125 Years Strong – An IUOE History

INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS
One of the gold dredgers, photographed in 1968 on the final day of its operation on a dredge pond in Yuba County, California, operated
by members of I.U.O.E. Local No. 3 in San Francisco for the Wendell P. Hammon company. The operating engineers dredged over
1-billion cubic yards of material during the 68 years Hammon’s company was in business, yielding more than $137 million in gold.
several atomic facilities. Other significant
Canadian projects at the forefront during that
time and throughout the balance of the 1960s
included a spectacular, $240-million job to
successfully and economically extract oil from
petroleum-rich sands along the Athabasca
River in northern Alberta province.
On the international political front, in May
1967 the I.U.O.E. formed its Engineers
Political Education Committee. The
international’s own political arm, the committee
was needed, as an article in that month’s
International Operating Engineer explained,
to “carry out the wishes of the members for
supporting friends of labor.”
To that end, “Make 1968 a Four-Star Political
Year” was the theme proclaimed on the front
cover of the February 1968 International
Operating Engineer. General President Wharton
would go on in 1969 to voice a call for “bold
action” in 10 vital legislative areas, including
on-the-job safety, cost-of-living, consumer
welfare, social security, education and other
measures relating to working people.
The I.U.O.E. was making strong internal gains
elsewhere, as well, and by its 28 th Convention
in Bal Harbour, Florida, in April 1968, its
membership had reached nearly 370,000, up
from about 320,000 members just four years
earlier in 1964. Also in September 1968, the
union held its first-ever National Conference
of Hoisting and Portable Engineers and made
plans for a similar conference of stationary
engineers soon after in Washington, D.C.
As the decade was coming to a close,
operating engineers were at work on almost all
of the major construction projects underway
in North America. Those included various
new bridge projects undertaken in the wake of
the December 15, 1967, collapse of the Silver
Bridge over the Ohio River that resulted in the
deaths of 46 people – and made the nation
“bridge-safety conscious.”
Arguably one of the most significant jobs on
which I.U.O.E. members would ever work,
construction of the World Trade Center in
New York City and its 110-story “twin-tower”
skyscrapers, had been underway since August
1966. Work on the seven-building complex in
Lower Manhattan would continue to utilize the
skills of union operating engineers with Local
No. 14 and Local No. 15 of New York City and
other locals until completion in April 1973.
Brother Gary G. Wetzel
MEMBER, A VIETNAM VET, RECEIVED MEDAL OF HONOR
Even after enemy fire downed
the helicopter in which he was
riding and then tore off his left
arm on January 8, 1968, near
Ap Dong An in South Vietnam
during the Vietnam War, future
I.U.O.E. Local No. 139, Wisconsin,
Brother Gary G. Wetzel continued
to fight. Despite his catastrophic
injuries, the then-21-year-old U.S.
Army private returned to his gun
nest in the chopper and eliminated
an enemy automatic-weapons
position that was firing on his
fellow soldiers.
His act of courage and heroism
earned Brother Wetzel, who was
promoted to the rank of Specialist
4, the Congressional Medal of
Honor, which U.S. President
Lyndon B. Johnson presented
to him the following fall. Brother
Wetzel, who joined his Wisconsinbased
local in 1972, is the sole
I.U.O.E. member to have received
the nation’s highest military award.
I.U.O.E. Local No. 139 Brother Gary G. Wetzel
(Photo courtesy of Harley-Davidson Archives.)
Future I.U.O.E. member U.S. Army Specialist-4 Gary G. Wetzel (far left) waits to receive the
Congressional Medal of Honor from U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson during a ceremony at the White
House on November 19, 1968. (Executive Office of the President of the United States file photo.)
Following the war that also left him with a prosthetic left arm,
he learned how to operate heavy equipment in the early 1970s
through a program offered by Local 139, equipment manufacturer
J.I. Case Company and the State of Wisconsin. He was one of only
15 men selected to participate in the course, which he completed
as its second-most proficient operator.
As a member of the I.U.O.E., he operated backhoes, loaders,
telehandlers and other equipment using his artificial arm before
retiring in 2013. He also served as a steward or general foreman
on various projects for the local.
Away from jobsites, Brother Wetzel annually rode his Harley-
Davidson motorcycle in the Rolling Thunder parade on Memorial
Day weekend in Washington, D.C., which calls for accountability of
the nation’s POW/MIA soldiers. He also authored a book, “Jake,
The Forgotten Warrior,” and writes poems, all of which are based
on his experiences as a soldier.
On July 7, 2017, Brother Wetzel helped dedicate a “transition
wall” that marks the main entrance to the Gary G. Wetzel Way nature
trail built in 2016 at Camp American Legion in Lake Tomahawk,
Wisconsin. The wall memorializes all veterans, and the paved trail,
constructed mainly by Local 139 apprentices who served in the
military, provides a therapeutic nature walk for disabled veterans.
LABOR OMNIA VINCIT
WORK CONQUERS ALL