President’s Message – March 2022
Working More Efficiently for You
At Local 11, we are always working to help our members become more involved in their union and to make it easier for you to participate. To that end, we’re using the same video technology that became so popular during the pandemic, to reach our goals of member involvement. We know how hard it is to drive miles after working a long day, so we have now made the district/unit meetings hybrid, meaning that you can attend the meeting in-person or via a Zoom link from home.
The Barton/Roten administration promised we would bring back district offices, and we have, opening two new offices that make it easier to have a sense of your IBEW community near your home. The challenges are great, but the reward should make it all worthwhile as Los Angeles County, our home territory, covers 4,500 square miles.
In 2020, COVID-19 altered reality for many of us. The construction industry quickly adopted video conferencing for pre-job conferences allowing us to ensure that our contractors capture our work. Pre-job conferences are held before any contractor begins working on one of these projects. The contractor’s scope of work is discussed, and the assignment of work to the chosen union is discussed and accepted, or no.
By having these meetings online as opposed to in-person, union reps and their teams can cover far more projects than they would if they were spending time driving all over LA. With pre-jobs being held on Zoom, the average rep can conduct three to four pre-jobs a day, as opposed to one or at most two. Instead of taking three to four hours to drive to, attend, and return to the office or go to the next pre-job conference, an hour is all that is required. We are learning to be more efficient. Local 11 is invested heavily in Project Labor Agreements and Community Workforce Agreements. In a year of a pandemic overshadowing the nation, we performed nearly 10 million man hours.
I also want to thank all of our members who have taken the time to fill out the online contract proposal form and offer us suggestions for our next round of negotiations, which is coming up. We encourage all to take advantage of this forum, and give us your thoughts.
Stronger together,
Gaylord R. “Rusty” Roten
President, IBEW Local 11
