ’80s and ’90s.

“Mansfield didn’t die. It was murdered,” Cooper said. “Those factories didn’t move or shut by accident. Decisions got made far away to break the back of the unions and the pride of working families.”

(Pictured Left)  Cooper celebrates at the 2022 International Convention with his wife, Gina, and mother, Donna, after his election to a full term as international secretary-treasurer.

IBEW: The Path Forward

The only way up was a trade that paid, and after high school, Cooper found work as a welder at Quanex, a 500-person union factory that supplied exhaust crossovers to Ford Motor Co. He joined the Steelworkers and even as a young man was a steward. He took night classes at Ohio State University for two years toward a business degree.

But it was still work that could be shipped away, and in 1984 he applied to two apprenticeships, the United Association (plumbers and pipefitters) and IBEW Local 688. He was accepted to both, probably because of his welding skills, Cooper said.

“I chose the IBEW because you would have a better education as an electrician than a plumber and a fitter. That’s just how I felt: Electricity was a bigger challenge, and I wanted a challenge,” he said.

Work was so scarce that, even though he joined the apprenticeship four years before Cooper, Carl Neutzling, now the business manager of Local 688, topped out at about the same time.

Neutzling said he and Cooper worked together fairly often in those years, and while Cooper was known for his sense of humor and his good company, he also earned a reputation for a relentless work ethic and devotion to the IBEW.

Cooper topped out in 1989, and within a year he was vice president. When the sitting president left for a job at OSHA in 1992, Cooper was appointed to fill the vacancy.

A year later, Cooper won a four-way election, becoming one of the youngest business managers in local history.

“Kenny has a way of listening to everybody before saying the right thing to the right person at the right time,” Neutzling said.

Organizing Victories

Cooper said he quickly realized that whatever problem you had, it was nearly always made better, if not solved, by increasing numbers.

In 1994, Cooper led the largest organizing victory in local history when he signed Neer Manufacturing’s 175 workers, increasing local membership to more than 700 members, the largest the local has ever been.

“He was so adamant about organizing,” J.R. Rice, then the organizer at Local 688 and later its business manager, said of the Neer campaign. “Kenny’s will to make this happen was extraordinary.”

Cooper also oversaw the largest construction project in local history when a continuous thin caster was installed at the mill. For more than a year in the mid-’90s, more than 250 travelers were in his jurisdiction.

“We had as many travelers as we did local hands, and when I went to the membership, I said, ‘Pretend that the caster doesn’t even exist; do we have full employment?'” Cooper said. “When we asked how we can handle a job bigger than the local union and still manage the local union, there was that same answer: growth. It’s always the answer.”

Cooper was reelected three times, and then in 2002, he moved west to Las Vegas with his wife, Gina Cooper — now the Fourth District international vice president. He was hired as an assistant business manager at Las Vegas Local 396 and put in charge of the relationship with NV Power, the local utility. Cooper, relentless in the belief that organizing makes us stronger, organized five more units at the utility. Later, when the local was given the outside jurisdiction, he was put in charge of that and led the successful effort to sign Davey Tree.

By the mid-2000s, Cooper had caught the attention of International President Edwin D. Hill, who called him back to the Fourth District and appointed him an international representative.

International Leadership

Cooper moved to western Maryland and in his first year was the service rep for telephone locals in Ohio, then from 2007 to 2011, he primarily serviced utility locals from West Virginia to the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

In 2011, when Fourth District International Vice President Salvatore “Sam” Chilia was appointed international secretary-treasurer, Hill called on Cooper again, this time to replace Chilia.

Cooper wrote a 100-day plan to set the targets and the tone of his tenure. He also required all new business managers in the Fourth to have one.

“A 100-day plan is about organizing and relationships — you have to have both of those to be successful,” he said.

In his 100-day plan, Cooper said, he arrived at his three highest priorities: Baltimore Gas and Electric, the largest nonunion utility in the Fourth District, which had voted four times against joining the IBEW; organizing Asplundh Tree’s dozens of units across more than five states; and expanding the use of regional agreements covering the projects smaller than 200,000 square feet that many signatory contractors had stopped bidding.

