Hello Sisters and Brothers – Jeremy Abrams, your Business Manager.
Earlier, President Joe Biden gave his state of the union speech and included a big shout out to IBEW. His quote was:
“We’re building 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations installed across the country by tens of thousands of IBEW workers.”
It’s a big deal that President Biden included us in his address to the nation. Now, I give you our State of the Union – where we outline our outlook and our IBEW 569 priorities and goals.
First off – I am pleased to report that 466 brand new people were brought into IBEW 569 membership in 2022 – last year it was 321. Secondly, we again grew our apprenticeship to a new record high, and thirdly, we broke the 5 million man-hour threshold and created a new record of IBEW 569 hours worked: 5,119,854!
We had a great year in 2022, and 2023 is looking just as bright.
We’re going to keep our focus on serving our members, bettering our quality of life, and lining up more work for decades to come! That will never change.
MEMBER REPRESENTATION
A big focus of mine continues to be better representation for our members.
Our business agents visited 108 jobsites last year, participated in orientations and classes, and contacted 100% of our member drop list. All with the mindset to better represent IBEW 569 members.
They also coordinated monthly jobsite visits with our IBEW photographer so that we can share your work and highlight signatory contractors with the public – we want you to get the credit of doing an excellent job.
I want to thank all our members that have contacted our Halls with issues to resolve – we must continue to be actively engaged to uphold our wages, scope of work, rights, and benefits!
Please continue to contact our Hall and Business Reps with any concerns.
CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS
We just finished participating in a really successful negotiation for our 9th District Southern California Sound Agreement – that resulted in a contract wage increase of $9.45 over the next three years.
IBEW 569 has committees formed and meetings set for the upcoming Sound and Streetlight contracts – we’ll have more updates as we proceed forward, but something new is that we’re going to hold meetings with our Sound and Streetlight members to receive your surveys and feedback and answer your questions.
Completing the surveys and providing your feedback is extremely important to the success of our negotiations!
MEMBER ENGAGEMENT
We have another year planned of exciting member events.
Next month – we have our third annual IBEW 569 Gulls Hockey Game – our members will be invited onto the ice post game to take a group photo. Tickets go on sale soon.
Also – we have grown our participation tremendously for the annual IBEW Padres Game – and this year, we have successfully secured 2,500 tickets to the most highly anticipated game of the season – the Padres vs Dodgers game on Saturday, May 6th. Be sure to watch for an IBEW 569 email alert once tickets go on sale. This game is sure to be a sell out!
We are also expanding our sponsorship with the San Diego Loyal and the San Diego Wave. Major league soccer is a huge draw in Southern California and we’re going to increase our IBEW 569 brand and partnership as both teams grow their fan base and build out their team facility needs.
In June, we’ll have our annual 569 Picnic, which we’re planning to make even bigger and better.
And for our holiday parties – we had a record turnout of members and have outgrown our Hall and we’re mulling over plans to make it a better experience for our members and families – please share your ideas with us.
WORK OUTLOOK
We have an Incredible amount of work coming down the pipe. Much of this has to do with Project Labor Agreements or PLAs – which require dispatching through our union hiring halls – PLAs continue put our members to work!
Last year, we secured PLAs at the San Diego County Water Authority, on the new Sports Arena development, the Metropolitan Water District, and San Ysidro School District.
This year, we are going to work on securing a citywide PLA in the cities of San Diego, Chula Vista, and National City, and a PLA with the Port District and MTS, plus PLAs on a variety of affordable housing and private developments.
Specific to Imperial Valley, we spent many years working toward a PLA on the Westside Canal 2,000 MW Battery Energy Storage Project – the 1st phase is completed, and the 2nd phase is soon to start with 5 phases all together.
The SDSU campus in Brawley is going to add a new STEM building and we are looking to get our members working on that project.
We have actively been participating in coalitions with Environmental Justice Groups, other labor unions, community members, and political allies on the Lithium and Geothermal Projects in Imperial Valley. And will continue to work on this until we have secured the work.
LONG TERM GOALS
We’re continuing work toward achieving our long-term goal on increasing our IBEW 569 market share to 50% which will grow our membership and our work outlook.
This is a big task and undertaking, and it’s going to take action by all of us to achieve it! PLAs; organizing new contractors and members; building relationships with developers; representing our members, and training the next generation of the best power professionals…. ALL of our actions go toward the goal of increasing our market share and getting more work for our members.
I also want to thank our IBEW 569 staff. Much of our accomplishments are attributed to their hard work. They work tirelessly for our members and continue to secure more work for IBEW.
We’re going to have another really good year – coming off a record year where membership was completely employed with many open calls, and we’re going to continue to strengthen IBEW 569 – our union and our members!
As always, it is an honor to represent you and we’re looking forward to a prosperous 2023.
Thank you.
