125 Years Strong – An IUOE History

INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS
UNION ADVANCED CIVIL RIGHTS
During the surge of the civil-rights movement in the 1960s, Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962, the Vocational
the I.U.O.E. and most of the construction trades were targeted Education Act of 1963 and the Economic Opportunity Act of
by civil-rights advocates because of the low number of minorities 1964. Regardless, the I.U.O.E., as did other construction-trades
in building-trades unions and their apprenticeship programs – unions, still faced charges of discrimination, and in 1968, the
although, as Professor Garth L. Mangum notes in Union Resilience Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance
in Troubled Times from 1993, racism was not the sole cause began withholding funds from federally financed projects in several
of the disparity. While discrimination did exist within unions, he locations until minority quotas were met and its “Philadelphia
explains that because building trades unions were “organized by Plan,” a quota system for hiring minority workers in the trades,
men of the white working class … entrance into the unions often was imposed.
was determined by family ties and/or personal connections” …
and, therefore, “few minorities (as well as white males without
‘connections’) entered the union because they were outside the
traditional entry route.”
For the most part, into the culturally charged Sixties, the I.U.O.E.
left its locals to address issues of racism and racial disparity among
their own respective ranks; but with the growth of its hoisting
and portable branch (which primarily required entry through the
union’s selective training programs), overall minority membership
in the union declined. Subsequently, even before the civil-rights
movement gained momentum in the mid-1960s, in May 1961
the I.U.O.E. issued a Statement on Civil Rights:
Since it was chartered in 1896, the International
Union of Operating Engineers has been dedicated
to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Our history clearly demonstrates that color, religion
or national origin has never been a bar to the full
enjoyment of membership. At the present time we
number among our ranks many representatives
of minority racial and religious groups.
While we take justifiable pride in the advances
made to improve the wages, hours and working
conditions of our membership, we have never lost
sight of our consistent policy to aid and encourage
all workers within our craft, without regard to race,
creed, color, national origin, or ancestry, to share
equally, in the full benefits of membership in this
International Union. Deviation from this policy, no
matter how slight, has always been opposed by
this International Union.
The International Union of Operating Engineers
will affirmatively cooperate, within the limits
of its local and contractual authority, in the
implementation of the policy and provisions of
the Executive Order establishing the President's
Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity,
issued by the President of the United States on
March 6, 1961.
The I.U.O.E. also supported campaigns that helped pass the
Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1966, the
Conversely, the I.U.O.E. considered its training programs to be
the solution for increasing minority representation, and in August
1968, General President Hunter P. Wharton appointed Brother
James H. Gary to the International staff with the task of assisting
the international union and its locals in resolving internal civil-rights
issues. Soon after, the union initiated an Affirmative Action Plan for
locals first in Pennsylvania and Ohio and then in Los Angeles; New
York City; Indianapolis; Atlanta; the state of Michigan; Chicago;
Birmingham; and Hamden, Connecticut.
While efforts to make the union more inclusive continued, on
July 1, 1977, General President J. C. Turner created a Department
of Civil Rights and appointed Brother Louis J. Brady of Local No. 3
in San Francisco as its director. General President Frank Hanley’s
administration later combined the Department of Civil Rights with
LOCALS AT FOREFRONT
OF FOSTERING EQUALITY
With a creative organizing initiative executed in late
1973, the I.U.O.E. was able to use the civil-rights issue
as an organizing tool against open-shop contractors in a
predominantly non-union area. As part of the program,
Local No. 312 of Alabama and Local No. 624 of Mississippi
sponsored training programs to prepare minority residents
in their historically non-union states with entry-level skills as
heavy-equipment operators and mechanics for the $1-billion
Tennessee-Tombigbee (Tenn-Tom) Waterway Project, a
series of projects connecting the Tennessee River with the
Gulf of Mexico through parts of the two states.
The locals also formed a coalition with communityaction
groups to protest the low, pre-determined wages for
construction of the Tenn-Tom, after which the wage rates
were dramatically increased. Because of the efforts of the
I.U.O.E. locals, union contractors also were the successful
bidders on three of the four major contracts awarded through
1975 after a non-union contractor was awarded the first
contract on the project.
IN ITS INDUSTRY
the union’s Office of Organization, thereby making the recruitment of
minorities one of the priorities of its organizing endeavors.
By the early 1990s, the I.U.O.E. had “minimized” its civil-rights
discrepancies, as Union Resilience in Troubled Times points out. In
doing so, the union opened entry into its membership by actively
recruiting minority and women apprentices, while an increase in
I.U.O.E. workers in the public sector resulted in an increase in new
minority and female members. “In other words,” Professor Mangum
declares, “the ‘loop’ that was previously closed to minorities and
women has been substantially widened.”
MEMBER BROKE RACIAL BARRIERS
I.U.O.E. Brother James E. Keyes Sr. was the first black business
representative for any construction union in the United States when
he assumed that position for I.U.O.E. Local No. 478 of Connecticut
in the early 1970s. During
his time with the union,
Brother Keyes helped
establish the international’s
Apprenticeship and Training
Programs for minorities
and women in every state
in the country, and among
many other activities he also
worked closely with national
civil rights groups, outreach
agencies and the Job Corps
I.U.O.E. Local No. 478 Brother
James E. Keyes Sr.
to promote and assist with
the referral and placement
of minorities and women into
construction unions.
For all of his efforts, the New Haven, Connecticut, Branch of the
N.A.A.C.P. presented its 1983 Freedom Award to Brother Keyes. After
11 more years of service to the union and community, he passed away
on September 25, 1994.
Fittingly, as a delegate to the I.U.O.E. 33 rd Convention in 1988,
Brother Keyes seconded the re-nomination of international trustee and
close friend Brother Peter Babin of Local No. 406 in New Orleans with
this tribute:
“It’s kind of strange for me and for maybe
some of you people here assembled for a
Yankee who is black from the North to stand
at this microphone to second the nomination
for a rebel who is white from the South. This
could only happen in real, true spirit in the
labor movement.”
to-work law.” (While throughout the
coming decades through to its 125 th
anniversary in 2021, the union
would spend an untold amount of its
political resources fending off “rightto-work”
attacks at state and national
levels.)
The 1960s were years of more
growth for the I.U.O.E., and
already in 1960, the operating
engineers reaped the benefits of
their union’s ambitious organizing
drive as the membership climbed to
more than 302,000 that year. (2) The
work situation in the construction
industry was also favorable,
highlighted by numerous pipeline
fabrication jobs, and a substantial
majority of it was being done with
union labor.
But during the union’s 26 th
General Convention, held in Florida
in April 1960, delegates conceded
constitutional amendments made
necessary by harsh mandates of the
recently passed, anti-union federal
Landrum-Griffin Act (officially the
Labor-Management Reporting and
Disclosure Act) that put in place
measures to regulate labor unions’
internal affairs such as voting and
reporting of certain activities.
Regardless, after the conference
was completed, President Delaney
declared, “Our union has emerged
from this convention strengthened,
invigorated and unified in spirit
and purpose.”
One reason for that encouraging
outlook was the convention’s
approval of a plan for developing a
union-wide Central Pension Fund.
While larger and stronger locals
had begun in the 1950s to negotiate
LABOR OMNIA VINCIT
WORK CONQUERS ALL