Ibew Local Union #6 San Francisco, CA
IBEW Local Union 6
Map from Mapquest
Mailing Address: 55 Fillmore Street San Francisco CA 94117
(415) 861-5752 Fax: (415) 861-0734
Officers:
Bus. Mgr. - Fin. Sec.: John J. O’Rourke
President: Terry McKenna
Recording Secretary: Richard Bamberger
2nd Wed., 4:30 pm
Inside Jurisdictional
Classifications:
Communications
Inside
Sound Technicians
Utility
HISTORY OF IBEW LOCAL 6
Throughout the United States and Canada, the years between 1870 and 1890 saw many accomplishments in our trade. On Pope�s Day in 1871, Father Joseph Neri displayed an electric arc light in a Market Street office window of the Saint Ignatius College. This event, the first known use of electricity in a San Francisco building, marked the dawn of the Age of Electricity on the Pacific Coast.
While the use of electricity for communications in the United States was already well established, the development of large electrical power and lighting systems had just begun. In 1879, the California Electric Light Company, predecessor of the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, provided electricity for electric arc-lamp street lighting from a central power station on 4th Street near Market.
The increased use of electric power for arc-lamp lighting, Thomas Edison�s successful incandescent lamp, the construction of power plants and high-voltage transmission lines, electrical equipment manufacturing, and the continued development of telegraph and telephone systems created an increased demand for skilled electrical workers. Hazardous working conditions provided electrical workers with the inspiration to organize, and in 1891 the American Federation of Labor granted a charter to the National Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, soon known as the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW).
Electrical workers in San Francisco began organizing during the summer of 1892, and the National Brotherhood of Electrical Workers granted a charter to Local Union 6 on February 21, 1895. The following ten men were listed on the charter: P. W. Holmes, John Richardson, T. P. Barrett, S. Flanigan, T. Lannen, David Keefe, C. Wallace, R. R. Jackman, C. A. Shaw, and Michael Cloherty. Eugene Rush served as the first president. Our membership during the first several years was composed of wiremen, linemen, and fixture hangers. Starting with twenty-two, the local soon increased to 162 members.
In 1900, union electricians held meetings at 20 Eddy Street and in the Friendship and Myrtle halls of the Alcazar Theater, at 650 Geary. Our numbers continued to increase, and by the middle of 1903, the Local�s headquarters at 27 Sixth Street proved to be too small. A committee found another location at 35 Eddy Street, and new offices opened on July 6, 1904. During these years Local 6 developed into a wireman�s local, and the International chartered several other local unions: Local 151 (linemen), Local 404 (fixture hangers), Local 283 (Pacific Telephone Co.), and Locals 537 and 564. The IBEW chartered Oakland electricians as a sub-local in 1903, and as Local 595 in 1907.
The Great Earthquake and Fire of April 18, 1906 destroyed all books and records at our Eddy Street office. During the emergency, the San Francisco Building Trades Council imposed an immediate wage freeze. With reconstruction well underway, electrical workers and other crafts demanded wage increases. Local 404 called for a strike in mid-1906. Local 151 went out on strike with the United Railroad carmen, asking for a reduction of their work day from nine to eight hours, and an increase in wages from $2.50 to $3.00 per day. Starting May 24, 1907, streetcars did not operate for 131 days.
Local 6 wiremen requested a wage increase from $5 to $6 a day, and called a strike against those employers unwilling to pay the increased rate. The Building Trades Council disallowed these demands for wage increases, and demonstrated its authority early in 1907 by recognizing a separate electrical workers union, known as Electrical Mechanics of California. Eventually, with the help of IBEW Grand President Frank J. McNulty, who was present at a meeting held on March 11, 1908, unity prevailed. The members of Local 6 and the Electrical Mechanics voted to consolidate as one union and requested recognition from the IBEW. On January 29, 1909, the International reorganized and re-chartered San Francisco electricians as Local Union 6.
For more than one hundred years, San Francisco�s electrical workers have constructed and maintained systems on a variety of challenging jobs, beginning with the reconstruction of commercial, industrial, and residential buildings after the Great Earthquake and Fire. Electrical workers constructed railway overhead lines along Market Street and throughout the city immediately after the earthquake to quickly replace the damaged cable car system. The Municipal Railway continued to expand, and provide service to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in the Marina district in 1915.
A construction boom in the 1920s added many financial district buildings to our skyline, including the twenty-six story Pacific Telephone building, the Shell building, the Russ building, and the Bank of America building at Powell and Market Streets. The packing, canning, lumber, mineral, and oil production industries flourished.
Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, and the Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island during the 1930s employed electricians from throughout the United States and Canada. Local 6 electrical workers supported the Pacific Coast Maritime Strike and the San Francisco General Strike of 1934. On March 30, 1938, the state of California approved the establishment of the San Francisco Joint Apprenticeship Committee for the electrical industry.
While building construction declined during the war years of the 1940s, employment in the shipyards expanded. The International merged several San Francisco Bay Area locals with Local 6: Local 551 Santa Rosa, Local 614 San Rafael, Local 617 San Mateo, Local 892 and Local 202. Our membership grew to more than two thousand electrical workers. Local 6 also gained the representation rights for City and County Civil Service employees in 1943-44 by organizing the Municipal Railway carmen, electricians, linemen, powerhouse operators, armature winders, and related classifications. The IBEW held its twenty-second International Convention in San Francisco in 1946.
The construction of steel-frame, high rise commercial buildings, and various industrial, residential, and municipal projects contributed to the next fifty-year period of development in San Francisco. Candlestick Stadium opened in 1958. The Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART), started in the 1960s, continues to expand. Additional significant projects include the Palace of Fine Arts in 1962, the Pacific Gas & Electric Potrero Power Plant in 1965, the Mt. Sutro television and radio broadcast tower, shared by more than a dozen stations, and the landmark Transamerica Pyramid building in the early seventies.
Civic Center construction projects of the nineties included seismic retrofitting of City Hall, relocation of the main public library building, and new municipal court and federal buildings. Pacific Bell Park, the new home of the San Francisco Giants, opened last year (2000). The University of California is building a state-of-the-art medical laboratory that is the cornerstone project of the Mission Bay development located in the China Basin neighborhood. With the advent of high-tech internet switching facilities, modern communications systems are now readily available for use by San Franciscans.
Throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and eastwards into the Sierra Nevada Mountains more than twenty-six hundred members of Local Union 6 provide labor and services to the citizens of Northern California. The members of IBEW Local Union 6 now benefit from the superior job conditions handed down from pioneer union electrical workers. We are well positioned for opportunities that will allow us to increase our market share and the standard of living for our membership in the twenty-first century.
Derek Green, Business Representative and Archivist
The History of Local 6 is reprinted from an article written for the IBEW 36th International Convention held in San Francisco during September of 2001.
MEETINGS
The General Membership meeting is held on the second Wednesday of each month at 4:30 p.m.
The Electric Railway Shop Mechanics membership meeting is held on the first Wednesday of each month at 4:30 p.m.
The Senior Sixes Retiree membership meeting is held on the third Thursday of each month at 10:30 a.m.
The Inside Wireman’s Unit Committee meets on the first Tuesday of each month at 4:00 p.m.
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