125 Years Strong – An IUOE History

INTERNATIONAL UNION OF

INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS Members of I.U.O.E. Local No. 772 of Hamilton, Ontario, participate in the City of Hamilton’s Labour Day parade in 1999 while also on strike against the city’s Hamilton-Wentworth Water and Wastewater Treatment facilities and operator Azurix Corporation of Houston, Texas. The 16-week strike ended soon after with the local securing a settlement agreement that contained many of the terms it had sought. City and immediately discharged I.U.O.E. members who were long-time employees in the maintenance unit at Delta Airlines and hired replacement workers at reduced wages and benefits. After a protracted campaign, the union won a new contract with the company on October 25 that recognized the I.U.O.E. as the exclusive collective-bargaining agent for regular employees of the company. As part of the settlement, the company would also rectify a similar situation at Newark Airport. Plentiful work and conditions for the vast majority of I.U.O.E. members and their families continued into the next year as the result of a robust national economy and the impact of I.U.O.E. legislative and political activities. The international’s tireless work in Congress that resulted in more than .6 billion in federal funds being appropriated for the fiscal year for highways, bridges and other transportation projects translated into jobs for operating engineers. I.U.O.E. members from Local No. 14, Local No. 15 and locals from across the United States and Canada were the first building-trades craftspeople at “Ground Zero” following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. That morning, Islamic militants hijacked four commercial passenger airliners and flew two of them into the Trade Center’s Twin Towers and a third into the Pentagon just outside Washington, D.C., while the fourth plane crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers overtook their hijackers. The attacks killed a total of 2,977 people, including seven total members of I.U.O.E. Local No. 15, Local No. 94 and Local No. 138 of Long Island who lost their lives when the Trade Center towers collapsed. Soon after the attack, operating engineers were at the Ground Zero site of the destroyed towers, volunteering their skills and services to help in rescue efforts. Ultimately, more than 500 I.U.O.E. members operated and maintained approximately 175 pieces of heavy equipment for recovery and cleanup at the site, and another roughly 100 members from Members of I.U.O.E. Local No. 148 of St. Louis and their families rally during an extended contract disagreement with the Fairview Heights public-sector municipality in mid-eastern Illinois that the local represents. The union eventually won the dispute. As I.U.O.E. Local 825, New Jersey, member Brother Tony Maglionico works on the construction site of the new Goldman Sachs Tower in Jersey City in August 2001, his machine frames the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers in Lower Manhattan, which would be destroyed the following month when terrorists flew commercial airliners into the buildings on September 11. LABOR OMNIA VINCIT WORK CONQUERS ALL