Around the Local

This year the Union Sportsmen’s Alliance (USA) hosted their first ever BBQ Bash & Competition! Union members from multiple different trades were invited to attend and compete in a BBQ competition to raise money for USA’s Torstenson Youth Conservation Education Center. Two of the 9 teams who competed were our very own IBEW brothers, with IBEW Local 364 taking first place! Covering this event reminded us what it means to be Union Proud, working together to support a great cause and having fun doing it! 

IBEW Detroit Local 58 member Bill Baisden joined Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in a May 16 press conference announcing the first U.S. Canada electric vehicle corridor.

IBEW members are central to the new economy due to the future-forward policies championed by the Biden- Harris administration.

Called the Investing in America agenda, a companion high-level administration roadshow highlights recent laws like the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.

President Biden and Department of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm reinforce how the laws promote good jobs, domestic manufacturing and economic development – and highlight their critical partnership with the IBEW.

An 18-year wait for a permit on a construction project sounds like a long time. But at least the Trans-West Express Transmission project was finally approved last month – and 700 IBEW members will soon be on the ground building its high voltage transmission lines across four states.

But the Grain Belt Express, a proposed 800-mile project in the Midwest that IBEW members and project developers publicly teamed up to support back in 2015, still awaits its go-ahead.

IBEW's skill and experience are critical to the Biden administration’s efforts to remake the electric grid in Puerto Rico.

Department of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has visited Puerto Rico four times, most recently in late March. She met with IBEW members, including Orlando, Fla. Local 222 Business Manager Bill Hitt and Local 787 Business Manager Joel Flores Cruz, who represent hundreds of members, including lineworkers working to modernize the island’s transmission and distribution system, which has been devastated by hurricanes in recent years.

Arlington, Texas, Local 220 member Samran Khampeth, a Siemens breaker plant foreman, attended a high- level White House meeting.

Vice President Kamala Harris convened the small event on March 10 with former Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, IBEW President Kenny Cooper and Assistant to the IBEW President for Government Affairs Austin Keyser. It marked two years since the Biden-Harris administration created the workforce organizing task force and also marked Walsh’s last official appearance as labor secretary.

President Biden commonly name-checks the IBEW in speeches, often going off his prepared remarks to call out one of his favorite labor unions.

On March 24, during an address to the Canadian Parliament and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa, Ontario, he mentioned the IBEW again.

“For example, I met with the IBEW and pointed out we will build 500,000 electric charging stations. Guess who builds them? Union workers,” Biden said in his speech on Parliament Hill.

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