IBEW RENEW from education department

2. Why Are We Here?
• How many of you have been told you
are the future of the IBEW?
• Who in here really believes that?
• Why do you think OTHERS tell you
that?
• Why do YOU think you are the future of
the IBEW?

3. Why Are We Here?
• Introductions
–Name
–Local union / location
–Classification
–Age

4. Why Are We Here?
Henry Miller video from the IBEW
website is embedded here.

5. What Do You See

6. You Are Like The Founders
of The IBEW
You face a similar world…

7. What’s Up With the World?
• When you look out into the world, what
are the things you’d like to change?
• How is our world different from the one
our parents grew up in?

8. 1891 or 2012?
• Rapidly changing and growing economy
• New technologies and emerging
industries replacing old system
• Workforce with new demographics
• Transient workforce enabled by mobility
• Huge concentration of wealth at the top
• Working people turning on each other
• Greed is Winning

9. Why the NBEW?
• Mortality Rate in Line Work at 50%
• 80 Hour Weeks
• No Federal Laws
• Few, if any, Friends in High Places
• A Willingness and Energy to Fight Back

10. What The Founders Did
• What were these early leaders able to
accomplish?
– In 1891 the NBEW was constituted at our
inaugural convention with 10 Delegates
representing 286 workers in eight cities.
– The second convention, held in 1892 had
delegates representing 43 separate local
unions and 2,000 total members.
– By 1919 the IBEW and its local unions
represented over 148,000 workers in many
branches of the electrical industry.

11. You face a similar world and similar
challenges…
You Are Like The Founders
of The IBEW

12. Fifty Years of Labor
History…in five minutes
• The overarching theme from 1870 to
1960 was who was allowed in unions
as full members and who wasn’t.
• Minority workers and women had to
fight double battles to organize.
• There’s a Hyphen in AFL-CIO for a
reason.

13. Fifty Years of Labor
History…in five minutes
• Organized Greed preyed upon and
fueled false barriers between workers
• Black vs. White, Skilled Workers vs.
Industrial Workers, Man vs. Woman,
Old vs. Young
• The Great Depression Helped Start to
Break Down These Barriers

14. Fifty Years of Labor
History…in five minutes
• 1934-1941:
Major Years in American Labor. San
Francisco, Minneapolis, Butte, Flint,
Chicago all saw major victories won by
the last collaborative generation.
• As a result, old walls began falling in
the 50s and 60s: between black and
white, working class and middle class

15. The Last 50 years…
• Organized Greed is Back in Force and Up
to their Same Old Tricks
• Government vs. Private Sector Workers
• Union vs. Union
• Immigration
• Welfare

16. You face a similar world and similar
challenges, but like them, you are
Young and Think Big
You Are Like The Founders
of The IBEW

17. Brother Henry Miller, 33

18. Sister Julia O’Connor, 28

19. Brother Ron Weakley, 26

20. Brother Peter Pusateri, 24

21. Young Workers Led
and Will Lead the Way
• The Founders, all in their 20s and early
30s, crafted a message of hope and
opportunity.
• Dynamic IBEW Leaders like Julia
O’Connor, Ron Weakley and Peter
Pusateri picked up their message in their
20s and amplified it.
• They all knew that to be successful, we
had to think creatively and be bigger than
organized greed.

22. Young Workers Led
and Will Lead the Way
Legacy video from the materials Shawn and
Laura developed is embedded here.

23. Why is it so hard
for so many workers
to make a decent living
in the richest country
in history?

24. American
Workers
ONE IN SIX
HAS NO JOB
REAL WAGES HAVEN’T
INCREASED IN 20 YEARS
EVERY 20 SECONDS
ANOTHER FILES FOR
BANKRUPTCY
AVG. DEBT = 136% OF
INCOME
WORK 9 WKS MORE THAN
25 YRS AGO
WORK LONGER HOURS THAN
IN ANY OTHER DEVELOPED
COUNTRY
$1.8 TRILLION
IN PROFITS
WALL STREET
BONUSES UP 17%
80% OF INCOME GROWTH
IN LAST TWO DECADES
WENT TO TOP 1%
80% OF LARGEST U.S.
CORPORATIONS USE OFF
SHORE TAX LOOPHOLES
57% OF LARGEST U.S.
CORPS. PAID NO TAXES FOR
AT LEAST 1 YEAR FROM
1998 TO 2005
Corporations
& Wealthy
2011 Reality

