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Satellite Office:

104 W. Washington Effingham, IL 62401

Facebook at

IBEW Decatur

Union Meeting

Second Tuesday of each month beginning at 6:00PM

The Union meeting is open to ALL members and classifications. Everyone is encouraged to attend and participate in the business of the Union. Mark your calendars now for the Tuesday, September 13th meeting and October 11th, meeting. Local 146 has a total membership of 633 of which 64 members attended the July meeting and 44 were in attendance for the August meeting.

IBEW Local 146 3390 N. Woodford St. Decatur, IL 62526 www.ibew146.com Job Referral Bid Line Open: 217.877.4604 Fax: 217.877.5204 5:00PM to 7:00AM

Josh Sapp—- 217.855.6738—- josh@ibew146.com

Justin Martin —- 217.619.6097 — justin@ibew146.com Ken Musick —-- 217.706.0088 —- ken@ibew146.com

Inside this Edition

Union Meeting . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Labor Day events Holiday closings Union Meeting Report . . . . 2 Mideastern IL Picnic Red Light/Green Light METC Report. . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Local Registrar Report Business Manager’s Report.4 Work Report Annual Steak Fry Notice. . . 5 We now accept all debit and credit cards for the payment of dues and death assessments. You will be charged the 3% credit card service charge for each transaction. Transactions may be done online through our website, in person, or by calling the Office.

2016 Holidays

The Union Office, Training Center and Credit Union

Office will be closed for the following holidays

9/5 Labor Day 11/24 Thanksgiving Day 11/25 Observed Veteran’s Day 12/26 Observed Christmas Day

Labor Day At Fairview Park

September 5, 2016—Decatur, IL 4th Annual Picnic in the Park

Immediately following the 2016 Labor Day Parade in Downtown Decatur

Fun for all ages! Full meal by Nelson’s Catering,

refreshments, ice cream, entertainment and bounce houses.

All Local #146 members and their families admitted free of charge.

“We’re Stronger Together” 2016 Parade

The parade will step off at 10:00a.m. from the staging area around the

Macon Co. Sheriff’s office and Ameren Illinois Plaza. Anyone wishing to walk in the parade should be in the staging area no later than 9:15. Company vehicles are welcome. Candy will be provided for distribution along the parade route. T-shirts will be available at the parade site.

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Union Meeting Announcements - July and August

Proposition for Membership: July — Brandon Koehler Trenton Younker Frank Ferracane (DIE Motorshop) Aug — Jacob Gaugh (DVD Appr) Ralph Doellman (DIE Motorshop) Accidents/Illness/Births/Sympathies: 6/6 Jim Parks family had twin boys 7/5 Brian Schultz in an accident at home 6/12 Ron Cummings’ mother passed away 7/11 Leroy Cain’s brother passed away 6/17 Rich Kerns had surgery 7/14 Bret McVey family had a boy 6/20 Wayne Tipsword had surgery 7/26 Seth Richardson family had a girl 6/22 David Huff had surgery 7/31 Jeff Keyes brother-in-law passed away Door Prize 50/50 Credit Union July Herb Berg Eric Walters $20 — no winner August Adam Parker Chad Young $40 — no winner The 2016 Credit Union Book Scholarship winners were: 1st year—Trent Younker 2nd year—Sean Still 3rd year—Kevin Rhodes 4th year—Brett Peters 5th year—Josh McLain Congratulations to all! Qualifying for next year’s drawing has begun. Apprentices who are members of the Credit Union earn one entry for each Union function they participate in.

In Memoriam: Brother Edward Hayes passed away on July 14 at the age of 87. Brother Hayes was a 50 year member of the IBEW. Our condolences go out to the family and friends of Brother Hayes.

RED LIGHT/GREEN LIGHT DO NOT PATRONIZE Sonic Drive Up near Walmart East/Airport Plaza Ashley Furniture Krekels West on Oakland Sports Clips (Forsyth) Penn Station Subs (Forsyth)

PLEASE PATRONIZE Solsa American Burrito Company (in the former Mancino’s building) Farm and Fleet Red Wing Shoe Store (Forsyth) The Store Manager requested the build out be done all union. Please take some time to stop by and thank him. A ribbon cutting has been set for 4:30pm on August 22nd.

Mideastern Illinois Labor Council Annual Labor Picnic

Saturday August 20, 2016

Noon to 4:00 p.m.

Fox Ridge State Park—Charleston

The picnic will feature dinner, beverages and treats, live country music and door prizes. All Free of charge. Bring your lawn chairs and sit a spell.

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The start of the 2016/2017 school year is on its way.

2016/2017 School Year – First Night and Books – Apprentice Inside Wiremen:

1st

, 2nd

, and 3rd

year Instructors and Apprentices: Tuesday August 30, 2016 at 5:30 pm. 4

th and 5

th year Instructors and Apprentices: Thursday September 1, 2016 at 5:30 pm.

Each night will begin with a meeting in classrooms A and B at the Training Center. After the meeting, each class will meet with their Instructor in their classroom. 2016/2017 Book Fees: 1st Year: $714.44 4

th Year: $512.90

2nd

Year: $633.40 5th Year: $337.26

3rd

Year: $738.50

Books are planned to be available for purchase and early pick up starting Monday, August 8, 2016. Please call ahead if you plan to purchase and pick up your books early. Books may also be purchased during the first night of class.

Book fees are required to be paid in full. Apprentices will not take possession of their books without full pay-ment. Apprentices will not be allowed to attend class without books.

Checks/money orders payable to METC. NO CASH. Class/Instructor Assignments:

1st Year: Alf Edwards 3

rd Year: Nate Frederick 5

th Year: Marc Stuart

2nd

Year: Drew Karr 4th Year: Al Green

2016/2017 School Year – First Night and Books – Apprentice VDV Installer Technicians:

First night of class and book fees is yet to be determined. New Apprentice – Please welcome Apprentice VDV Installer Technician Jacob Gaugh.

