Political Director’s Report – April 2025
What’s Ahead for the IBEW Under the Trump Administration
By Antonio Sanchez, Political Director
A few weeks ago, a few thousand IBEW members from around the country gathered in Washington, DC to attend the IBEW Construction and Maintenance Conference. A few days later, thousands of building trades members joined them in the nation’s capital for the annual North American Building Trades Union’s (NABTU) Legislative Conference. I was there with about a dozen Local 11 members. Most of us have been to Washington, DC many times, but this was the first with Donald Trump as the 47th President of the United States.
International IBEW President Kenneth Cooper was proud to say that the IBEW has grown in membership but unfortunately, has lost one percent of market share. But in some good news, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that with the explosion of new technology, there will be a need for an additional 80,000 new electricians each year until 2032.
The IBEW has always believed that we must organize, growing as a labor movement or die. The goal is to make all these new incoming electricians IBEW members! We are uniquely positioned to grow as a union, we just need to seize the moment.
In a complete surprise, President Joe Biden was invited to speak at the IBEW conference, and was named an honorary member of the IBEW by our International President. President Biden was his old self, sharing stories about his father and stating several times that “the middle class built this country, and unions built the middle class.”
I miss Joe Biden, and I was happy to see him be recognized as a true brother of the IBEW. I’ll never forget how President Biden would praise the IBEW by name at press conferences. Trump has not done that.
In other International news, President Cooper and International-Treasurer Paul Noble announced the launch of a new IBEW podcast called “The Line — Leadership to Membership.” Check it out here. It is available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.
It is difficult to predict what this Trump administration will do for us, or against us. Sean McGarvey, the head of NABTU, compared our political situation to the famous Rumble in the Jungle fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. Ali entered the ring with a strategy — take the hits from Foreman.
Ali knew that Foreman was strong, and that his raw power was undefeated. Ali also knew that Foreman would tire after taking so many swings at him. He was right. It’s not easy to take the Trump hits, but with Republicans having control of the White House, US Senate, Congress, and the Supreme Court, we might not have a choice.
We received political briefings at both the NABTU and IBEW conferences. I would like to report that there is a plan to work with, or work around, the Trump administration. The truth is Donald Trump’s actions are so chaotic and unpredictable that a plan might prove useless. Instead, I predict there will be many more attacks on unions, and we’ll have no choice but to take the hits. And, as the labor movement has done in the past, I can only hope we position ourselves to punch back when the time is right.
