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Changing attitudes end auxiliary lodge system In the 1940s, the Boilermakers' union, along with other unions, faced pressure to end their auxiliary lodge systems which segregated Black members into separate locals. It’s important to note that while not all unions were segregated in the 1940s, the majority were, mirroring wider society. While union leaders like International Vice President Charles J. MacGowan and Local 72 Business Agent Thomas Ray denied any discrimination, both the Fair Employment Practices Committee and the California Supreme Court came to the opposite conclusion, ultimately demanding that the system be dismantled. A pivotal case in the fight against the auxiliary system involved Joseph James, an African American Boilermaker working at Marinship in San Francisco. He sued both the International union and his employer, arguing that the auxiliary system was inherently discriminatory. His legal team was headed by Thurgood Marshall, who was then an attorney for the NAACP and would later become the first Black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. In a landmark decision, the California Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of James, declaring the auxiliary system to be discriminatory and unconstitutional. The court ordered the union to abolish the system. Meanwhile, the FEPC, which had been established to ensure fair employment practices in wartime industries, also ordered Local 72 to end the auxiliary system. These double rulings highlighted the growing legal and political pressure on the Boilermakers' leadership to address the issue of racial equality within the union. At the 1944 convention, MacGowan, who was preparing to succeed Joseph Franklin as the International President, used a letter from President Franklin D. Roosevelt to sway the delegates to vote to end the system. In the letter, Roosevelt praised the Boilermakers for their contributions to the war effort and appealed to their sense of patriotism, urging them to support racial equality so that “every worker capable of serving his country... [could] serve regardless of creed, race, or national origin.” The letter had an impact, leading to changes in the auxiliary system. In response, the 1944 convention passed a resolution that allowed auxiliary locals to elect their own delegates to union conventions and affiliate with local Metal Trades Councils. Previously, they had been dependent on their supervising white locals for representation. While auxiliary locals gained some autonomy, their meetings still had to be attended by the business agent of the supervising local. The precise nature of the relationship between supervising and auxiliary locals remained unclear, leaving much discretion to the International Executive Council. MacGowan pushed for a voluntary approach to integration, predicting that the issue would resolve itself over time. In 1945, the IEC agreed to stop forming new auxiliary locals, to open all job classifications to Black workers and to equalize insurance benefits between Black and white members. Black members were also allowed to transfer between auxiliary locals. Despite these reforms, voluntary integration did not lead to immediate change. By 1948, a few locals had integrated, but the majority remained segregated. The Boilermakers' transformation from a segregated organization to an integrated one was slow, reflecting the broader social and political struggles of the United States during this period. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s finally brought about a decisive shift. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed segregation and discrimination, effectively ending the auxiliary system for good. In the years that followed, the union made concerted efforts to integrate and encourage Black workers to participate fully in the union. Subsequently, they were elected to positions at every level, from local lodge officers to the International Executive Council. The Boilermakers’ journey from a segregated union to an integrated one mirrored the nation's slow and often painful path toward racial equality. What began throughout the labor movement as a reluctant and gradual process eventually led to workers of all races participating fully and equally, reflecting the changing values of the union and of American society. — Jun 26
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Register now for Tradeswomen Build Nations Registration is open for the 2025 Tradeswomen Build Nations conference, a popular event that grows each year. With limited seats and hotel rooms, local lodges wishing to send delegates should immediately make plans to do so and register to attend. The 2025 TWBN Conference is set for Sept. 19-21 in Chicago. Register and find more information: https://tradesfutures.org/initiatives/tradeswomen-build-nations/ See the Boilermakers’ recap from the 2024 event: https://boilermakers.org/news/2024-tradeswomen-build-nations-displays-strength-of-women-and-unionism — Jun 25
