News stories

INEQUALITY for ALL – Film Screening

IBEW Local 2323 Education Committe is please to announce we will be holding a film screening of INEQUALITY FOR ALL by Robert Reich

January 18, 2014 @ 6pm

22 Amflex Drive, Cranston RI 02921

“The rich are not the job creators. The job creators are the vast middle class and everyone aspiring to join them, whose money businesses need in order to justify expanding and hiring.” Quoted for Robert Reich, author of “Aftershock”, the book that inspired the movie “Inequality for All”. The movie is a documentary to raise the awareness of the country’s widening economic gap.

Robert Reich is an American political economist, professor, author, and political commentator. He served in the administrations of presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and was Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton from 1993 -1997. He has been a professor at Harvard University, Brandeis University, and is currently Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He was voted one of the top 10 best cabinet members of the last 100 years by Time magazine.

Read more »

Verizon Benefits Open Enrollment

Verizon Benefits Open Enrollment Open Enrollment for Plan year 2014 is now open for active employees till November 7th 2013. If you wish to keep the coverage selections you had for 2013 NO ACTION is necessary. If you wish to make changes to coverage or to complete the Health Assessment Questionnaire for an additional $100 annual savings toward 2014 premiums, please do so prior to November 6, 2013. Retiree Benefits Open Enrollment is set to begin November 7th through November 21st 2013. Any question please contact the Union office.

Read more »

Local 2323 & 99 Team Up With the Institute For Labor Studies & Research

PATHWAY TO A COLLEGE DEGREE

ON-SITE College Course Offerings for members of IBEW 99 and IBEW 2323

Are you interested in completing your college degree on site in your union facility?

Since 2009, The Institute for Labor Studies and Research has been partnering with several higher education institutions to provide the opportunity for union members to take college credit classes leading to a degree with other members of their union at several union facilities around the state.

We have members of UA Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 51 taking classes at their facility, leading to associate degree in either Construction Management or Business Management and members of SEIU 1199 who recently completed courses in Allied Health at their conference room in Providence. After meeting with your union leadership we have decided to offer the same opportunity to members of IBEW 99 and 2323. Our next step is to determine if there is enough interest on the part of the members.

We will begin with course offerings leading to an associate degree in Construction Management or Business Management. We are also interested in providing the opportunity for those members with an associate degree to start a program of studies leading to a bachelor degree in either Construction Management or Business as well.

If you are interested in participating in on site evening face to face traditional instructor led classes or on-line classes that require you to meet briefly each week as a cohort with others in your class and meet with a facilitator who will help keep you on track and ensure that you are given all the support you need to be successful please let us know ASAP. We want to start classes in March.

If you are interested or need more information contact either Jim Jackson from Local 99 or Steve Murphy from Local 2323 and give them your name. We will schedule an information session at the union hall during the week of February 11th.

Read more »

A message from International President Hill

Good Day Everyone:

As we all prepare to celebrate the New Year, reflect upon 2012 and welcome in 2013, we wonder what the New Year will bring for the IBEW and the labor movement. To recap the past year I personally am discouraged and concerned with the attitude of the public toward “Unionization of the Workforce”. My concern is that working men and women are forgetting that people suffered to gain the conditions that we work under today. These are the same conditions that are on the chopping block presently and I am afraid that this attitude will escalate into 2013 and beyond. We all should look at what is at stake in 2013: attack on Pensions, attack of working conditions, attack on a living wage and a union wage, and an attack on what some believe to be “entitlements”. Entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, things that our taxes paid for, money that was paid into protecting these “entitlements” as part of our fair wages while giving a fair days work.

Brothers and Sisters, we are the last defense against the abuses that working men and women endured in the past and those that will eventually come our way in the future. We have to be vigilant in protecting the very lifestyle that we enjoy because of our membership in this “Union” the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. I want to thank you for all of the work that you have done in the past and now join me in this continued quest for a better future for working men and women into the coming New Year.

“Every person working in each of the branches that we represent deserves to be a member of the IBEW. Let’s all work toward that Goal in 2013, a goal that will strengthen our resolve for a better working life for all working men and women.”

I wish for you all a prosperous and Happy New Year.

Ed Hill Sam Chilia
President IBEW Secretary-Treasurer, IBEW

Read more »