Second-, third- and fourth-year apprentices braved the Wisconsin winter cold to attend Local 18’s Wausau-area Construction Organizing Membership Education Training (COMET) classes in January.
Local 18’s COMET class aims to get members involved early in their careers, teaching them about the labor movement, the benefits available to them through their union and their collectively bargained contracts, and much more. As former Local 18 Organizing Director Hallie Jennerman wrote in 2024, the local’s COMET curriculum is intended “to forge growth in our membership through organizing, growth in our markets, growth in our benefits through additional hours worked, and to give those behind us a future by creating engaged, active members who will carry our union forward and organize all unrepresented sheet metal workers.”
In January 2026, Local 18 apprentices learned together and strengthened their bonds of union solidarity — despite the -10 degree temperature on the day of the class.
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