In the next six years, Cooper oversaw the massive blitz at BGE involving organizers from across the country over more than two years that finally brought 1,400 new members into the fold. He led the team of organizers that won 39 of 42 elections at Asplundh Tree. And by 2017, the number of contractors who signed on to small works regional agreements grew from 11 to 455 — the smallest scope, for projects under 15,000 square feet, was the most commonly used.

He began tracking the work hours on the small works program and found the agreements not only increased hours for construction electricians and construction wiremen but also significantly increased the hours for apprentices and journeymen. He used this information to help him gain the support of all the Fourth District local unions for these agreements.

In 2017, Chilia announced his retirement as international secretary-treasurer. Stephenson asked Cooper to fill the remainder of Chilia’s term. Cooper was now the ultimate trustee for the billions of dollars paid by hundreds of thousands of IBEW members for their health care and pension funds, the benefits that are a firewall between a middle-class life and a life where choices are made between food and heat.

In his five years in charge, Cooper and his team revamped the investment strategy to include infrastructure investments and requiring labor standard provisions for all projects that used IBEW funding.

Under his leadership, the IBEW’s two pension funds, the NEBF and the NEAP, posted strong asset growth, and the Family Medical Care Plan went from $500 million in assets to more than $750 million.

The IBEW’s Future

Cooper begins his presidency with a good problem to have. The industries at the core of the IBEW are set to expand by hundreds of billions of dollars in the next two decades. In addition to the regular work of construction and building, maintaining and upgrading the grid, entirely new industries are growing: solar, offshore wind, electric vehicles and battery storage, just to name the largest.

To maintain market share, Cooper said, the IBEW will have to grow significantly, back to the membership it had when it was at its largest in the ’70s: 1 million members.

Cooper said he thinks back to the time when he had as many travelers as local hands in his jurisdiction, and he now sees the entire IBEW as in a similar place as Local 688 was back then. “The difference is that we will not be able to traveler our way out of this situation or apprentice our way out,” Cooper said. “We must organize the unorganized if we are going to gain market share.”

“We have this opportunity only because of decades of work by our predecessors. How will we come out the other side? Stronger than we ever have been? Larger than we ever have been? Closer to our original purpose of organizing the entire electrical sector?” he said. “We owe it to one another as members, to future members, and to our communities to answer those questions. And that is my highest priority.”

Thankfully, he said, those are questions we can only answer together.

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IBEW members worked around the clock to restore power to Atlantic Canada after Hurricane Fiona battered the region in late September.

“This storm surpassed anything I’ve ever experienced,” said St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Local 1620 Business Manager Don Murphy.

While Fiona was technically a post-tropical storm when it made landfall in the maritime region, it still hit with the intensity of a Category 2 hurricane, causing heavy rain, fierce winds and a destructive storm surge. It also knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of people and felled countless trees.

Local 1620 members worked night and day from Codroy Valley to Rose Blanche and Port aux Basques in southwestern Newfoundland, where residents dealt with extreme wind, flying debris and sea water that washed ashore, sweeping roads, houses and even an apartment building out to sea.

“The loss is unfathomable. We dealt with whole lines washing away, buildings getting swept away beside us, customers in shock and town workers overwhelmed,” Murphy said. “Still, I think everybody did an excellent job under the circumstances.”

Local 1620 members worked long hours splicing conductors to restore power, performing emergency switching, isolating washed-out lines and removing live wires from the roads so people could evacuate from the tidal surge.

Crews were also hard at work further south in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia where Fredericton, New Brunswick, Local 37 member Mark Maillard worked. The powerline technician started at home in New Brunswick then moved up to Nova Scotia to help with efforts there, where even the military was brought in to help.

“When we got to Nova Scotia it was different. It was pretty bad,” said Maillard who also serves on Local 37’s executive board. “There were a lot of customers with power out.”

