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IBEW1245

The power is in our hands

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PART-1

Chapter 2: Gas Workers Organize

An early PG&E gas distribution service wagon. Pacific Gas & Electric

An early PG&E gas distribution service wagon. Pacific Gas & Electric

There was no standard rate of pay for gas workers at San Francisco’s four gas companies in the early 1900s. Some companies had 12-hour work days. When competition between the companies drove down revenues, San Francisco Gas & Electric laid off several workers and piled that work onto those who remained.

San Francisco gas workers organized a union in the spring of 1902. It included gas “makers,” who manufactured gas from coal or oil, as well as the servicemen who maintained the distribution system. They threatened a strike unless the companies increased wages, reduced hours, and stopped adding to their workload. The companies granted wage increases of 10-20% and in some cases reduced the workload.

Utility workers wanted a uniform wage standard because they didn’t want their employers competing with each other based on who could drive down wages the farthest. Linemen led the way. IBEW locals on the West Coast formed the “Western Conference” to coordinate strategy.

In 1903, IBEW 151 and more than a dozen other locals joined a strike against PT&T that also included telephone operators in Fresno and Spokane. PT&T agreed to a company-wide minimum wage of $3 for journeymen, as well as the eight-hour day and time-and-a-half for overtime.

At IBEW’s 1905 International convention, delegates voted that all locals should join together in “district councils” like the Western Conference. Many inside wiremen as well as International officers were skeptical, but linemen saw these councils as a way to stand up to industrial-scale utilities. It was the beginning of an identity crisis for the IBEW.

Next: Chapter 3

  • Introduction to the History of IBEW Local 1245
    • Skip to Part II
    • Skip to Part III
  • Chapter 1: Because Somebody Needed Their Help
  • Chapter 2: Gas Workers Organize
  • Chapter 3: The Earthquake
  • Chapter 4: The United Railroads Strike of 1906
  • Chapter 5: The Industrial Union Prophet
  • Chapter 6: The Street Carmen and the Slave Owner’s Son
  • Chapter 7: Bloody Tuesday
  • Chapter 8: Linemen Refuse to Back Down
  • Chapter 9: The “Hello Girls” Make a Stand
  • Chapter 10: The Strike Against Naphtaly
  • Chapter 11: The Split
  • Chapter 12: The Reid IBEW in the West
  • Chapter 13: PG&E Strike – An Exuberant Spectacle
  • Chapter 14: Contest of Wills
  • Chapter 15: No Neutral Position
  • Chapter 16: Brotherhood and Betrayal
  • Chapter 17: Thugs and Gunmen
  • Chapter 18: Dynamiters and Snitches
  • Chapter 19: Appetite for Direct Action
  • Chapter 20: Coup de Grâce
  • Chapter 21: The 1917 Telephone Strike
  • Chapter 22: The Big Frame-Up
  • Chapter 23: The 1919 Telephone Strike
  • Chapter 24: The American Plan
  • Quick Link: Organizing Sacramento Municipal Utility District
  • Quick Link: Organizing Sierra Pacific Power
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