This summer, the IBEW surpassed 900,000 members, the largest the union has been in nearly 40 years.

We added more members last year than in any year since the high point in labor union power in 1969.

We have more journeyman wiremen, linemen and apprentices, and they are working more hours than at any point in history.

For the first time since we started keeping track, last year we surpassed 1 billion man-hours, up from nearly 600 million in 2023, which wasn’t a bad year.

Those record numbers do not simply reflect growth in the construction industry as a whole. Unlike every other period when our membership has been growing, the percentage of the total work that is ours — our market share — is growing, too.

This growth translates directly into more money in members’ pockets and in IBEW benefit funds. Members’ wages went up 10% in 2023-2024, the most recent period we have data for, far outpacing inflation and the industry average.

“More workers and more of the work equal one thing: more power,” said International President Kenneth W. Cooper. “That’s power to protect our jobs, strengthen our benefits and defend our rights. But the ultimate goal of the labor movement is bigger than that. A more powerful IBEW is critical to our larger goal of bringing power back to American working families.”

The 2026 midterm elections are a decisive moment to translate power on the job into improving members’ lives, Cooper said.

For the foreseeable future, corporations will have more money to buy politicians.

For working people, the only way to get and use power is through a union.

In this issue of The Electrical Worker, the focus is on how the IBEW is translating increased power over work into increased power over our nations’ futures.

But in the political realm, the headwinds are severe.

“The last 18 months have been a betrayal of working families, but the damage goes back much farther,” Cooper said. “Trump is just the latest politician who wasn’t one of us, who promised he alone could save us. It has always been a lie. No one will save us but us.”

In the rest of this issue of The Electrical Worker, we show how we are taking power and using it, and how every member can use their own power.

We have the story of Tampa, Fla., Local 915 member Brian Nathan, who ran for office for the first time and won a seat in the Florida Senate with less money and less name recognition, but with a message laser-focused on working families and an army of his IBEW brothers and sisters.

Also read about Gainesville, Fla., Local 1205 member Jason Bellamy-Fults, who saw what Nathan did and decided to follow his example. They are both on the ballot this November and deserve your support.

We also have a story about the Faster Labor Contracts Act sponsored by Folsom, N.J., Local 351 member and U.S. Rep. Donald Norcross.

We explain why the IBEW was at the center of the Canadian announcement that it will double the size of its electrical grid.

Finally, we give every member five things they can do to take power now.

---