IBEW 1245 Manufacturing

Because of the union, my voice is heard at work. I’m able to be the sole provider for my family because I earn a good wage. I pay union dues in order to have the rights at work that the law wouldn’t just give to me. -- IBEW 1245 member Arnaldo Lizarraga, Trayer Engineering

If your employer tells you that you don't need a union, that usually means you *definitely* need a union. That's what happened at Trayer Engineering, where a group of unrepresented manufacturing workers stood together against a hostile employer to secure a union so they could improve their wages, benefits, job security and working conditions. It was a pursuit worth fighting for, said Trayer Engineering welder Efren Chavez, celebrating the hard-won victory that he and his coworkers finally claimed earlier this year. Read the full story: http://bit.ly/3a6onEw

The union really stuck with us when we were going through some rough times here. They helped us get our contract so that we could solidify our jobs and keep on working here!" --IBEW 1245 member Logan Crump, electrical assembler, Trayer Engineering

I’m very proud to be a union member. My father was in a union, and my grandfather, and my brothers and sisters at one time were in a union as well. I wear my [...IBEW] sweatshirt around a lot, and wherever I go, people come up to me and say, ‘hey, sister!’ We see everyone as our brothers and sisters, which makes you feel good. We get good wages for what we do, and we’re protected, which is something a lot of people don’t [have] these days. I truly love the union. -- Elvira Bernal, Electrical Assembler, Northrop Grumman See more

Anything that flies subsonic and supersonic we’ve tested in our wind tunnels, said IBEW 1245 member Bill Van Zuylen, who works at Ames in the wind tunnels as an instrumentation technician for Jacobs Technology, which is NASA’s largest support service prime contractor. I assemble all the sensors that go inside of the model and connect them up to our data acquisition system and actually acquire the data during the wind tunnel test.

I’ve been in the electrical industry for 35 years, but this is the first union shop I’ve worked for, said John Lightning, an electrical technician who started working at Trayer last year, after spending over 20 years working in Australia. I’m glad the union’s here. It’s good for everybody. It gives us all a voice, and it gives us things that we need to live, like medical [insurance], because it’s expensive around here!