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Union solidarity runs solid in Asher family Joe Asher from Local 106 (Cincinnati, Ohio) is sandwiched between two generations of family with union pride, his United Mine Workers Association father and his daughter, Chasity Asher, the newest union member in the family. For Asher and his daughter, being stanchly union is all in the family. Joe Asher’s father worked union during his son’s formative years, and it made a lifelong impact. Joe Asher has been working union his whole life and has spent the last 26 years in the fabrication shop at Enerfab and at Brighton Tru-Edge represented by the Boilermakers. He has been offered a promotion into management more than once, but he’s turned the offer down every time because he “wanted to work union.” So, when his daughter, who was in nursing school during the COVID pandemic, decided nursing wasn’t the route she wanted to go, and after subsequent jobs at FedEx and as a tow truck driver didn’t quite meet expectations, he suggested applying at his workplace. Brighton Tru-Edge fabricates cold head end caps for pressure vessels. “My dad never wanted me to work in a man’s shop. In a man’s line of work,” Chasity Asher said. “I think he realized that after I couldn’t find a decent job with insurance and benefits and pay, he finally came around and suggested I come and work where he’s at and see how it goes.” It’s going well. Really well. It’s going so well that other young women have applied and gotten jobs at Brighten Tru-Edge. And they’re excelling, according to Joe Asher. “When I first got hired, I was a material handler,” Chastity Asher said. “Driving the forklift, making sure people had materials they needed.” But after a month, a position in X-ray came up and she put her name in for it and landed a position in NDT radiographic testing. Joe Asher, the lead over the entire weld department and NDT at Brighton Tru-Edge, has three women on his team working in cutting, welding and non-destructive testing. Two other women work in the shop forming, but he doesn’t oversee them. He’s impressed with the work ethic and skillsets of the women. “We now have women in place everywhere, so we could make a head 100% by women,” he said. “I think more women getting into Brighton Tru-Edge has brought it to the forefront. There’s no difference between men and women working here. It takes a different breed of man, just as it takes a different breed of woman to do this.” Brighton Tru-Edge recently honored the women working for them during Women in Construction Week. For Chasity Asher, she’s excited to go to work for the company every morning she rolls out of bed. “I used to want to call off work a lot,” she said. “There was no motivation in past jobs. Now, I wake up every day and enjoy what I do. The company I work for goes above and beyond to make sure we’re taken care of.” She also enjoys working in non-destructive testing. She first assesses all the heads that need to be tested for the day, making sure no marks will come up on an X-ray. Then she loads the heads into a machine and uses kilovoltage and milliamperage radiation to take the image of the head and ensure there are no weld defects. “I have to be that person who says we’re putting out the door what we say we are,” she said. She takes that job seriously, and like her dad, she is resolutely union. “I know for a fact, after being in a union, I would never want to leave the union or go to another job,” she said. “I hope I can retire from here in 45 years. I feel women being in a man’s field have broken the generational curse that women can’t do a man’s job. Women deserve the job just as much as a man.” International Vice President of the Great Lakes Dan Sulivan completely agrees. “Throughout my career as a Boilermaker, it’s become clear to me that women are more than capable of succeeding in this male-dominated industry—and those who choose this path often stand out and shine.” — Jun 24
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L-242 project steps Boilermakers into a new future: Batteries Boilermaker work has evolved over more than a century from the union’s roots in steam-powered locomotives to shipbuilding, refineries, nuclear power plants, the latest pollution mitigation technologies and more. And while Boilermakers themselves have also evolved with industry changes, they’ve remained constant as the dependable, go-to welders, riggers and fabricators that steep the union’s history. That’s what makes a recent Local 242 (Spokane, Washington) project both “new” news and old news at the Sila Nanotechnologies battery materials plant. The job is a move into a new industry for the Boilermakers; but for those on the job, it’s familiar work. “I don’t think the scope of work—what a Boilermaker does—is really any different. It’s just the type of equipment and the process of that equipment that’s unique,” says International Rep Luke Lafley. “We’re still welding, we’re still rigging, we’re still doing layout, we’re still refabricating things that came in incorrectly. “It’s normal Boilermaker work. It’s just the technology behind the equipment and the jurisdictional issues that come with it.” As new industry territory, when Sila, a next-generation battery materials company, announced in 2023 that it was building out its first, auto-scale manufacturing plant in Moses Lake, Washington—and that they intended to use a local workforce—the opportunity for Boilermakers to build it could have been