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Just wondering how the local operating engineers union is doing, how many members, etc... Is there a presence or do most contractors use non-union shops? Thought about joining but you never know. Thanks
Most of the facilities I've been to that have operating engineer staffing requirements either use in-house non-union employees or have sub-contracted the needed services to non-union contractors.
Keep in mind that there's relatively few places needing operating engineers in this state. Wyoming doesn't have the high density big city development ... or the climate ... requiring a lot of heavy industrial/commercial type refrigeration systems, for example. Many of the (few) larger buildings don't have a cooling tower or chillers, and are able to get by on window mount A/C units for the few times a year they need cooling. To put this in perspective, most of the older downtown areas don't have buildings taller than 3 stories, which was the technological limit of efficient construction in the early 1900's ... when most downtowns in this state were built.
The biggest users of operating engineers that comes to mind would be in the mining/extractive industry facilities, some of the process plants, a couple of distribution centers with heavy refrigeration needs, public works buildings, larger hospitals, courthouses, libraries, a few modern high rise Class A office buildings in Casper or Cheyenne, refineries, larger educational facilities, prisons, or the power generation industry.
I've seen a fair number of smaller office buildings contract out their chiller operations to independent contractors, literally 2 to 4 man outfits that dominate the local marketplace with maintenance contracts and 24/7 on call support. The wages paid are pretty good for the area, so there's been little pressure for a union presence in those shops.
Having been in the cooling tower repair business in the region for awhile, I'd tell you that the pickings are pretty slim statewide compared to a city such as Denver, which supports many HVAC outfits and the local operating engineers union has a lot of workers. With Denver at 2 million population, it's a drop in the bucket compared to the big cities on the East or West coasts with higher temps, many more large scale buildings, and much more large commercial facilities.
While i really dont have an answer to the op's question......i do know that the' operating engineers union' represents heavy equipment operators,like crane operators/oilers,bulldozer ,backhoe,scraper and loader operators.They dont have anything to do with the hvac industry except for sometimes being used to put units up high with a crane.
While i really dont have an answer to the op's question......i do know that the' operating engineers union' represents heavy equipment operators,like crane operators/oilers,bulldozer ,backhoe,scraper and loader operators.They dont have anything to do with the hvac industry except for sometimes being used to put units up high with a crane.
OH, Really? Do you even know what a "chiller" is? Do you know what's connected to a "cooling tower"? Do you have any idea how many pumps and affiliated control systems are involved with these systems?
And just who do you think runs chillers and plant systems in large buildings, hospitals, public works facilities, food processing plants, refineries, chemical plants?
I've spent enough years in the heavy HVAC industry, especially around ammonia refrigeration compressors as well as freon chillers to know quite a few "operating engineers". As well as helped a bunch work out the system controls and balancing for comfort systems, which includes the air make-up, cooling, and heating systems for large buildings. Somebody's got to run those boilers for climate control as well as domestic hot water requirements, and balance the building for all the plumbing fixtures.
Or do you know how water pressure is maintained at the top floor of a large high-rise building and at the same time the toilets aren't blowing out on the first floor? True, too, somebody's got to run all the lifting equipment ...elevators, for people and freight in the buildings. Not only that, but there's stand-by power generation on-site in large buildings, process plants, and hospitals (for example). That's so if the power goes out, a building doesn't have people stranded in elevators, or without lights, or without heat (or cooling) or make-up air (maybe you haven't noticed, but you cannot open the windows on high-rise buildings for "fresh air" or "free air" cooling or heating), or without sanitary facilities ... it's literally a matter of life and death.
Here again, I've worked with "operating engineers" on stationary power plants that are typically run once a month to verify their proper switching of the heavy electrical power over to the emergency stand-by generators on site ... one high rise building I worked on in NYC had a dozen roof-mounted 16 cylinder huge Caterpillar diesel motors (about 2,000HP) each driving generators ... enough to power the building's needs in case of a power outage. There's all kinds of affiliated systems to run these stand-by power plants, including fuel storage, typically in the lowest levels of the buildings, uniterruptible power supplies (huge battery banks for millisecond change over power response so that computers don't crash ... the building I worked on had several major offices of stock brokerage companies ... probably over 10,000 people in that building just in that business), all the huge power switch-over gear for the generators to come on line within a few seconds. All of this also powers the pumps for fire-fighting inside the building, too ... in case of a water supply failure due to a power outage.
Most folks don't know about all this infrastructure associated with large buildings or facilities because they're all hidden "behind" the "front of the house" (the part that the public sees) in portions of the building that are either floor levels you cannot access or in places on each floor that are not open to the public. Large high rise residence buildings have these systems, as do hospitals, public office buildings, commercial buildings, manufacturing plants ... on and on. All this stuff is run, operated, maintained, and serviced by operating engineers.
