IBEW 1245’s journey to its Vacaville headquarters began in 1941, when Ronald T. Weakley and other PG&E employees affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) launched a union organizing drive.
In those early days, there were eight CIO locals of PG&E employees in the Bay Area. None of them had an office.
The Sailor’s Union of the Pacific gave IBEW office space from 1948 to 1952 during the organizing drive at PG&E.
“Most of them operated out of people’s kitchens,” Weakley recalled in a 2003 interview. These locals held separate meetings at various locations, and then met monthly in a “joint council” on Grand Avenue in Oakland.
IBEW 1245, which was conducting a competing organizing drive at PG&E, was active mostly outside the Bay Area, but shared office space with the IBEW International Vice President at 910 Central Tower on Market Street in San Francisco.
In 1948, Weakley decided to leave the CIO and join forces with the IBEW. IBEW Local 1324 was created to give Weakley and his followers a place within the IBEW to lead the organizing drive at PG&E. IBEW 1324 made its headquarters at the Sailors Union of the Pacific union hall in San Francisco.
The IBEW Local 595 hall in Oakland provided office space to Local 1245 in the 1950s-60s.
In 1952, the IBEW amalgamated Locals 1245, 1324 and 50. Weakley became head of the whole enchilada. This new IBEW 1245 moved to Oakland in 1952 and was given office space by IBEW 595, the inside wireman local.
“There was no off-street parking,” Weakley recalled. “It was a very difficult place to operate in.”
IBEW 1245 bought this building in 1968. It served as headquarters until 1976.
In 1968 Weakley arranged to purchase a building on Boulevard Way (with off-street parking) in Walnut Creek. The union took on tenants to help finance the mortgage. Among them: a barber shop, a drug store, and a pet grooming business.
In 1976, then-Business Manager L. L. Mitchell oversaw construction of a new building in Walnut Creek on Citrus Circle—with off-street parking. This served as the headquarters from 1976 to 2003, including the 21-year tenure of Business Manager Jack McNally.
Weakley Hall in Vacaville, shortly after it opened in 2003.
McNally recognized that the union was busting its buttons at 30 Citrus Circle and in the 1990s began exploring options for relocating. The idea was carried forward in 2001 by newly-elected Business Manager Perry Zimmerman, who eventually selected Vacaville because of its proximity to Interstate highways and favorable real estate prices.
Construction was authorized by the Executive Board and completed in 2003. The new hall was named after Weakley, who attended the grand opening that October.
Today Weakley Hall serves as the union’s administrative center, dispatch office, and organizing hub, as well as the meeting place where countless IBEW 1245 members meet to negotiate contracts, promote workers’ interests and protect their rights.
The IBEW 1245 staff gathered in the parking lot of the 30 Citrus Circle headquarters for this staff photo around 1994. Nine people in this photo, as well as the photographer, are still on the union’s staff.