This happened recently when I dissolved Local 637 in Roanoke, Virginia, and distributed its jurisdiction in the inside and outside construction and utility industries to locals in Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, D.C. The decision caused quite a stir and a host of rumors, none of which I can control. What I can do is talk about why the best interests of IBEW members trump every other consideration.

Dissolving or merging a local is not a matter to be taken lightly. Most such actions take place because a local has lost all or most of its base due to an employer shutdown. Sometimes, however, a local's own actions are the reason.

Local 637 had failed to live up to its responsibility. It had failed to obtain work for its members, protect their jobs and their benefits, improve their skills and have the ability to make a living within the jurisdiction. Ninety-seven percent of the inside construction work in the jurisdiction was being done by nonunion contractors. Membership had dropped significantly, even as the number of members in surrounding locals had either increased or held relatively steady. The local had not kept track of work being performed within its jurisdiction. The apprenticeship program has become a shell of what a modern training system should be. Worst of all, the local failed to try to change its circumstances by not going after the numerous organizing targets in its area, even after the International sent in a temporary organizer to assist in such efforts.

Anybody who has been paying attention for the past three years knows that I have been very serious about the need for everyone in the IBEW, starting with me, to live up to our responsibilities to move the Brotherhood forward. We cannot protect the work we have if we don't grow. We cannot become a shrinking island in a nonunion sea and expect to survive. We cannot concede entire regions of the United States and Canada to nonunion employers. There is no reason why southwestern Virginia can't be good union territory with the right effort.

I stated very clearly in my keynote address to the 2001 convention-which was reprinted in the Journal and is still on www.ibew.org - that the failure of locals to organize and police their jurisdictions would have consequences. I reiterated that point at last year's organizing conference in Chicago in remarks that are also on the web. Those speeches as well as my remarks at other meetings in the past three years should have been enough to alert anyone as to what was going to happen to locals that did not work hard to put their members on jobs. I have tried to give non-performing locals the chance to get their act together before using the blunt instrument of merger and dissolution. The time for patience is over. There are too many challenges facing the IBEW to cut any more slack to locals that fail to even try to improve their situations. Local 637 is the first to be dissolved for this reason. If others continue to fail to live up to the trust and responsibilities placed in them by their members and the IBEW constitution, it won't be the last.

What about the members of the former Local 637? Already, the locals that have taken over the inside and outside jurisdictions have set up satellite offices within the area to service the members better. Already, organizers are beginning the process of recruiting new members and signing up new contractors. It will take time, but the members of the former Local 637 will have more work opportunities, better service, improved training and a stronger foundation for future prosperity.

That is why this Brotherhood was formed, and that is what it will always stand for.

Edwin D. Hill

International President