Membership Development

Does your current job provide you with a respectable income, family medical insurance, a viable retirement plan and safe work environment? If you were to lose your job, how easy would it be to find another without sacrificing pay, benefits or seniority?

When you join the IBEW, you receive much more in return than a fair rate of pay and a benefit package.  IBEW union members bargain collectively with our employers to secure safe working conditions, proper training, professional wages, family health benefits, and a fully funded retirement plan. Having a well negotiated working agreement, our union members have legal protections they would not have been able to achieve on their own.

With membership across the country and the nation, the IBEW has a powerful voice that speaks on your behalf. And, as an IBEW member, you have direct access to employment opportunities with the best employers in the electrical industry.

Isn’t it time to consider the union advantage?

Seven Simple Reasons to Join a Union

1. Money

Generally, union wage packages are significantly higher than non-union. From top to bottom, industry to industry, region to region, union wages are roughly 15 per cent higher than non-union wages. IBEW members are recognized as highly trained professionals, and as such, they are paid appropriately.  If you are not being paid what you are worth…you should consider joining a union.

2. Benefits

Pensions, extended health benefits, vacation pay/statutory holiday pay, overtime premium pay, penalty pay and shift differential are generally not only better in a union shop, often the only way to obtain them is through a union contract. In truth, many of these benefits and perks don’t exist without a union providing them.

3. Safety

This is a stark and sobering reality. The safety record of union facilities is demonstrably superior to that of non-union facilities. A union contract gives employees the right to insist on a safe work environment. In addition, unions provide members with continued safety training to ensure that everyone knows how to work safe. The safety provisions of a union contract guarantee immediate, hands-on control.

4. Dignity

As a union worker, you are not subject to arbitrary management decisions or co-worker harassment. You can still be terminated for just cause but not for biased or unsubstantiated management beliefs. Administering the provisions of a union contract helps managers avoid decision making inconsistencies.

5. Security

As a part of a union, you don’t have to worry about finding another job that might pay as much as the one you had, before the boss gave your job to his non-union friend or relative. Unions protect member’s rights, having set grievance procedures to uphold established agreements and resources to pursue human rights violations. When one project finishes, you can sit back and relax, knowing that you will be called to work again for another union contractor, who all uphold the established wage package.

6. Competence

Unions attract skilled tradespeople by offering good wages, safety and skills training/enforcement, benefits and working conditions.  Union apprentices get an unsurpassed skill set and varied range of work experience. Who would you rather work alongside with…a fully trained and safety conscious trades person, or someone who may lack training or experience due to the constraints of his employer’s bottom line.

7. Community Involvement

Unions give back to the communities that they represent monetarily through charitable donations and supportively by participating in community causes, events and political awareness campaigns.

How to Join

For information on how to join Local Union IBEW 1687, please contact us today!