The IBEW chartered San Juan Local 787 on Oct. 26, the first Puerto Rico-based utility local in the union's history.

The local, numbered for the island's telephone area code, will be the exclusive representative for nearly 800 technicians; call center, line clearance and warehouse workers; and diesel, gas and aviation mechanics at LUMA, the island's sole electric utility.

The creation of Local 787 follows 650 LUMA lineworkers on the island joining Orlando, Fla., Local 222 last summer and signing their first contract within weeks.

Chartering Local 787 ends nearly half a decade of chaos and uncertainty for LUMA workers. For the first time since Hurricanes Irma and Maria wrecked the island's power grid and sent the old monopoly utility tumbling into bankruptcy in 2017, most utility workers in Puerto Rico are once again protected by a union of their own choosing.

'A Puerto Rican Local'

Almost immediately after the linemen approved their contract, Joel Flores, a LUMA tree trimmer, and Erick Lopez, a warehouse worker, joined an organic movement of the unrepresented LUMA workers to join the IBEW, too.

They didn't wait to be asked. Before anyone could even get the proper authorization cards designed and printed, Lopez, Flores and others started handing out signed authorization cards left over from the Local 222 campaign.

"We started organizing one week after Local 222 signed their contract," Lopez said. "On days off and holidays, we went all in. We wanted those cards signed so we could move to the next step."

Unfortunately, the dozens of cards they collected couldn't be used, said Fifth District International Vice President Brian Thompson. They were for the already successful and finished campaign for the linemen. But the kind of enthusiasm that doesn't wait for permission is exactly the kind of problem an organizer wants to have.

"We were a little worried that there would be disappointment we had to start over but figured it would disappear when we explained why," Thompson said. "[International] President [Lonnie] Stephenson wanted this to be a Puerto Rican local, run by a Puerto Rican workforce who could speak best for their own interests."

From the Ashes of PREPA

Flores, Lopez and the other unrepresented LUMA workers had been unionized before.

For decades, Puerto Rico was powered by a generation, transmission and distribution monopoly called PREPA, short for Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority. Then as now, the workers were organized in separate units, though under PREPA the lineworkers were in one union, the rest in another.

Years of mismanagement and underfunding dogged PREPA. Wages stagnated, safety and maintenance standards were poor, and the grid itself grew increasingly vulnerable. For years, the power grid was balanced on the edge of disaster.

The back-to-back catastrophes of Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017 pushed it over the edge.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed, and power was knocked out for the whole island. Nearly all of the 3.5 million residents were without power for months, some for almost a year.

The final nail for PREPA was hammered in by the Trump administration's virulently anti-union restoration program. Billions were wasted on nonunion contractors.

"They spent $5 billion on an 18-month restoration that didn't do jack. People got power, but it's all prayer, baling wire and Band-Aids," Local 222 Business Manager Bill Hitt told The Electrical Worker in 2021. "Every pole is a widow-maker. The lines are junk. Half of the power generation is on its last legs, and the other half doesn't work at all."

By 2018, PREPA was forced into bankruptcy, and the union contracts that had covered its workers for decades were ripped up and tossed away.

For the first time in their working lives, Flores, Lopez and their coworkers were adrift without the protection of a contract or a union that could enforce it.

LUMA, a consortium of signatory contractors Quanta Energy and Canadian Utilities Ltd., took over in the ashes. One of its first steps after taking over in 2020 was to reach out to the IBEW.

"We had worked with Quanta for decades. They knew us and we knew them, and when they took the step into the unknown in Puerto Rico, they reached out to us as a potential partner to help rebuild the workforce," Thompson said.

A New Voice for the Workers

At the same time, former PREPA lineworkers, many of whom had moved north and worked in the Southeast after PREPA's collapse, reached out to the IBEW, as well. They wanted the IBEW's reputation for integrity, safety and advocacy, and they wanted more of it once they returned to the island.

That still left the rest of LUMA's workforce without a voice on the job.