26. Less unionization
Weakened Bargaining Power
Erosion of middle class
Rich – Poor Gap Widens

27. Union Membership
Source: Economic Policy Institute, The State of Working America 2011; Barry T. Hirsch and David A. Macpherson,
"Union Membership, Coverage, Density, and Employment Among All Wage and Salary Workers, 1973-2010"
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
1964 - 30.2%
1954 – 34.7%

28. Source: Economic Policy Institute; Mother Jones Magazine, July/August 2011
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
Productivity
Wages
IndexThe Divide in Productivity & Wages
If the median household income had kept
pace with the economy since 1970, today it
would be nearly $92,000, not $50,000
Shared Prosperity!
Prosperity for a Few!

29. 92%
25%
1946 to 1976
Top 1%
Bottom 90%
Average Household Income Growth
10%
239%
1976 to 2006
Source: http://www.responsiblelending.org/overdraft-loans/policy-legislation/regulators/cc-udap-comments-final_2_-080408.pdf
Weak Middle
Class
Strong Middle
Class

30. Putting It All Together
Average income of top 1%
Productivity
Average overall wages
Changes since 1979

31. The Corporate Power Grab
Coming this November to a
California ballot box near you!
Proposition 32

32. 2010 Weekly Earnings for
Major IBEW Industries
Industry Union Non-Union Union Difference
Construction $1,051 $692 $359
Manufacturing $828 $759 $69
Utilities $1,199 $1,014 $185
Telecommunications $1,039 $974 $65
Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics

33. WHY ARE YOU UNION?
What Our Members
Believe
– I had to
– Better pay
– Better benefits
– Better working
conditions
– Job security
– Increased safety
What Our Founders
Thought
Opportunity
– Safety
– Dignity
– Respect
– Brotherhood
– Social justice

34. WHY IBEW
• Declaration of the IBEW
Our cause is the cause of human justice,
human rights, human security….
• Objects of the IBEW
To organize all workers in the entire electrical
industry in the United States and Canada,
including all of those in public utilities and
electrical manufacturing…
… to elevate the moral, intellectual and
social conditions of our members, their
families and dependents in the interest of a
higher standard of citizenship.

35. 500,000
600,000
700,000
800,000
900,000
1,000,000
1954
1958
1962
1966
1970
1974
1978
1982
1986
1990
1994
1998
2002
2006
2010
Why We Are Here

36. What Did You See

37. You face a similar world and similar challenges, but
like them, you are Young, Think Big and
You Are Like The Founders
of The IBEW
are the Right People at the Right Time!

38. Our Generation…
• The “millennial” generation is the most
educated and inclusive generation in
history.
• By in large, we grew up with an open and
tolerant view of the world because of the
history before us.
• We are also the first collaborative
generation since the Great Depression
and that generation was the one that
fought our way into the middle class.

39. A Brotherhood Across
Generations
• The “millennial” generation of the IBEW
has a wealth of mentors and knowledge to
benefit from.
• Our generation, more than most
generations seeks out and learns best
from mentors.
• Before this opportunity passes us by,
seek out and learn from those who came
before us.

40. The Right People at the
Right Time
• The Founders met in St. Louis in a similar
world to our own.
• They represented 286 workers in 8 cities.
• You represent 123,802 workers in 8 states
and territories.
• They had to overcome the external and
internal barriers that organized greed
created
• So Do We
So Do We

41. You face a similar world and similar challenges, but
like them, you are Young, Think Big and
are the Right People at the Right Time!
You Are Like The Founders
of The IBEW