125 Years Strong – An IUOE History

INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS
SYSTEM OF BRANCH LOCALS
FORMED OUT OF NECESSITY
The I.U.O.E. charters “branches” of its locals as a vital means
by which the union provides representation to apprentices and
workers who are not operating engineers. Instead, these branch
locals can represent other heavy-equipment operators and
mechanics, as well as operations maintenance and other workers in
building and industrial complexes and industry services throughout
the United States and Canada – although with somewhat restricted
membership privileges.
For instance, in December 1933 Local No. 701 of Portland,
Oregon, created branch Local No. 701-A for its apprentices,
with jurisdiction over all boiler-firing and machine-oiling jobs, and
branch Local No. 701-B for new journeyman members, who were
able to transfer into the parent Local 701 by making a written
request and paying the difference in the union’s initiation fee.
Likewise, Local No. 132 of Charleston, West Virginia, chartered
branch Local No. 132-C on November 1, 1960, to provide muchneeded
union representation to an increasing number of workers
in several rapidly expanding equipment-service, industrial-service
and aggregate-and-sand companies within the local’s jurisdiction.
In a current example, as of 2020 Local No. 3 of California, Hawaii,
Nevada and Utah is the parent local to locals 3A (representing
assistant engineers), 3B (miscellaneous journeymen), 3C
(dredgemen), 3D (shop members and non-construction public
employees), 3E (tech engineers and soil-testers), 3G (California
Department of Transportation Unit 12 workers), 3M (healthcare
workers) and 3R (registered apprentices).
As early as 1906, some locals of the International Union of
Steam Engineers (I.U.S.E.), which would become the International
Union of Steam and Operating Engineers (I.U.S.O.E) in 1912 and
then the I.U.O.E. in 1927, were already utilizing “subordinate”
branch locals to organize firemen – or apprentices – who fired
and maintained the engines of the machines being operated by
journeyman engineers. Soon after, locals also formed branches
for engineers performing lower-paying “street- and generalconstruction
work.”
Those parent locals primarily organized branches early on in
order to control the entry of potentially competitive workers into the
union and, as a result, the wage scales of journeyman engineers.
As Professor Garth L. Mangum further explains in The Economic
History of a Trade Union, “The branch locals were a compromise
between the local unions’ reluctance to admit potential competitors
and the international’s realization of the necessity for inclusion and
control of all qualified and potential engineers.”
However, the American Federation of Labor (A.F.L.), citing
its commitment to protecting the jurisdiction of the International
Brotherhood of Stationary Firemen, objected to the I.U.S.O.E.’s
practice of branch locals. Subsequently, during its 34 th annual
convention in November 1914, the A.F.L. passed a resolution
warning the stationary engineers, “That the installation of branch
locals, as now practiced by organizers of the International Union
of Steam and Operating Engineers, shall be considered as a direct
disregard of decisions of the American Federation of Labor and its
executive council, which, if continued, shall be deemed sufficient
cause for such discipline as future conventions may decide.”
In response, the engineers’ union during its fifth biennial
convention in September 1916 in Newark, New Jersey, adopted a
report to recommend to the A.F.L. that it support an amalgamation
of the firemen’s union into the I.U.S.O.E. The merger, however, was
never accomplished. (The International Brotherhood of Stationary
Firemen, originally formed to represent workers engaged in the
operation of steam boilers, became the International Brotherhood
of Firemen and Oilers in 1956 before it was merged into the
Service Employees International Union {S.E.I.U.} as a multi-state
affiliate known as S.E.I.U. Local 32BJ in 2008.)
Ultimately, the I.U.S.O.E. made its practice of utilizing branch
locals official when it integrated measures for the system into its
constitution during the early 1920s, by which time the branchlocal
system was essentially serving as a de-facto apprenticeship
program. As such, the branch locals were afforded representation
and many of the same rights and privileges of any local, albeit the
branches were supervised by their respective parent locals.
But the union had relatively few branch locals until the late
1930s, during which the I.U.O.E. began insisting that parent
locals give higher priority to taking in members of their branches.
Subsequently, after a General Executive Board resolution in 1938
further clarified the branch local system, the union rewrote its
constitution that year to designate “A” branches, which would
consist of firemen, oilers and operators of “minor” equipment, as
apprentice and junior engineers’ subdivisions; while “B” branches,
whose members would be known as “branch engineers,” were to
be used for organizing and controlling unorganized workers.
Two decades later, the Labor Management Reporting and
Disclosure Act of 1959 (also known as the Landrum-Griffin Act),
a federal law passed to regulate labor unions’ internal affairs,
forced the union to significantly revise rules governing the rights of
members of its branch locals – along with the multiple changes it
required in the union’s constitution. Among the revisions, the act
required the union to allow its branch members to nominate and
vote for candidates for offices in parent locals, as well as run for
those positions.
non-affiliated stationary engineers. Most
all of the spats were the product of former
engineers of those different crafts transferring
into the I.U.S.E.
Conversely, convention attendees were also
informed that the union had granted 77 new
charters since its previous convention two years
earlier, during which time 8,096 new members
were admitted into the union. Additionally,
delegates were told of a general increase in
employment and further gains in the demand
for an 8-hour day in Canada.
Wielding Its Newfound Power
Into 1911, the I.U.S.E. was constantly
increasing in size and importance. Backed
by the strong organization, its leaders
were able to speak out and criticize the laws
and lawmakers of such industrially controlled
LABOR OMNIA VINCIT
states as Massachusetts, as well as condemn
trusts and monopolies that were denouncing
organized labor.
While engineers were defending the general
labor movement, they also were seeking to
advance their own interests by having uniform
regulations and effective licensing for engineers
established in states and municipalities,
insisting that public officials protect against
individuals who were in charge of steam plants
by virtue of ill-gotten or undeserved licenses.
In New York City in January of 1912, for
example, the entire operating force of boiler
inspection and engineers licensing under the
Police Department was put out of it jobs after
it was discovered that they were giving licenses
to unqualified applicants who “put up the
price,” instead of applicants who had shown
the required knowledge for the work.
The International Union of Steam and Operating Engineers Executive Board of 1916, elected during the union’s Fifth Biennial
Convention held in Newark, New Jersey, consisted of (left to right, front row) Third Vice-President Joseph Muntefering of
Brooklyn; General Secretary-Treasurer James G. Hannahan of Chicago; General President Milton Snellings of Chicago; First
Vice-President Arthur M. Huddell of Chelsea, Massachusetts; and Second Vice-President William MacKenzie of Portland; and
(standing) Trustees Chairman Charles Gralfs of Chicago; Trustee James A. Cooley of Philadelphia; Trustee F. A. Fitzgerald of New
Haven, Connecticut; Fifth Vice-President George M. Jenkins of East St. Louis; and Fourth Vice-President Dave Evans of Cincinnati.
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