125 Years Strong – An IUOE History

INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS
Educating Young People
PROUDLY PARTICIPATING IN JOB CORPS
The I.U.O.E. National Training Fund has partnered with Job Corps,
a national career-training program for young people ages 16 through
24, since the early 1970s. As such, the union in 2021 has training
agreements with the U.S. Departments of Labor and Agriculture to
administer and operate pre-apprenticeship training programs at
various Job Corps training centers throughout the United States.
Through Job Corps, the I.U.O.E. has trained thousands of
young adults as pre-apprentices in the fields of heavy-equipment
operation, heavy-equipment mechanics, stationary engineering
and asphalt paving. As of 2020, the union had provided career
technical training to more than 380 students annually at 10
I.U.O.E. Job Corps centers across the nation, each staffed with
local union members.
Continuously improving and updating equipment, tools and
curriculum in order to meet the training needs of the ever-changing
construction and mechanic industries, in 2018 the I.U.O.E. Job
Corps program expanded at the Turner Job Corps Center in
Albany, Georgia, becoming home to three trade offerings and
five Job Corps instructors. Along with the Anaconda Job Corps
Center in Anaconda, Montana, the Turner site became the second
location to house five programs, creating the largest presence that
the I.U.O.E. National Training Fund had at the time at any Job
Corps training facility.
Members of I.U.O.E. Local No. 14 in Flushing, New York, help erect the first of two towers of the original World
Trade Center in New York City’s Manhattan district beginning in 1968. When completed in 1972 and 1973, the
“Twin Towers” were the tallest buildings in the world. (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division,
U.S. News & World Report Magazine Collection [reproduction number, e.g., LC-U9-15739, frame 18].)
Construction of the 1,368-foot-tall “North
Tower” (officially 1 World Trade Center) began
in August 1968 and was topped-out with a
final steel beam on December 23, 1970; and
erection of the 1,362-foot-tall “South Tower”
(2 World Trade Center) was under way by
January 1969 and was topped-out on July 19,
1971. With I.U.O.E. engineers at the forefront
of construction, the twin towers would set a
new world record for building height, which
for nearly 40 years had belonged to the Empire
State Building, and signaled a new era in
skyscraper construction.
Pulled Down from New Highs
Enormous expansion of work in the
construction industry that had spurred
I.U.O.E. growth during the 1960s
continued to propel the union forward into
the early 1970s. The high proportion of the
nation’s construction expenditures that were
invested in highway, airport, reclamation,
suburban housing, industrial park and earthmoving
projects were particularly important
to operating engineers’ robust employment
conditions in the new decade. (2)
With the Vietnam War persisting and many
of its members still in southeast Asia in combat
and construction roles, the international
entered 1970 somewhat leery, however, as
national unemployment was rising and would
hit 5.5 percent before the year was out. But
aside from several federal legislative setbacks
in 1970 and 1971 instigated by the President
Richard M. Nixon administration, the union
construction industry did set up a threeparty
Construction Industry Stabilization
Committee, with General President Wharton
named as a labor member, that was empowered
to review all construction-contract wage raises.
Additionally, the federal Occupational Health
and Safety Act of 1970 was signed into law
at year’s end, establishing and enforcing job
safety and health standards going forward,
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