Author: paul

True Unionism is exemplified in the SMART Disaster Relief Fund—and in how we work to reach every member who might need it. After the 2017 hurricanes, a 50-year member from Chicago who had retired to Florida learned of the fund in his Local 73 newsletter and, reluctantly, asked for assistance. He and his wife wrote eloquent letters of thanks, excerpted here. Their words say a lot about Unionism, too.      
 
Member Guy Raimondi: 
“Hurricane Irma was a direct hit on Naples. The next day we saw that all I had worked for, with the blessings of my employment in Local 73, was a wreck. It was heartbreaking. 
“Then, after a day clearing debris together, my wife suffered a heart attack and torn heart valve. Since then I have been balancing care taking with repairs, all while worrying about financing the needed work. Our insurance does not cover many things and has a high deductible. 
“Needless to say, the Relief Fund check was overwhelmingly touching. Please know how grateful I am. I am, and always have been, proud to be a Union member. The letter it came with, addressing me as ‘Brother,’ choked me up. Thank you from my heart.” 
His wife,  Kathleen Raimondi, added: 
“Guy is a self-made man. He has never asked anyone for help. That is why the check moved him, particularly the salutation ‘Dear Brother.’ 
“I read [then- Bus. Manager and SMART General Vice President] Rocco Terranova’s message in the newsletter. He asked to be told about anyone in hurricane-affected areas that needed help. I told Guy.  
“Guy was completely unaware there might be assistance.  He didn’t want to, but, faced with my open-heart surgery and overwhelming storm damage, Guy called the Local about help—his first-ever such request. 
“We are grateful for the quick and caring flow of response. I believe Mr. Terranova contacted [Assistant to the SMART General President] Marc Norberg, who contacted Local 15 Business Manager Patrick O’Leary, who came to visit Guy.  
“Mr. O’Leary told Guy that although he is retired, ‘You are not forgotten. You are still our union Brother.’ I know this touched Guy’s heart. I know this because he put his heart into sheet metal work.  
“This year Guy will receive his 50-year pin from Sheet Metal Union Local 73. His Union employment put a roof over our heads—his, mine, and our two children.  
“I wish to thank everyone who helped provide this assistance from the Disaster Relief Fund. It means so much to us, and it will be used to help us get a roof over our heads—again.” 
 
 

It’s not all that uncommon to hear cheers and commentary emanating from welding classrooms at either Local 359 in Phoenix or Local 100 near Washington, D.C. Where at many schools, welders learn one-on-one with their instructor in a quiet booth, apprentices at these two schools begin their welding educations on a virtual welder.
Equipped with technology similar to first-person style, virtual reality video games, the virtual welder creates a job site environment (there are a few to choose from) with real sounds, light and sparks. The welding helmet is equipped with virtual reality glasses that allow the student to look around in any direction. The screen allows the instructor — or in Local 100’s case, the whole class — to follow along and correct the student. After the weld, the performance is reviewed and scored.
This new technology, for a typically video game-savvy crowd, isn’t lost on training coordinators and business managers facing welding shortages and recruiting challenges.
“The students are motivated to get on the machine because it looks like a game,” said Al Blanco, training coordinator at Local 359, which received its first virtual welder last summer. “It turns into a competition. Having that game aspect, I think it’ll get people back into welding.”
Local 100 instructors hooked up a 50-inch flat-screen television to the welder to make learning a group experience.
“You can actually teach a class better because the whole class can see it on a screen,” said Norbert Klusmann, training coordinator at Local 100, which purchased the virtual welder six years ago. “They can participate and watch as someone goes through the weld. It’s a very helpful tool for someone starting in welding.”
Josef Vidales with Vern Lewis Welding Supply in Arizona, an educational distributor for Lincoln Electric, has already seen what the virtual welder can do when recruiting and demystifying welding for high school students during career fairs. The virtual welder provides the excitement of the sparks without the intimidation factor.
“We usually have the biggest lines because all the kids want to play the video game,” Vidales said. “It’s treated like a video game, and young people love video games and achieving high scores. This helps them figure out the travel distance, travel angle, and they have better luck. You grab an actual welder after that, and it’s the same thing.”
On the touch screen, the weldometer shows educators the savings in metal, wire, filler rod and gas, and students also can choose from stainless, sheet metal and steel in various gauges and weights, including 2- to 4-inch pipe. Scores and analyzations of their welds also help instructors guide them through learning process.
“It’s very subjective for a welding instructor to tell them what was wrong with the weld in the booth,” said Jim Burket, welding instructor for Local 359 and shop foreman at BelAir Mechanical. “With this, you can tell what is wrong with the weld right away.”
“They learn faster for the beginning skills with the stick welder,” added Frank Santora, welding instructor for Local 100. “You can get pretty frustrated in the booth with stick welding if you don’t know when to start. It makes for a better training using the virtual welder. The experience is much better.”
The virtual welder also makes for a better experience for leadership when it comes to cutting costs. During in-booth welding instruction, students typically burn up thousands of dollars in materials just learning one skill. When they begin on the virtual welder, that learning curve is flattened.
“Welding is the most expensive course we teach. Period,” Klusmann said. “This cuts at least one-third of those coupons out. I can save their welds on a USB drive and see if they’ve gotten better.”
There are benefits for the school’s bottom line, too.
“The consumables you go through just teaching people how to weld are massive. They learn, and we’re not wasting materials,” said Jeff Holly, business manager at Local 359. “I would rather find out on the virtual welder someone wasn’t interested in becoming a welder without all the waste.”
At Local 359, the virtual welder also helps in the welding certification process, helping welders prepare to weld to welding procedure specifications (WPS) set by the Certified Welding Inspectors (CWI) in accordance with various codes written by organizations like the American Welding Society (AWS). Once they reach a score of at least 90 percent on the virtual welder, they are free to certify in the welding booth.
“That way, we can work on what’s wrong,” Blanco said. “We’re saving material, and all we’re spending is time and a little bit of electricity.”

