Sisters and Brothers, As I sit here and write this article for the Conduit, it is the end of January. I hope everyone had a nice and safe holiday season. Employment is still strong for this time of year. We still have around fifty travelers working in the jurisdiction. That number should increase by the spring. The solar farm in Calverton has just started to hire manpower this past week and should continue for the next couple of months. Plenty of big hospital work has started or will start this year: Northwell Manhasset, 350-million- dollar project at Good Samaritan, Southside, Winthrop, and by the end of the year a brand-new hospital in Southampton should start to break ground. Plus, lots of Amazon work, lots of work at Brookhaven Lab, and the second phase of Ronkonkoma Hub is getting ready to break ground.
With the increase in manhours the last couple of years, the General Fund has been doing really well. With that the Bylaw Committee met earlier in the month to discuss a change to the Bylaws to lower the union dues. At the January Union Meeting, Bylaw Committee Chairman Rich DeGrauw read the proposed Bylaw changes. A mailing was sent out last week to the membership with the proposed changes. The Bylaw changes will be discussed and voted on at the February Union Meeting. This will be the second dues decrease in the last two years. In April of 2020 we had a half percent reduction in the dues.
I am happy to announce that in December Local 25 won a jurisdictional grievance at the National Building Trades down in Washington, DC. The grievance was against the Laborers Local 1298, regarding the handling and installation of the Third Rail on the Long Island Railroad Third Track Project. I would like to thank everyone that helped with this win, especially the retirees that wrote affidavits and gave us pictures of jobs they were on in the 1970’s and 1980’s that showed the arbitrator that Local 25 had the past practice of installing the third rail. Many of the retirees that I spoke with have been retired for 20 to 30 years, but they remembered so many specific details of those jobs from many years ago. This was a real team effort win for Local 25, and once again I’d like to thank everyone that helped.
The “A” Construction and CE/CW Contract will be expiring at the end of April 2022. A letter will be going out in the mail very soon for some Round Table Meetings to discuss the upcoming contracts with the membership.
This spring is going to be extremely busy here in the Business Office. With the NYC Long Island Building Trades Conference in March, the IBEW Construction Maintenance Conference and National Building Trades Conference in April and the 40th IBEW International Convention in May 2022. I will report on these conferences at the union meetings and in future Conduit articles.
Brothers and Sisters, this ends my report for this edition of the Conduit. Remember to work safe, turn off energized circuits, and always remember to stick together out there.
BY KEVIN B. CASEY