Thompson negotiated a neutrality and card check agreement with LUMA for the rest of the company's workers that were not covered by any union contract. Stephenson signed it in March. Stephenson then assigned now-Director of Construction Membership Development Adrian Sauceda to put together a team, grab on to the enthusiasm symbolized by the 150 cards in Lopez and Flores' hands, and help the workers finish the job.

"The earliest card we had was August 2021, and our first job was to get back that momentum," Sauceda said.

Sauceda was joined by Fifth District International Representative Jeff Henderson; Manufacturing Department International Representative Carlos Villareal; Hartford, Conn., Local 42 member José Ramos; and Long Island, N.Y., Local 25 members Jimmy and David Peña.

The Peña brothers' parents lived in Puerto Rico, and they had volunteered after Irma and Maria for the marathon work crews that fought for months to turn the lights back on. All but Henderson spoke Spanish fluently, and they quickly fanned out across the island.

Lopez said it wasn't, ultimately, a hard sell.

"Only a few people knew the IBEW at first. But the message is simple: Being part of such a big, strong union will protect our economic interests," he said. "The IBEW is 130 years old, with more than 700,000 members across all North America, the Caribbean and out into the Pacific. If we want security, integrity and the freedom of our union rights, just say yes."

At the beginning of each conversation in parking lots or at front doors, Lopez said, he asked two questions: What is life like now? What will life be like in an IBEW local?

What they heard was not that unique. Often it was the familiar three: wages, benefits and retirement.

But just as often, they heard about the challenges of working in a new company taking over from the shell of ruined one. The safety culture was bad, workers said. For example, the warehouse workers didn't even have hard hats until this year, Lopez said.

And forget about pay stagnation — many people were put in at the wrong scale, classified incorrectly and, especially toward the end of PREPA, not paid on time.

"I wanted them to have an answer to that second question when we were done talking," Lopez said. "Whatever your concern, will being a part of the IBEW make it easier or harder?"

That the union would be local, as it was before under PREPA, with locally elected leaders, was the obvious closer for anyone who still wavered.

"For anyone that was a no, that changed a lot of minds," Flores said. "It was good that the IBEW committed the resources, sent so many organizers, and it was extremely important that it was two Puerto Ricans who were the leaders. We understand how we think."

Despite the neutrality agreement, there were still limits on where the organizers could go. They were not allowed inside the fence, but Sauceda and Villareal held meetings in parking lots on either end of the day and during lunch, phone-banked, texted, and emailed employees across the island.

Whenever issues would arise, Henderson worked with the company in Puerto Rico and at the U.S. headquarters to clear the path for organizers to do their jobs. After about five weeks split on either side of the International Convention in May, the organizers had a clear majority of cards.

No election was necessary, but the straightforward counting of authorization cards was slowed somewhat by the laborious process of matching names on cards to company-provided lists.

Confusion delayed but did not stop the inevitable. The union was officially recognized by LUMA, and negotiations on a first contract began the same day Stephenson, International Secretary Treasurer Kenneth W. Cooper, Flores, Lopez, Sauceda, Henderson, Assistant to the International President for Membership Development Jammi Ouellette and Fifth District International Representative Lorraine Llauger participated in the charter signing in San Juan. Flores was appointed the temporary president and Lopez the temporary treasurer until elections can be held.

"This is the second charter signing in my 38 years, and what an honor," Thompson said. "From the 1980s to the 2000s, it was all the other way: downsizing, merging and closing halls. It was bad for all of labor. This is my second new local charter in four years and Lonnie's sixth in seven years."

Flores and Lopez said they are hopeful that negotiations with LUMA will follow a path like last year. The contract the substation techs and construction linemen in Local 222 approved switched them into the IBEW pension plan, held the line on health benefits and won them their first raise in a decade.

"My only thought is, 'We did it,'" Lopez said. "If you believe and sacrifice together, you can achieve so much together."