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Local 1928 powerline technicians worked in various locations, including hard-hit Prince Edward Island. They were responsible for primary and secondary line restoration, pole and transformer replacement, disconnecting services that required customer repair, tree removal, reconnecting services post-repair as well as emergency disconnection at the direction of police and firefighters. Non-powerline technicians performed feeder and damage inspections, assisted with customer care due to extremely high call volume, relocated supplies across depots and provided 911 dispatch assistance.

“Fiona simply did not compare to previous storms,” said Local 1928 Business Manager Jim Sponagle of the storm that’s been called the largest hurricane in Canadian history.

Maillard says they spent a lot of their 16-hour days dealing with fallen trees, including some on fire. Once they were able to get the main power on, they were then able to move on to single customers, some of who went without power for a week or longer.

“We were like a whole caravan, tackling outages,” Maillard said. IBEW utility crews helped restore power in late September after Hurricane Fiona made landfall, causing historic levels of damage across Atlantic Canada.

Among the caravan were tree trimmers from Quebec who only spoke French. Fortunately, Maillard knows a little of the language, so they were able to communicate and make sure everything was done correctly and safely.

“They were excellent,” he said. “They made it look easy.”

Maillard noted that it was very much a group effort, from the tree trimmers to the traffic controllers to customer service representatives all pitching in.

“It was a team effort for sure,” he said.

Maillard said the effort was well run and that customers were largely thankful to see them, like the man who approached them at a gas station to give them $100 in Tim Horton’s gift cards.

“I don’t know of any other job where that happens,” he said. “It’s really something to get that kind of reception.”

There was also the woman on a farm who had been without power for two weeks.

“She had chickens and goats running around, and a rooster in her arms that she was holding like a cat,” Maillard said. “Then the lights came on and she was almost in tears because now she could cook a Thanksgiving dinner. The work you do has an impact on people. And only so many of us can do it. I take a lot of pride in that.”

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Moncton Local 1555 is a small local union. It is tucked into three counties in southeastern New Brunswick and has 135 members. Growth has not come easy.

When it reached an agreement with a small contractor two years ago, it was its first successful organizing campaign since 1969, said Jason Hamilton, who was hired as the local’s first full-time organizer in 2018.

That set the stage for a successful organization at East Current Electric, a major employer in the area, earlier this year. Local 1555 saw its market share grow by 10%, and members now can get hired on for a major hospital project in Moncton. It was a top-down effort, and the company voluntarily recognized the IBEW as the bargaining unit.

“I think the biggest lesson we’ve learned is diplomacy and patience might not be sexy, but I like to think we’re 2-0 with a walk at the labor board,” said Hamilton, referring to an unfair labor practice claim Local 1555 filed in 2021 that returned a fired worker to a job with back pay.

“We’re not just firing from the hip,” Hamilton added. “We’re trying to build relationships, as opposed to trying to force it against people’s wills.”

This is the kind of growth story First District Vice President Russ Shewchuk wants to hear more of.

Shewchuk, who was elected at the 40th International Convention in May, has instructed each Canadian local to meet with five companies in their jurisdictions that are not IBEW signatory contractors or partners, said Mark Watson, Shewchuk’s executive assistant. He also strongly recommended that each local have at least one representative at the Membership Development Conference in August.

The First District is having its own Membership Development Conference in March 2023, Watson said. Locals will share what went right and wrong and what obstacles need to be overcome to persuade a company to partner with the IBEW, Watson said.

Organizing has been the lifeblood of the IBEW throughout its 131-year history. But it is receiving even more emphasis in Canada because of the First District’s declining numbers in recent years. It fell about 13 percent after January 2018 but has shown a slight uptick this year.

“It’s priority No. 1, 2 and 3,” Watson said when asked about Shewchuk’s top objectives since taking office.

Market forces in Canada have made retention of members more difficult in recent years. Construction of the massive Muskrat Falls hydroelectric plant in Newfoundland and Labrador, which employed 3,500 members at one point, has largely wrapped up. Oil prices plummeted a few years ago, driving members away from the oil sands in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Many moved on to other jobs before the trend started to reverse itself.

