An IBEW organizer is a little more famous, and construction workers in Kamloops, British Columbia, are a little more aware of the benefits of a union, thanks to a lighthearted social media campaign that started when a nonunion contractor put the local union organizer’s photo on a poster banning him from the job site.
In response, members of Kamloops Local 993 flipped the script and created a social media campaign to spread awareness about the benefits of IBEW membership.
Local 993 organizer Brian Andrews has been trying to start conversations about the IBEW with electrical workers at City Gardens, described as Kamloops’ largest-ever residential construction project.
“Brian’s been visiting that job site quite often since it began, and they’ve been not too receptive to him coming,” Business Manager Jim Bicknell said.
Someone on the project made that clear over one weekend in June, attaching to the site’s chain-link fence a banner that bore Andrews’s picture next to the message, “Attention: Not permitted on site.”
That was a highly unusual move, Bicknell said. “Posters might say, ‘No union reps on site,’ or something like that, but not with a picture of a union rep,” he said, noting that a similar banner on a site in Prince George, featuring Andrews’s photo, was installed out of public view.
The appearance of the Kamloops banner was short-lived, Andrews said. “It was up on Saturday afternoon and they took it down by Monday,” he said. “But by then, it had started to hit the local media.”
Curious onlookers uploaded their pictures of the banner to social media sites, trying to find out why Andrews was being singled out. A post on Reddit’s r/Kamloops page, for example, received more than 1,500 upvotes and over 500 comments that were largely supportive of Andrews, Local 993 and the IBEW. Soon, the posts began attracting the attention of local news media outlets.
After taking the banner down, the contractor apologized to Andrews and told him that it would not happen again.
“The workers at City Gardens are members of this community,” Andrews wrote in accepting the apology. “When they are paid fair, industry-standard wages, they are in a stronger position to support their families and reinvest in local businesses, which benefits the entire community.”
That might have been the end of the story had Local 993 dispatcher Darryl Schmidt not seen an opportunity to make a tongue-in-cheek social media campaign out of it.
“Darryl said we should turn it around on the contractor,” Bicknell said.
Soon after, a poster was created bearing the banner’s wording, but in place of Andrews’s face was a cutout where members could put their own face while posing for photo booth-style pictures suitable for uploading to Instagram, Bluesky and others.
The campaign has been a success. “I think it’s actually bringing people in the door,” said Andrews, who noted that since it started, he and fellow organizer James Olsen have seen a notable uptick in inquiries about joining the IBEW.
“It’s garnered us a lot of media and social media attention,” added Bicknell, adding that new photos of members of the thousand-strong local continue to be posted regularly.
The episode also helped inspire attendees of the organizing blitz that preceded this summer’s IBEW Canada Membership Development Conference in Moncton, New Brunswick.
“We had a really good opening with Brian’s picture being posted,” said Dustin Brecht, a former First District lead organizer in western Canada. “It showed everyone the lengths that some employers will go to try to stop us in our tracks.”
When organizers approach workers on nonunion job sites, he said, it lets them know that there are union people who are willing to go to bat for them.
“The company was trying to belittle [Brian], intimidate him, silence him,” said Brecht, who is now an international representative in the Education Department. “Not only did it not scare anybody, it got quite a good reaction for us.”
First District International Vice President Russ Shewchuk applauded Local 993’s creative response, especially their use of social media.
“Capitalizing on trending topics like this can help locals bring positive attention to the IBEW,” he said. “It’s one more organizing tool that sends a message to all working people: that we’re with them in the fight for fairness on the job.”
This article was originally published in the September 2025 issue of The Electrical Worker.