125 Years Strong – An IUOE History

INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS
Cranes operated by members of I.U.O.E. Local No. 4 in Boston work on construction of the Seabrook (New
Hampshire) Station Nuclear Power Plant just north of Boston, which was built from 1976 into 1990.
“Organizing nurtures and
promotes our ideals and goals; it
replenishes and expands our ranks
and influence; it sustains our
ongoing efforts to provide better
and safer working conditions for
our members. Without organizing,
without the constant infusion of
new blood, new ideas and new
incentives, the union movement
long ago would have reached
its peak, then withered and
disappeared through attrition.”
The plan called for the creation of an
Organizing Grants Program, through which
the general president would award yearly
“organizing grants” to locals based on the
net increase in a local’s total membership in
a defined 12-month period. (Just two years
later, the program had paid out more than
$600,000 to local unions for organizing new
members.) The international also deferred
one-half of the 50-cent per-capita-tax increase
for each local scheduled to take effect on July
1, 1990, to encourage locals to devote more
resources to organizing.
The program further immediately
implemented an organizing campaign aimed
at bolstering the union’s share of heavy and
highway construction work in a 10-state region
in the south and southwest. The international
would coordinate the operation through the
newly chartered Local No. 5, headquartered
in Jackson, Mississippi, to organize and
represent potential members in Alabama,
Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North
Carolina, South Carolina, New Mexico, Texas
and Virginia. At the heart of the effort was an
agreement with contractors from around the
country that established a standard benefits
package and zoned wage rates to enable
signatory contractors to be competitive in
bidding work in that region.
Throughout General President Hanley’s time
in office, which would last into March 2005,
much of the international’s focus was also placed
on efforts to train and educate its members. In
doing so, he initiated several new training and
education programs and reinvigorated existing
ones so that all members could have access
to the resources and tools necessary to keep
pace with changing technologies. “I am firmly
convinced that if all of our local unions sign
on and implement these programs, it won’t be
long before we can reclaim much of our rightful
market share,” he wrote in the February-March
1996 International Operating Engineer.
By the time 600 delegates gathered for
the 34 th I.U.O.E. Convention in Chicago
from April 5 to 8, 1993, whose theme was
“Training for the Future,” the union’s Hazmat
Training Program had educated over 600
instructors and 20,000 members on working
with hazardous wastes and materials; its newly
initiated business agents’ training program
and pipeline training program were off to
strong starts; and its established organizing,
apprenticeship and skills-improvement
training programs were again serving to give
the union a competitive edge. Those efforts
had helped I.U.O.E. membership to grow
back to about 369,000.
Earlier that year, more than 100 business
agents from locals throughout the country
attended the international’s first two business
agents’ training programs. The week-long
sessions, one of which was held at the George
Meany Center and the other at the Local No. 3
Training Center in Rancho Murieta, California,
covered topics such as legal issues; contract
negotiations; grievances and arbitrations;
pipeline agreements; national agreements;
maintenance and general presidents’
agreements; jurisdiction; heavy and highway
industries; safety and health; prevailing wage
laws; hazardous materials; and the federal
McNamara-O’Hara Service Contract Act that
requires contractors to pay prevailing wages in
certain circumstances.
Members of I.U.O.E. Local No. 150 of Chicago work on construction of the city’s “deep tunnel” system, which is being built to
ease flooding and support water reclamation through 109 miles of tunnels ranging from 9 to 33 feet in diameter. Started in
1975 and expected to be complete in 2029, the $4-billion job has been a large source of labor for Local 150, especially during
the recessions of the early 1980s and 2010s, when it was a savior for workers who were otherwise struggling for employment.
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