missed. Fortunately, L-242 Business Manager/Secretary-Treasurer Scott Widdicombe attends local Central Washington Building Trades council meetings, where he learned about the opportunity and long-time contractor-partner Haskell’s plan to bid on the work. “It’s important to go to your building trades meetings,” says Widdicombe, who participates in several area building trades groups. “If I had missed one building trades meeting or two meetings, we might not have been involved in this and it would have been playing a lot of catch up.” In tandem with building trades involvement, he stresses the importance of the project labor agreements (PLAs) as integral to scoring the work with Haskell, working well with other craft affiliates and the project’s overall success. “Without PLAs, we’re not getting this work. It’s the simple fact of the matter,” he says. A PLA and early pre-job assignments made for a clear and smooth understanding of jurisdiction from the get-go, which all agree have eliminated inter-craft issues that can halt work, cause friction with contractors and employers and sour future work opportunities. At the Sila project, as Boilermakers work elbow-to-elbow with Ironworkers, Pipefitters and others, it’s been overall harmonious. “We got all the stakeholders involved, all the parties, all the different business managers from all the different locals within the building trades of Central Washington, and as the scope developed, we got it agree to and signed, so there’s no drama, or minimal drama, in the field,” says Haskell Site Manager Luke Parham. Parham describes the new Sila facility as essentially a chemical plant where Sila will make Titan Silicon (TM), an innovative material that enables a more efficient battery for the auto industry, consumer electronics and other future industries. That means the company is extremely cautious about its proprietary processes and plans—which includes first-of-its-kind equipment built by Boilermakers. It also means Silas’ engineers need to regularly tweak and refine original plans that they must hold tight to their chests right up until go-time. Haskell and the crafts all need to be ready to go and pivot as necessary, making the PLA and pre-job work even more critical—and challenging. “There’s nothing to fall back on,” says L-242 Boilermaker and Site Superintendent Jayme Taylor, referring to the craft assignments and processes. “This is all brand new.” The tone for fairness was set early in the pre-job phase. Job steward Mark Keffeler said that while Boilermakers claimed their work, they were also vocal about ensuring other crafts’ work was properly assigned. “We’d say, ‘no, that’s ours; that’s theirs,’ and some guys were pretty new to the jurisdictional assignment process,” he explains. “[Scott Widdicombe and I] talked about it ahead of time, that if we’re fair from the start, we should be fair for the duration, and that’s really worked.” In fact, Keffeler drives a shuttle van every day to and from the jobsite. His passengers: all Pipefitters. “You know, we’ve got a new product line so to speak, and if we’re going to move forward getting this done with unions, we’ve got to do it professionally and safely. And that’s what Haskell and Sila have allowed us to do,” he says. “We don’t have to fight about piddly stuff. We might have to make concession here or there, but it’s better than watching across the fence while the work is done nonunion. We’re all getting along good in the sandbox.” Boilermakers were assigned to the process vessels, air pollution mitigation equipment, reactors, flare stack, components for an auxiliary generator and work on pressure transfer system for the product. Among highlights of their work at Sila, they set the thermal oxidizer and are building several substantial vessels including multiple massive tanks, some of which may be visible from the road. “[The Boilermakers] have done an excellent job—high quality work on the tanks, the thermal oxidizer setting, and just constantly working through issues we’ve all experienced, whatever the case may be, to stay on schedule the best we can and pull things back in,” says Sila Construction Manager Shannon Denmark. Adds Haskell’s Parham: “The craftsmanship here is what I’m used to in the Pacific Northwest, and that’s people show up rough and ready, staunch and steady, ready to go. They take pride in what they do, with Jayme all the way down to his crew.” At its peak, the project employed 20 Boilermakers, which has meant a lot to local members who can commute back and forth for the job rather than leaving home for weeks and months. It’s also good for the local Moses Lake economy. Plus, it’s a significant foot in the door for future Boilermaker work in battery plants and other new industries. “This really is, basically, like a refining facility, but it’s refining new products, and hopefully it’s on the forefront,” Taylor says. “Moving forward, it’s more work for the Boilermakers and for all crafts really. It’s a new process, and hopefully it takes off. “It’s great for us as a whole—away from what we’re used to in the old fossil fuels. It’s stepping into the future.” EXTRA: Watch this video interview with L-242 Boilermaker Apprentice Nez Ogle. Apprentices learn at battery plant project The Sila