Even more ... most folks don't know that "power plants" have similar emergency stand-by power generating and uninterruptible power supply (huge battery storage banks) for their own operating safety and control. With all the computerization of their facilities, they cannot have a power interruption to their computers, so they have all this type of redundancy in-house, too. But this is typically a portion of the facility that you won't see on a tour of a big coal-fired power plant ... there's no romance here compared to being on a big turbine deck and seeing those huge steam turbines whirring away and turning those huge generators.
And so my main point from the first post here remains ... there's a lot of tasks operating engineers do, but Wyoming doesn't have a lot of those facilities here because of the low population.
Well im sorry to upset you so much sunspirit.According to the 'international union of operating engineers' what you are talking about are called 'stationary engineers',while 'operating engineers ',operate heavy equipment.The same union does represent both though the union catagorizes them the same way i did.They have a website,iuoe.org which breaks it down,as do several other sites if you google it.......Perhaps in your experiance where you were they called them the same thing.Where i at one time was going to join their apprenticeship program,in the union where my friends father and brother worked for decades they werent called the same thing,by anyone i knew.....of course,unlike you,i could be wrong..i dont claim to know everything about everything.I suppose there is even a chance we are both right depending on the industry,or regional differences in terminalogy.
Appears each side of this conversation has half the story. Below is a cut and paste from Wikipedia for operating engineers union. As to the original question I don't think the heavy equipment operating engineers have gained any foothold in wyoming. I also think sunsprit is correct about the HVAC and building maintenace operating engineers. just not enough of that infrastructure to allow a union to take control of it. Hope this post helps
The International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) is a labor union within the AFL-CIO representing primarily construction workers who work as heavy equipment operators, mechanics, surveyors, and stationary engineers, who maintain heating and other systems in buildings and industrial complexes, in the United States and Canada.
Founded in 1896, it currently represents roughly 400,000 workers in approximately 170 local unions and operates nearly 100 apprenticeship programs.
IUOE Local 3, based in Alameda, California, is the largest building and construction trades local in the U.S., with jurisdiction covering four states: California, Nevada, Hawaii and Utah. Most of Local 3's 42,600 members work as heavy equipment operators, and construction workers, but the local also represents public employees, such as maintenance workers and peace officers, Technical Engineers, Surveyors and Construction Inspectors as well as Building Inspectors. Local 3 is headed by Business Manager Russ Burns.
Local 150, based in Countryside, Illinois, is the third-largest local in the International (23,000 + Members) with jurisdication in parts of three states: Illinois, Indiana and Iowa. Local 150's President and Business Manager is James "Jim" Sweeney. Local 150 represents the most traditional Operating Engineers (Hoisting and Portable, Heavy-Highway, Building Trade, Quarry, Landfill, and Underground) employees in the International. Local 150 has the most advanced Operating Engineers (Hoisting and Portable) apprenticeship program in the International.
My husband works in HVAC, yes it does have to do with HVAC. While there is not a lot of Heavy Industrial, Chillers ect, there is some... Just not at much compared to other states.
My husband for example works out at Spring Creek coal mine on their equipment all the time, on chillers, radiant tube heaters, and more...
Right now things are starting to slow though in the trades. Those that were hiring aren't anymore and just have enough work to keep their current people working... that is how it is here in the town we live, not sure about other town in Wyo.
Well im sorry to upset you so much sunspirit.According to the 'international union of operating engineers' what you are talking about are called 'stationary engineers',while 'operating engineers ',operate heavy equipment.The same union does represent both though the union catagorizes them the same way i did.They have a website,iuoe.org which breaks it down,as do several other sites if you google it.......Perhaps in your experiance where you were they called them the same thing.Where i at one time was going to join their apprenticeship program,in the union where my friends father and brother worked for decades they werent called the same thing,by anyone i knew.....of course,unlike you,i could be wrong..i dont claim to know everything about everything.I suppose there is even a chance we are both right depending on the industry,or regional differences in terminalogy.
No upset on my part. It's not terminology, it's the reality of the size of the local labor force here in Wyoming vs your business model from an entirely different labor area of the country.
You've been speaking in general terms about specific labor union representation without having any knowledge of what is the actual practice in the geographic area that the OP was inquiring about (Wyoming).
What you've missed is the reality of Wyoming's limited population and how it affects labor practice in this state.
You see, while labor unions purport to be about their membership (rank and file), the reality is labor unions are businesses run as a business for the benefit of the employment of their management and support staff. What they do for rank and file membership is secondary to their business needs; you only have to look at how the unions are run, how their management is compensated, how they behave politically ... to know that the primary business of each union is to be in the "union" business. The salaries, benefits, business "trips", conventions ... are all for the union management, the rank and file don't ever get to see those benefits as part of their membership/dues support. It's pretty rare for a union "boss" to make the same type of wages his union membership makes ...
Which means, if you have a big city with a lot of work/jobs in the various categories, you can support a "stationary engineer" labor union local separate from an "operating engineer" (heavy equipment operator) labor union local, with managers, support staff, storefront offices, etc.