When San Diego journeyperson Annet Del Rosario and Local 206 Business Manager Doug Tracy attended the Women Build Nations conference in October, there were no expectations. But as they sat side by side in presentation after presentation, the goal began clear for them both: take the information back to Southern California and inspire change.
“I like looking at sunsets. I like the moment when the sun hits the horizon. It’s that ‘ah!’ moment,” Del Rosario said. “Sitting next to him, I got to see Doug as he sees what I see every day. We were both in the same mindset. It was joyous.”
Del Rosario wanted to join a committee for women in the trades, but Tracy found there was no such organization — not only in Southern California, but in the entire state.
“She wanted to start something,” Tracy said. “There was no question. We would back her in whatever she wanted to do.”
Tracy reached out to fellow building trades business managers in the area, and the first meeting of Building Trades Sisters was held in November with 21 attendees who currently work on job sites in the area.
“The long-term goal is to have the numbers go from 25 to 125,” Del Rosario said. “We want to mentor so they can keep the next ones in line. We are a family, a sisterhood. If we need something we have someone to go to, not just in our trade but in all of the trades.”
Kimmy Martin, a second-year apprentice and mentee to Del Rosario, took the position as recording secretary of the group. As one of eight female apprentices at Local 206, one of 12 in the local as a whole, Martin felt her presence holds a special place.
As an apprentice she can look up to the journey people in the trade and help mentor new apprentices as they come in. Women, in particular, feel the pressure to succeed, but mentoring each other makes a stronger union, she said.
“It’s beneficial to walk in the footsteps of someone else. I can get other people’s experiences and use it to help me succeed. Having someone believe in you sometimes is enough to help you succeed,” she added. “It’s really awesome to see other women — even from outside my trade — and hear them talk about how they succeeded. To see two women foremen in Building Trade Sisters blew my mind.”
Outreach and education are items first on the list of goals for Building Trades Sisters. Many women don’t consider the building trades because they don’t know it exists as an option, Del Rosario said.
“I’ve had women tell me they didn’t think it was for them, but they got in and liked it,” she added. “I don’t want the women to only join because they heard about it from someone like their dad. I want them to come in because they had the information and chose the career.”
The male friend who introduced Martin to the trade also introduced her to Del Rosario. She knows Building Trades Sisters can work because her mentor relationship with Del Rosario was a success.
“I was super inspired by her drive. I didn’t know if I could do it or not. I was second-guessing myself, and I was doubting whether or not I could work in a ‘man’s job.’ I sort of tucked myself under her wing,” Martin said.
One of the first projects for Building Trades Sisters is a closet where women can donate gently used or new tools, clothing and boots for pre-apprentices and apprentices just starting out in the trade who haven’t had the means to purchase needed materials to successfully start their new career.
She recently met a pre-apprentice who couldn’t afford boots or a measuring tape as required by her employer to start. Del Rosario loaned the young woman boots and gave her one of her extra measuring tapes.
In addition to clothing, boots and a measuring tape, pre-apprentices and apprentices often need specialized tools for certain jobs that can often be expensive.
“It made me want to go through with the tools and clothing exchange, because it just happened to me,” Del Rosario said. “You don’t want them to spend their whole check on tools they’re not going to need all at once.”
Del Rosario serves as president of Building Trades Sisters. Currently attendees consist of electricians, plumbers and pipefitters, ironworkers, carpenters and teamsters.
“I came up in the trades when not a lot of women did the work,” Tracy said. “Listening to how many have to struggle to get to where they want to be was heartbreaking to me. I’m happy for them. They’re doing the right thing.”