Convention Center Victory Means More Jobs for IBEW 11 Members
Dear Brothers and Sisters – I’m delighted to announce our latest victories on the jobs front. First, we had a tremendous victory at the LA Convention Center last week on the most recent stop-and-start Convention Center expansion project that has been ongoing for the past decade. If you count all the other efforts over the years to modernize and expand the LA facility, it goes back even longer. But now, through hard work, perseverance and grit, we’ve finally done it. The powerful labor and business coalition we helped organize finally got this project over the finish line.
There’s no doubt LA has lost many conventions over the past decade to other large cities because our Center wasn’t large enough, had enough contiguous space, or modern enough to get the attention of the large conventions our downtown needs to help revitalize. The timing was never right, Council members always said. And now, because of our hard work and dedication, we got the job done. This is the power of coalition.
Kudos to our Political Director Antonio Sanchez and his team for their instrumental help in pushing this through. Who will benefit? First, our members. The project will result in dozens and dozens of job calls starting in the next few weeks. That will ramp up to several hundred jobs over the next few months. But the other huge beneficiaries of the project will be the residents and businesses in the LA region. We can expect more tourism, more events, better city services and more money flowing through our economy as a result of our city becoming a first-class convention destination, starting with the 2028 Olympics.
Make no mistake, it will be an aggressive timetable to get the ambitious job done in time for the Olympics. (See our story on page 1 for more of the details about the job.) But I am confident our skilled, trained and experienced members are up to the task.
I wanted to flag another good jobs victory for our members in the Antelope Valley. We, along with our brothers and sisters in the LA/OC Building Trades Council, recently signed a Community Workforce Agreement (CWA) in Palmdale, which will begin creating more good IBEW 11 jobs in the near future. We will be writing about it in the next edition of News@11.
Tradeswomen Conference
A delegation of 26 of our members has just returned from the 2025 Tradeswomen Build Nations Conference put on by the North American Building Trades Union. Thousands of tradeswomen from around the country gathered in Chicago for two days to network, share stories, learn new skills, discover resources and get support to thrive in their careers in the trades.
The conference featured government, industry, and labor leaders, apprenticeship and training coordinators, and tradeswomen from across the country who attended and facilitated workshops, panels, and plenary sessions. The goal was to uplift tradeswomen in unions, promote recruitment and retention, strengthen leadership skills and union identity, and foster mentoring and support networks.
Diana Limon, our Director of Recruitment and Support, and I were on two panels at the conference, reaching out to attendees to promote the IBEW as a good career choice for women.
In the near future, we will be creating an all-women VEEP class for our women veterans. Look for more information on that coming soon.
Prop 50 Must Pass
In our industry, politics matters. As many of you know, Texas has redistricted the state to add five more Republican elected officials in a scheme to rig the 2026 mid-term elections. In response, Gov. Newsom has called for a Special Election on Nov. 4 where voters will decide on a Constitutional amendment to temporarily redistrict California’s maps to add five Democrats.
This is a very important election for our members, and we are urging you to vote YES on Prop. 50. By voting YES, you will be protecting jobs and infrastructure projects that the current Administration in Washington, DC has delayed or canceled. You will be voting for fair representation for all working families. And you will be securing your future by advancing clean energy and grid modernization projects that create thousands of jobs for our members.
As always, I am honored to be your Business Manager.
In solidarity,
Robert Corona
Business Manager/Financial Secretary