But that puts organizing even more on the front burner, especially since the Liberal Party has been in power on the federal level since 2015. Without an increased market share, Canadian local unions and their signatory contractors will be at a disadvantage compared to nonunion competitors, Watson said.

“Organizing can be hard and every campaign might not be successful, so for some people, it isn’t something that they want to make a priority,” said Watson, a former business manager at Kitchener, Ontario, Local 804. “That’s not the message now from Russ and the district level. We need to make organizing a priority by investing our time and resources.”

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Local 625 Business Manager Tom Griffiths, who was elected Canada’s representative to the International Executive Council alongside Shewchuk at the 40th International Convention in May, said the province has seen significant changes in the construction industry.

(left) This project on Bishop Street in downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia, is one of many residential projects Local 625 has worked on in recent years.  Flickr/Creative Commons photo by A Disappearing Act.

Nova Scotia was once a manufacturing hub, thanks largely to nearly 100 paper and pulp mills and a robust refining industry. But the mills have closed or moved away and the Sable Offshore Energy Project closed in 2019, putting a big dent in the manufacturing market, Griffiths said.

So, Griffiths and his staff tried something that had largely been forgotten by not just Local 625 but many construction locals in their jurisdictions over the years: the housing market.

The strategy looks to be working. Despite the losses in manufacturing, Nova Scotia is booming economically because so many Canadians are relocating there due to the natural beauty, more chances to telework and lower housing costs compared to most of the country.

Population jumped 5% from 2016 to 2021, according to Statistics Canada. Halifax, the provincial capital, saw its population jump nearly 14% in the same period, to 470,000.

Griffiths said at least 10 high-rise condo or apartment buildings are always under construction. After just a few years, Local 625 has about 33% of residential market share in the province, he said. The goal is to double the number of hours worked for the local, which currently has about 800 construction members.

“It’s not been an easy shift,” he said. “The [contractors] that have been nonunion in the sector, it’s the wild, wild west. When they were organized, they suddenly had to pay benefits and union training funds.”

Griffiths said he and others have had to fight against an attitude that it’s best to concentrate on keeping the current work instead of bringing in new contractors.

His response?

“The [nonunion contractor] is eating your lunch,” he said “He’s taking your work away and our work away. The only way to fix him is to rope him in. You can’t milk the cow when it’s running wild in the fields.”

Across the country, Kamloops, British Columbia, Local 993 has used the massive liquified natural gas facility under construction in Kitimat to provide more opportunities for members. It’s the largest private investment in Canadian history at CA$40 billion and employs 600 to 700 IBEW members during construction, Business Manager Glen Hilton said.

(above) Housing for workers constructing LNG Canada’s liquified natural gas facility in Kitimat, British Columbia. The plant has had a positive impact on organizing work at Kamloops Local 993.   Flickr/Creative Commons photo by Darryl Franklin. 

But Hilton is equally excited that Local 993 reached a maintenance agreement with the facility, which will ensure that 30 to 40 members have full-time work at the plant after it is finished for at least six years.

“That was a significant victory for our side,” Hilton said. “The LNG and petrochemical industry can do pretty much what they want. We’ve shown through our construction members that we can do that work safely and efficiently.”

Everyone leading organizing efforts agreed on one thing: Members often are the best organizers themselves. They encourage members to be supportive of organizing efforts and to speak up to their local union leaders if they see a company or potential partner in their community that could be successfully organized.

Hamilton noted that Local 1555 was helped in its organizing effort at East Current by a few members getting work at the hospital site when it was nonunion and spreading the word about the benefits of IBEW representation.

When asked if they were “salters” — a term usually used for union members who work on a nonunion site to build support for an organizing effort — Hamilton called them “quiet supporters” instead. “We did a lot of information gathering behind the scenes,” he said. “Because our local is relatively new to organizing, it’s still a challenge to embrace the idea. As we move along, it likely will get a little bit easier.”

(below) Skyline view of Halifax, Nova Scotia, where Halifax Local 625 has grown its residential market share, thanks in large part to an expansion in the downtown market.  Flickr/Creative Commons photo by jonfromnsca.

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