battery materials plant project has proved to be a great setting for Local 242 apprentices make their mark on a growing new industry, sharpen their skills and learn from seasoned journeymen. For apprentice Nez Ogle, the experience has cemented his decision to become a career Boilermaker. “It’s been really eye opening for me,” he says. “I’m learning everything that I’ve been wanting to learn. Ogle went to welding school at Lewis-Clark State College and had an instructor who was a Boilermaker and talked about the union. So, when he finished school and wasn’t sure what to do next, he thought he’d give Local 242 a try. “This job is a lot of fun. A lot of journeymen that are here are really helpful, and any question I ask them, they’re super helpful when answering my questions—and they’re really nice to me. So, it’s been awesome. I love it, and I think I’ll do this for the rest of my life.” Journeyman Steven Pollard is among those working with apprentices like Ogle. He says the job has attracted quite a few apprentices, which makes the jobsite both interesting and challenging. “You have to keep them with someone who can guide them, but it’s been good,” he says. “We have some really good apprentices coming in right now.” Boilermaker Site Superintendent Jayme Taylor agrees. “That’s our future. Those are the guys that are going to have to take over for me when I decide to retire,” he adds. “So, train them young, train them right and make sure they know what they’re doing.” — Jun 24
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Pennsylvania gas plant to bring hundreds of jobs for Boilermakers On April 2, Homer City Redevelopment and Kiewit Power Constructors Co. announced plans to redevelop the former Homer City Generating Station site. Once the largest coal-fired power plant in Pennsylvania, the 3,200-acre property will be transformed into a natural-gas-powered data center campus. The new facility will meet the growing demand for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing. Top technology companies are hungry for more computing power and this project aims to deliver. Construction will generate hundreds of new jobs for the Boilermakers, according to L-154 (Pittsburgh) Business Agent and Homer City native Shawn Steffee. In addition to Boilermakers, the project will employ thousands of unionized skilled trade workers during the build. The closure of the coal plant in 2022 was a major blow to Homer City and the local workforce. “The shutting of coal-fired plants and refineries caused a noticeable drop in our membership and the loss of many skilled Boilermakers to other trades,” said L-154 Business Manager Michael Stanton. “However, we are encouraged by the natural gas industry and excited about signs of a coal resurgence in America.” Steffee remembers how damaging it was for friends when Homer City closed the coal plant. “I knew the people who worked here, and the closure was devastating,” said Steffee, who’s thrilled at the prospect of work for Boilermakers in his local. “The Homer City Energy Campus will be a series of natural-gas plants that will power a massive data center campus. What’s really interesting is that this is going to be 4.5 gigawatt, the largest in North America, when it’s done.” The power block build itself is a $10 billion investment. Another $10 to $15 billion is planned for investment in data centers. The build can’t be done with renewables. According to Steffee, it would take 75 million solar panels across 230 sq. miles to generate the kind of output the new power block will provide. For wind, the numbers are 5,000 wind turbines across 1,875 sq. miles of land. He said the American people need to understand where reliable power comes from when they switch on a light. And renewables aren’t reliable. The Homer City project brings security to the grid and eliminates reliability issues. “Natural gas, coal and nuclear, these are reliable power,” he said. “What’s really great for the state of Pennsylvania is using the Marcellus and Utica formation. The plant will take 530 million cubic feet of gas per day.” The local is up for the task of recruiting and training the needed number of Boilermakers for this job. Stanton said they indentured a new apprentice class in May and are actively recruiting through job fairs, school visits and community outreach. “To strengthen our recruitment efforts, we utilized the M.O.R.E. Work Investment Fund to partner with a media team to enhance our social media presence and outreach, showcasing the benefits of a Boilermaker career.” The local will need more Boilermakers because Steffee sees even more work coming. So, he’s keen on being the best craft on the project and fully manning it. “When the hiring process starts, we’ll be ready to go. We want to give them qualified men and women. We want to build more. We want to build our numbers back up. This project is just the beginning,” he said. “This is just the beginning for us. I couldn’t be happier for our local. We needed the good news.” To strengthen our recruitment efforts, we utilized the M.O.R.E. Work Investment Fund to partner with a media team to enhance our social media presence and outreach, showcasing the benefits of a Boilermaker career. Michael Stanton, L-154 Business Manager — Jun 23