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IBEW1245

The power is in our hands

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PART-1

Chapter 3: The Earthquake

San Francisco after the earthquake, at Market Street and Davis. San Francisco History Center/San Francisco Public Library

San Francisco after the earthquake, at Market Street and Davis. San Francisco History Center/San Francisco Public Library

The great San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906 destroyed 28,000 buildings and left 225,000 homeless. Three out of five members of IBEW Locals 151 and 6 lost everything they had. An estimated 3,000 people died, including an IBEW member named Kirkpatrick working for San Francisco Gas & Electric at Station C. The books of IBEW 151 were lost in the fire, but the one-handed Brother Arthur Gordon McArdle heroically rescued the union’s banner from the inferno.

The ruins of PG&E’s Station B, on Townsend Street north of Third Street, after the earthquake and fire. Pacific Gas & Electric

The ruins of PG&E’s Station B, on Townsend Street north of Third Street, after the earthquake and fire. Pacific Gas & Electric

Third Grand Vice President Michael Sullivan found the scene “utterly impossible” to describe. With water mains broken, fire continued to consume the city for over three days. But IBEW members began mobilizing almost immediately to assist one another. Harry “H.L.” Worthington, president of the IBEW’s Pacific District Council, helped Sullivan obtain a permit from General Frederick Funston so that he could search for members rather than be put to work clearing bricks from demolished buildings. Working linemen didn’t need permits—all they had to do was show their work tools.

Virtually the entire city needed to be rebuilt. Unions imposed wage restraint, but some retailers sought to profit from the sudden scarcity. The San Francisco Chronicle praised the unions and condemned the retailers’ practices as “vexatious, hateful and utterly opposed to all sound public policy.”

Next: Chapter 4

  • 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
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  • Quick Link: Organizing Sierra Pacific Power
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