But when you get to the wide open spaces and low population of Wyoming, and you might have only a handfull of unionized workers employed under a strict definition of "stationary engineer" type work tasks, the union isn't going to be able to operate a local business to support them. There simply isn't enough cash flow from monthly dues to pay for any real labor union support structure.
So, the result is ... in Wyoming ... that the "next best" option for somebody in a stationary engineer job who wants to be unionized is to throw their lot in together with the "operating engineers" where they have enough total membership (and dues generated cash flow) to be able to have actual representation.
In practice, this happens with other labor/union groups in this state, too. For example, there's a number of shop techs in diesel truck shops that have unionized under the Teamsters ... because there's a number of truck drivers in the same company who are members of that union. In a larger city workforce location, it would probably be a better choice for those techs to unionize under the Machinist's union, or other union that cares about their job skills and employment situation instead of the Teamsters whose real focus is upon drivers.
Similarly, I have seen aircraft mechanics unionized under the Teamsters banner instead of a more appropriate aviation tech union. Over time, they have slowly left the Teamsters ... but it was the Teamsters that first organized the labor group.
The same problem happens on this thread with your lecture, blakeman59, from Wikipedia ... what is true in the larger, general sense for labor unions and jobs in large organized areas of the country ... by definition ... simply cannot work here. There isn't enough labor force. Even if you had 10 dues paying members in a larger town out here, that's not enough cash flow to hire any local union management or representation. Let me put this in perspective ... 10 dues paying members in a local might be most of the people doing HVAC or building operations in an area in Wyoming. I'll bet Cheyenne doesn't have three dozen total people working in heavy HVAC (as opposed to the residential HVAC marketplace. Even the restaurants around here depend upon refrigeration techs from Fort Collins, which has a larger employment base in the business). You need a lot more membership to justify the costs and expenses of running a union local.
So here's how I see it: you can equivocate all you want about your general knowledge of how unions operate, but what you don't have is the specific local knowledge of what's going on in Wyoming and how it affects the OP's job outlook here ... which was the question on this thread. Not what's going on in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Dallas, Houston, Detroit, or any other big union stronghold with a big total labor market. We simply don't have that labor pool here in Wyoming, and the distances are so vast between the few larger towns (we call them "cities", but they wouldn't qualify population wise as a part of a neighborhood in the true USA cities) that you can't run a "local" out of Cheyenne and service Gillette or Cody or Casper, or Kemmerrer, or any other possible unionized labor area in this state.
No upset on my part. It's not terminology, it's the reality of the size of the local labor force here in Wyoming vs your business model ....... several paragraphs of obscuring prose
So to put it simply you don't know the difference between an "operator", a stationary engineer and a powerhouse operator; three different jobs. Just admit it, we understand.
Local 1 Boilermakers and Local 150 Operators erect a baghouse
Irishtom29 and pal entrusting their asses to a Local 150 Operator
[quote=Irishtom29;7056220]So to put it simply you don't know the difference between an "operator", a stationary engineer and a powerhouse operator; three different jobs. Just admit it, we understand.
NO, Irishtom29 .. I well understand the different tasks and specialties/crafts, skills, training, and your perception that all these different groups of workers should have their own labor union representation.
What you still apparently don't understand is that the labor pool in Wyoming is so small and so far apart geographically that even if a union organized every worker of a certain group in an area, they might have only a handful of members.
So, even if the union dues were $200/month, the "local" might have a gross income of less than $1,000 per month. That's simply not enough money coming in to provide an office, let alone a staff(er) for the local union support services.
It's also not enough money to have a central headquarters, say in Casper, and support the union members in several towns that may be 5-8 hours away when a union "issue" comes up in a workplace.
The practical need of a union business operation is met by combining related crafts/skills/trades workers into a larger membership that can afford to operate the union in the area.
Let me remind you of Wyoming's total population: 500,000. It's spread out over the whole state, with many isolated areas of almost no population as well as a number of "towns" of less than 100 residents.
That's fewer total people in the whole state than a neighborhood in any of the USA's big cities. And Wyoming is adjacent to some very sparsely populated states, such as NE, SD, MT, and ID. It's not like they can contribute much population driven demand for the services which might employ a large concentration of workers ... union or non-union. There's a lot of "fly-over" desolate country here; you can drive 100 miles on our main roads and have no population center between the main stops along the interstate, or on State Highways.
There's simply no union business operation that can provide service over that geographic scale for a handful of members in a narrowly defined craft.
So sorry, folks, you can tell us all about the "union model" of what they do in a densely populated area with a breakdown by trades, but that doesn't make it work with such a small group of possible dues paying members in the area of the OP's concern on this thread.
Please note, also, that Kristy has confirmed what I've been saying in regards to her husband who does work HVAC in this area in regards to "operating engineers" here.
OH, and FWIW ... I'm the guy (not in the picture) who supplied the protective or repair coatings and ran the prep/install crews for it after the baghouse was completed and failed in operation. Or on the cooling towers; Marley or BAC spell "retirement income for life" for me.
Last edited by sunsprit; 01-18-2009 at 04:45 PM..
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clarifying operating engineers
