How Do Raises Work For Union Electricians?
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How Do Union Electricians Get Raises?
How Wages/ Raises Work in the Non-Union
In the non-union, if you’re an electrician, your wages are usually determined one of two ways:
Your employer will have a predetermined amount that they pay their electricians upon being hired, based on their level of experience.
You will negotiate your wages with your employer based on what you think you deserve to be paid until the two of you come to an agreement.
When it comes time for a raise, things work pretty much the same way:
Your employer will have a predetermined raise figured out for their electricians.
It will up to you, the electrician, to ask your employer for a raise. Further, you will have to negotiate with them on how much you think your raise should be.
Things are very different in the IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers).
How Wages/ Raises Work in the Union
Negotiations Between the IBEW and NECA
When it comes time for a new raise in the union, representatives from the IBEW (the electrician’s union) enter into negotiations with NECA (the National Electrical Contractors Association). The IBEW negotiates on behalf of the actual electrical workers, while NECA negotiates on behalf of the union electrical contractors. As you can imagine, it’s in the IBEW’s best interest to get their members the best raise possible (without pricing themselves out of the market of course), while it’s in NECA’s best interest to keep more money in the electrical contractors pockets while still maintaining happy employees for their companies.
In addition to negotiating dollar amounts for raises, the IBEW and NECA also negotiate language changes in their contract. These language changes can include anything and everything, such as requesting that contractors must provide company rigs or gas cards to anyone that’s a foreman or above, requesting that employees who are mothers get paid maternity leave and fathers get paid paternity leave, or really anything that they want to change in the next contract.
Sometimes these negations can take quite a long time, but the two parties will usually come to some sort of agreement.
Note: All of the above negotiations between the IBEW and NECA don’t involve the general IBEW membership. This is all done by representatives who have been already elected by the local unions membership.
What If the IBEW and NECA Can’t Come to an Agreement?
In the case that they can’t agree on a new contract, the negotiations go to CIR (the Council of Industrial Relations), where they will decide on what they think is a fair contract agreement for both parties. This isn’t a very common occurrence, but it does occasionally happen.
If the IBEW and NECA Come to an Agreement, What Happens Next?
In the case that a new contract has been agreed upon by both the IBEW and NECA, the contract enters into a ratification vote, where the IBEW membership gets to decide whether or not they want to ratify the contract, or re-enter into negotiations. Members typically show up in person to the union hall to cast their votes, and once all of the votes are tallied up, the votes decides whether or not the new contract get’s ratified into existence or not.
What Happens if the Membership Votes to Ratify the Contract?
Assuming the membership agreed to ratify the contract, the general membership then get’s to collectively decide where they want to allocate the money that they’re getting as a part of their raise (For example, if the raise was $5.00/ hr, do they want to allocate the full $5.00 onto their paychecks, or do they want to split that $5.00/ hr raise multiple ways and have some go towards their paycheck, some towards pensions, and some towards other benefits)? Different union locals have different ways that they decided this, but once that’s been voted on by the membership, the contract that includes the raise will go into affect once the previous contract ends, which is typically at the start of the new year.
Watch Mad Electrican’s video: How Do Raises Work For Union Electricians to see how this whole process played out for IBEW Local 48 with their new 2024 contract.
Conclusion:
While electricians in the non-union often have to negotiate their own wages/ raises, IBEW electricians have the negotiating done for them, which typically results in frequent raises that are constantly raising the bar for how much electricians can and should be making.
Make sure you watch Mad Electrican’s video: How Do Raises Work For Union Electricians for a much more detailed explanation of how this whole process works.
