Electricians Have Sweet Life In New York

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30682, 23 February 1965, Page 9

Electricians Have Sweet Life In New York

(N.ZP.A.-Reuter)

NEW YORK. New York electricians believe they have the best union contract in the world. They have a 25-hour working week, with the guarantee of six hours overtime if they want it, and they earn an average of about £57 to about £7l a week.

Their union, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 3, also operates what amounts to a

welfare state for its 30,000 members. This provides free dental care and medical check-ups, hospital insurance, extensive pensions and life insurance.

The contract is the envy of most other American trade unions and of labour leaders in many other parts of the world.

Members of the union are mostly top electrical craftsmen who install the complex new fittings in buildings under construction. But they also include office workers and, if an organising campaign is successful, they will be joined by the city’s taxi drivers. £2 An Hour Probably the main reason the union has been able to persuade the employers to pay about £1 17s an hour, or an average of just over £2 an hour including the overtime, is that New York is in the throes of a strong building boom. Another reason is that the union, headed by a business manager, Mr Harry Van Arsdale, believes in co-oper-ating with the management of companies with which it deals.

Mr Van Arsdale has fought against so-called “featherbedding” (the refusal to reduce staff when labour-saving devices are introduced) and has welcomed technical innovations.

Partly as a result of this attitude, Mr Van Arsdale has won the following “fringe benefits” for his members: 1. Life insurance of about £2700, coming from funds raised by the companies and the union. .

2. Retirement pay of about £B4 a month (excluding Government pensions) from three plans in which union and employers take part.

3 Scholarships for the children of union members at universities and colleges. Thirty-five scholarships, worth nearly £20,000, were awarded last year.

4. Grants for adult education courses for union members themselves.

“This is an example of class collaboration which has paid off,” a union official said, with a smile. The union also offers its members interest-free loans of up to £3500 to pay off existing mortgages, and of up to £350 to help them buy a house or car.

At its headquarters on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, a staff of dentists provides free treatment and doctors give free medical checkups, which include a battery of tests and X-rays, The American Medical Association forbids doctors to provide their services free, but it permits them to make an examination and refer patients to private doctors or hospitals.

Union members who go to hospital are covered by the union's hospital insurance plan, through a fund supported by the companies and the union. Union Vehicle Mr Van Arsdale, who left school at the age of 16, has been trying to develop his own and his members' education standards. "A union is not just wages and hours," he said recently. “It is a vehicle for a better life."

Typical of Mr Van Arsdale’s thinking is a fringe benefit which provides union members with more than £lO a day when they go on jury duty. But before members can become jurymen, the union insists they take a course in “citizenship responsibility."

Another union activity is the development of a huge suburban community on Long Island for electricians called “Beautiful Electchester.” It consists of more than 2200 moderately-priced flats built on a hill-top golf course.