Indentured/Employed/Unemployed Apprentices – At the time of this report, the number of indentured Appren-tice Inside Wiremen in training is 63: (13) 1

st year, (13) 2

nd year, (15) 3

rd year, (8) 4

th year, and (14) 5

th year. The number

of indentured Apprentice VDV Installer Technicians in training is 5: (2) 1st year and (3) 3

rd year. 1 Inside Apprentice

Wireman and 1 Apprentice VDV Installer Technician is unemployed.

Jason L. Drake – Training Director

Election time is here and it is now time to stop talking and start doing. There are too many storylines to follow and if you try, it becomes overwhelming pretty quickly. In an effort to break it down into smaller chunks, we have to look at concrete things we can do today to make a difference. First, we have to be registered to vote. I am happy to say out of 700 members in the LAN system for Local 146, 24 are shown as not registered to vote. That is only 3.5% un-

registered. I will be reaching out to get those last 24 registered over the next few weeks. After that, we have about 160 household members who are shown as not registered to vote. Hopefully, we can cut that number down as well. IBEW Local 146 has a very active membership at election time. Out of the 700 members, 88 have not voted in the past 8 years. A large majority vote in primaries as well as non-presidential elections. It is very easy to get frustrated with the lack of progress in our state and national politics and end up throw-ing up your hands and doing nothing. However, there are a few races in our local that we can actually make a difference in and we must do all we can to get the labor friendly candidates elected. —Drew Karr, Local 146 Registrar

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Business Manager’s Report

Work Report If you are on the Out-of-Work Register, please remember your re-signs. They are due between the 10th and 16th of each month and in person annually on your anniversary date. Work in our area remains slow. However, Local 176 (Joliet), 649 (Alton) and 461 (Aurora) have work. Local 176 requires a letter of introduction from this hall before you may sign their register. Please give us a call before you take off so we may have your letter ready. Work can also be found a little further out of state in Ft. Wayne, Indiana; Atlanta, Georgia; Des Moines and Dubuque, Iowa; Toledo, Ohio and Memphis, Tennessee.

Hello everyone. Here is the latest on several issues affecting Local 146.

The best news right now is the progress of the Twin Forks Wind Farm that will be built in northern Macon County. White Construction has been chosen as the general contractor and a pre-job meeting is scheduled for Monday, August 15th. It is not known for sure who will be performing the electrical. The project is set to start immediately and be completed by June of 2018. 139 towers will be erected and the job will start on 40 hours, but may work overtime as needed. More infor-mation will be available after the pre-job meeting and a full report will be given at the September regular union meeting.

The Midwest Inland Port in Decatur continues to ramp up its efforts to become a major industrial hub. Omnitrax, a devel-oper out of Colorado that operates short line rail systems has purchased 13 miles of rail between Decatur and Cisco and is currently in negotiations with landowners adjacent to that track for the purchase of land for development. Omnitrax deals with over 150 companies from around the world and believes Decatur is a prime location for development because three class one rails run through Decatur and that allows shipping costs to be very competitive. They are currently trying to ob-tain somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 acres to start developing. I have met with representatives of Omnitrax and they are very interested in partnering with the Building Trades on their developments. I will keep you posted as this con-tinues to develop.

Eastern Illinois University has opened the contract with us for negotiation. We have had one meeting and the big thing that EIU wants is furlough language for the electricians. We do not support this proposal and will likely submit a counter-proposal in the next week or two. The stop-gap budget that was passed in Illinois only allows EIU to be fully funded through the end of the year and this only allowed them to call back two of our members to work for 30 days.

Struggles like we have at EIU and all across the local for government projects are exactly why elections matter. Too much focus is often spent on Presidential Elections and in off years people don’t vote and we end up with a Governor like Bruce Rauner. It is important that we get out in November and support Labor-friendly candidates, especially on the state level so we can gain a real supermajority in the House and maintain our majority in the senate and get a working budget passed without Rauner that helps all people in Illinois. We need to make sure that we stay vigilant and don’t allow Rauner’s “Turnaround Agenda” to gain any traction in Springfield. He is already working around the legislature to change Prevailing Wage and would like nothing more than to strip all of us of our collective bargaining rights and make Illinois a Right-To-Work state.

Please be sure to attend the September union meeting as we will be voting on extending the 1% assessment for those of us in construction that helps fund the Electrical Industry Advancement Fund (Target Fund). It is an important tool to help our contractors gain work.

I hope to see you all at the Labor Day Picnic.

Fraternally, Josh Sapp

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Saturday, October 1, 2016

Noon to 5:00 p.m. IBEW Local #146 Union Hall

3390 N. Woodford Street, Decatur

All members, apprentices and retirees of IBEW Local #146 are invited to attend the Annual Member Steak Fry on Saturday, October 1, 2016. (This is a stag event, sorry no spouses.)

As this event is self-funded, a confirmation fee of $20.00 is required for all active members and apprentices. Retirees are free. To help insure the proper number of steaks are ordered, we ask that confirmations and payment be returned to the Union Office by Friday, September 23rd. A confirmation guarantees your steak cooked to perfection . . . . no one leaves hungry. Each steak comes with sides, dessert, beverages, fellowship and usually several good stories.

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Return this confirmation and appropriate fee no later than Friday, September 23rd to guarantee your seat at the table.

“Steak Fry Committee” IBEW Local #146, 3390 N. Woodford St., Decatur, IL 62526

Yes, I plan to attend the Annual Member Steak Fry. Enclosed is my $20 confirmation fee.

____________________________________________________________ I am retired _________ (no charge)

Printed member’s name