Brothers and Sisters,
This summer is a great reminder of how proud you should be to wear Local 150 on your chest.
It is no small feat the things we pulled off this season, from the biggest wage and benefit increases we have ever seen related to percentages and dollars on the check for heavy highway operators anywhere in the country to a unified agreement across six of the eight districts for our crane barns that get members the highest total package increase in our history. On the same scale, Local 150, with the new crane barn rental shop agreements, got our mechanics a contract that brings them to the highest paid in the field across the U.S. We also just came to an agreement with Alta Industrial, which was the largest election of any group, topping out at 100 men and women, in the local’s history.
There are countless others like this on a list that continues to grow and is currently just over 150 agreements that Local 150 has negotiated to raise the bar in every segment of our industry. And that isn’t by accident. It is our goal. Local 150 has never come to the bargaining table to hold steady. Instead, we go into negotiations having already thought of what comes next. Every chance we have, is a chance we will take to make whatever gain is possible for each one of you.
As a reminder, when I started as an organizer in 1987, Local 150 didn’t have union shops for mechanics, but today, Sunbelt is our largest employer with 350 members. Think about that for a moment. In an environment where for decades unions have seen a decline in their membership, Local 150 organized an unrepresented and unfairly treated segment of the industry that now employs hundreds of members.
Local 150 doesn’t organize without a strategy. Every industry we represent has a direct link to our heavy equipment; and each industry contributes to the success of the other. I call this the “wheel and spoke” with the core being our construction jurisdiction and the spokes being the related industries. By creating a connection, we make it that much easier to help one another get the best contracts. Going into negotiations, you’ve got to have weight and influence to get a contract. The “wheel and spoke” is a force for Local 150 because it allows us to build our own leverage.
What I share here in a few paragraphs, I need you to realize has taken our union almost 40 years of blood and sweat to get where we are at today. You know the saying, you give them an inch, they’ll take a mile. Local 150’s growth has been fought for in inches, and not one of them was given to us. And believe me, when Local 150 gets the mile, because at times we do, we’ve hands down earned it. And that is why we will never retreat by relinquishing our work. Our fight will continue because every jobsite in our jurisdiction that has heavy equipment on it should and will have Local 150 members operating it.
We just had our North Central States Conference in Milwaukee, and we are without a doubt helping men and women in our craft from Wisconsin to Texas, and in the trades all around this country. Our ability to build up the industry is a direct reflection of the staff, our membership, and the education we have provided over the years. We had a renowned Labor Leader call upon the IUOE Locals to continue to teach labor history. As you know, all new members must take COMET, Labor History, and Know Your Union classes. I am proud to say we do this and do it well.
Oftentimes, I hear members ask about having to take these classes. As any good historian knows, if you want to know your future, you have to know your past. These classes have paid off with our men and women being some of the most informed membership out there.
Our most recent strike with Clayco is a great example of our members knowing exactly what their rights are because of the things we’ve made sure to teach. A quick backdrop of the strike started with Clayco, a contractor we regularly work with in Illinois, coming into to South Bend, Indiana at the New Carlisle facility with Amazon, one of the richest corporations across the globe, owned by one of the wealthiest men in the world. Their mindset was they were going to show Local 150 that this data center was going to be built non-union.
They brought all the cranes in non-union, did all the excavation for trenchwork with 50 nonunion operators from Mississippi. Still to this day, all other crafts: steelworkers, plumbers, electricians, and more are nonunion. All of our work, except the mass dirt work completed by Ryan Inc. initially, they made the choice to do it without us.
It took Local 150 about two months to find out what was taking place, and we immediately took action. The problem continued, until roughly two weeks ago. Now, Local 150 has turned the entire jobsite around for our Operating Engineers. We’ve got 70 operators out there on forklifts, where we had none. Now the cranes and oilers are Local 150. All of this work will be close to 200 operators for the job. It’s ironic that Amazon was going to try to teach us a lesson.
By the time we pulled the trigger on the strike and our business agents showed up to Clayco sites in Illinois, they could see Local 150 wasn’t going to back down. At Clayco sites in Illinois, we know they have to be union. The power and the leverage we have here, turned around the jobsite in Indiana. Within two days of us being on strike at Clayco and present at sites in Illinois, companies like Microsoft started making phones calls. Microsoft reminded Clayco of the billions of dollars of work still coming, and a good portion of that work is in Local 150 territory. The message was sent to straighten out the mess, or the billions of dollars would go to another contractor. The CEO of Clayco called me on a Saturday. By Monday, he flew in, and we were in Indiana walking the jobsite. We agreed what was our work, and what wasn’t. Today the jobsite is straight.
One thing we haven’t let up on is the situation with the out-right attack on natural gas and of course the Illinois Commerce Commission’s hold on the Safety Modernization Program to replace outdated gas lines that put 200 operators out of work just before the holidays last year. We are continuing our fight in Chicago and Springfield. I mention this here because with just the amount of data centers on the books today, which doesn’t account for the massive AI projects like the Quantum Computer awarded to Chicago and dozens of other data centers and battery plants being discussed throughout our jurisdiction, the generation of electricity will need to increase by 40%.
As much as Local 150 is a fan of solar and wind farms, as well as geothermal, renewables will never come online fast enough or generate enough electricity to cover the incredible amount of energy required to power these centers. Nuclear is making a comeback; and there is no way for the foreseeable future that natural gas can be taken offline without sending us all into an energy crisis with soring consumer prices and frequent and sprawling outages. This fight for Local 150 continues.
When you are out there on jobsites, I know between safety and getting the job done well, there is plenty to think about. I want all members to realize the work you are doing is built on the shoulders of those who came before us. One day many years from now, when we are not here, it will be our shoulders others stand on.
Local 150 must take its struggles and let each of them guide everything we do in our efforts to move forward not only our members, but also all working men and women. We can ask why these struggles happen and worry about the outcome. Or we can realize there is always a lesson to learn. Some of these situations happen to test us, some to teach us, and some to show us who we really are. Local 150 will continue to be an example of strength and courage fighting for our work and our m
United We Stand, Divided We Fall.