On November 7, 2023, the current president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Kenneth W. Cooper announced that the IBEW had begun negotiations with the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA) over raising the National Electrical Benefit Fund (NEBF) for the first time in 20 years. At a time when American workers are feeling the strain of inflation as their wages are quickly outpaced, unions must exercise their collective power in winning gains for the working class and the IBEW finally working to raise fringe benefits should be looked at positively. However, the relationship between the electrical trade union and NECA has a long history of presenting itself as “business friendly,” ultimately hurting the working-class movement.
Formed in 1901, NECA is the collective bargaining unit for electrical contractors, often the same way any union would act for workers in a trade or industrial field. The language surrounding this business arrangement is often class collaborationism and believing that contractors have the same goal as the working class. After all, the IBEW views its relationship with NECA more like a partnership in the way it advocates for coming to terms “peacefully” without the need for strikes or work stoppage and also believes NECA is “indispensable,” even working to create the Council on Industrial Relations to further the illusion that management and workers have a common interest.
This is the result of the IBEW and the business unionism it advocates. Instead of organizing the trade along class lines, building working-class strength and using that as leverage, the union instead works to court contractors into joining in a partnership with the union, and in return, they will be supplied with laborers. What this creates is two organizations that represent the contractors because of the union’s dependence on organizing within both classes.
Herein lies the contradiction of the matter, workers cannot have the same goals as contractors because they operate from different classes. One group, the workers, is struggling for more wages, better benefits, better working conditions, and shorter hours. The other wishes for maximum profit. These basic facts put them at odds and make their relationship to each other not amicable. Yet, the IBEW pushes its members to believe that all class contradictions can be put to rest with enough dialogue. This deception manifests further in their phrase “paving the way for the middle class,” a term used to purposely distort class positions and create an illusion that workers have commonality with their bosses.
Trade unionists, whether electricians, bricklayers, carpenters, etc. must always maintain their class interests and those of workers in America. The IBEW and other AFL-CIO affiliated unions have shown us the historical limits of craft unionism. Dividing trades into specific crafts eventually pits workers against each other. A new level of solidarity can be realized in advocating for the amalgamation of the building trades along industrial lines. An industrial union, where all trades are organized together, would increase working-class solidarity across trade lines leading to increased worker power. An increase in pension benefits is long overdue. Some local IBEW unions have abandoned pensions in favor of a 401k which only gives contractors even more power. Workers must learn how to mobilize and fight for better benefits by leveraging their power instead of waiting for leadership to make concessions. We cannot take a position of class collaborationism with the bosses, a position that only serves to weaken the American working-class movement. We must continue to educate the masses on class-oriented trade unionism!