President Cooper: The IBEW Is ‘Wired for Change’
April 17, 2025
International President Kenneth W. Cooper brought a message of resilience and growth to the 2025 Construction and Maintenance Conference in Washington, D.C.
International President Kenneth W. Cooper brought a message of resilience and growth to the 2025 Construction and Maintenance Conference in Washington, D.C.
As a certified welder, Baltimore Local 410’s John Amig Jr. was keenly aware of how dangerous repairing a broken natural gas line can be.
“Certified welders do underground work and fabrication for the gas infrastructure,” explained Local 410 Assistant Business Manager Chris Kasecamp. “They’ll weld new gas mains together, and they’ll go out and repair existing ones with pressurized live gas inside.”
San Bernardino, Calif., Local 477 officials saw attempts by the union trades to form a working relationship with their community’s public school district come up short for more than a decade.
So just over two years ago, Political Director Ben Pratt and others within the local decided to try something new.
With construction on the rise and college tuition prohibitively expensive for many, more high school students are taking a look at the trades. St. Louis Local 1 and Minot, N.D., Local 714 are two locals among many in the IBEW that are meeting this moment.
Most people might not think of construction workers as chess aficionados, but the success of Washington, D.C., Local 26’s chess tournament proved otherwise.
“It was more successful than we thought it would be,” Local 26 President Tom Myers said. “It appears that the average electrician is more cerebral than commonly thought.”
When you win the contract to build a museum dedicated to storytelling art, you shouldn’t be surprised when construction isn’t straightforward. The IBEW-built Lucas Museum
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