2025 Shaping Up to be Promising Year
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Happy New Year! I hope everyone is safe and sound from these devasting winds and fires that have been sweeping the Southland these past few days.
It’s been very unnerving hearing about electrical blackouts randomly affecting various pockets of Los Angeles. In fact, we had to close our Pasadena headquarters early this week due to air quality and possible evacuation orders. And finally, our thoughts and prayers go out to our brothers and sisters devastated by the raging fires on the Westside and in Altadena and other regions that may be popping up. We hope everyone has a home to go back to tonight and that their families are safe.
On the job front, 2025 is already shaping up to be a promising and busy year with many projects coming online across Southern California. The convention center remodel will be starting this year, with calls going out for some of our members over the coming months. California voters just passed Prop. 4, which includes a $900 million allocation for clean energy projects, including EV charging stations, rooftop solar and battery storage facilities.
School bond construction and upgrades like Hamilton High, continue, see the article on page 3 of this issue. Hospital construction and renovations continues around the Southland. And with the 2026 World Cup and 2028 Olympics coming to Los Angeles, expect additional job calls in the halls to ramp up for those major events.
Other big news are plans for IBEW-sponsored Pathway Initiative legislation to allow California to work with regional authorities in other states to build out a Western grid to increase our energy markets.
Our Political Lifeblood
On the political front, make no mistake. The Presidential election was not what we had hoped, but we will learn to navigate the rough seas ahead for labor unions. We know the incoming president is no friend of unions, and may try to claw back some of our wins, so be prepared to join us in our fight to keep many of our hard-fought rights. Stay tuned.
There’s better news at the state level where we notched some impressive wins. We look forward to welcoming the 37 newly elected representatives in Sacramento and we have a full legislative agenda to match. Our Electrical State Association – CSAEW – is on full alert and has a full agenda mapped out to protect our work, and provide more jobs for our members.
No More Stigma
Now that the holidays are behind us, I want to call attention to IBEW 11’s ongoing focus on mental health for our members. Long gone are the days when mental health concerns were something to hide. Our terrific health plan has mental health options for members.
We all have issues that we could use a professional to help guide us. There is an alarming number of suicides among our brothers and sisters in construction, and we will do all we can to prevent that. In 2022 alone, 6,000 construction workers died by suicide, eclipsing the 1,000 or so who died from work-related injuries. See our Safety Director’s column on resources for addiction and mental health issues here: or sign in to Optum with your User name and Password here. Access code is SCIBEW. We have also restarted our Recovery Group Meetings hosted by Business Agent Zachary Solomon. Our next meeting will be held on January 29th at our South Bay Hall location, see the flyer here.
And if you need help immediately with a mental health crisis, call or text 988.
New apprenticeship classes will be starting soon for Inside, ITS and Sound & Communications classifications. The two week Bootcamp will also be starting soon.
We want to encourage our members to use our new IBEW 11 App. You can find it in the Apple, Google and Android App Store on your phone. Our new app will give us better ways to communicate with you quickly and efficiently, especially on the worksites. We aim to meet you where you live. Take a look and let us know if you have any suggestions.
And in more good news, the DIRE ECU application backlog has eased. It’s now down to a six week turnaround. If you are still having issues, please reach out to our Compliance Department in Pasadena.
Stay safe out there. As always, I am honored to be your Business Manager/ Financial Secretary. My door is always open.
In Solidarity,
Robert Corona
Business Manager
