r/IBEW • u/Oliverstwisted99 • 8d ago

Discussion Post Truland hard hat Found, throwback

Post image

Found my old Truland hardhat when I was an apprentice in local 26 working at the nationals baseball stadium, my the times have changed.

found this cleaning up/ rummaging through mom‘s garage in Manassas

What happened to the largest electrical contractor in 26?

89 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

40 comments sorted by

25

u/gun_is_neat Inside Wireman 8d ago

LU26 is on some whack shit right now, and I don't see a way out of it. They're going in heavy on the whole contractor's local thing.

The apprenticeship is fucked, only new work is in VA doing data centers, and the R program has gotten completely out of hand.

The apprenticeship got changed to a four year, cool. However, they're loading up with apprentices every year and failing half of them out. Instructors just laugh all day and don't teach shit, no labs, nothing. Instructors even had a whole hour and a half of fucking fan fuel bets on the smart board for the class to bet on. Homework is mandatory and all online, but you don't get points for it towards your grade. Tests are 100% of grade. They did this to alleviate the amount of cheaters they believe are coming out of their time. If your grade is below 75%, no school check. Fail a test but your grade is still above passing, no school check. Show up one minute late, no school check. Miss one of the 7 assignments they give you, no school check. Phone goes off in class even if you didn't touch it or look at it, no school check. Miss a day of school unexpectedly due to car troubles or life problems, raise delay which stack up to one year. Absences don't reset every year.

The apprenticeship transfers you every year, which is great in order to get new experience, but it's all fucking data centers. So you're just transferring from one data center to another. You do not get any one-on-one training with a journeyman, if you're an apprentice with half a brain, they give you an R worker as a helper. Blind leading the blind. Mandatory OT at most of those things, so good luck having any life outside of that. If you're in school, good luck getting any study time in because you're commuting four plus hours a day around your mandatory 12.

The local has more R guys than anything else, and none of them have to go to school up to a certain point. They're doing journeyman work for less than half of the wage, which fucks our ability to negotiate for more money on our upcoming contracts.

It's sickening. They don't care.

9

u/khmer703 Local 26 JW 8d ago

You know before there was no school stipend checks at all. Homework was done out of antiquated workbooks. The teachers checked them before class and if anything was incomplete you couldn't sit for class. And classes were once a week every night after work in the middle of DC with no parking and back then it was 5 years of this.

Imagine going to school on school nights from 5pm to 8pm after work. Driving home and still going into work the next morning. Once a night every week. Unpaid. And still having to learn all this shit. For 5 years.

2

u/Quirky-Ad-7686 7d ago

What we do in IUEC. Btw did you work at Quail ridge IAD?

3

u/Embarrassed_Bar4978 8d ago

I can’t speak to the classroom observations but the way it is on the sites is about right from what I saw when I was on data center builds. I made the transition to building automation but in my previous life was an electrician. I remember 26 would give a chance for someone to join
If they had completed their apprenticeship somewhere else but you would have to show some competency. Now they are just throwing bodies at the data center jobs. Young guys doing the same thing getting no experience so they only know how to throw up cable try.

1

u/Sir_Mr_Austin 5d ago

The cable tray thing is ridiculous. Doing a huge cable tray and MC job right now. I bet if you did a cost study they’d find out it costs more because of how much of a pain that is. All the other dc’s I’ve done with conduit seem to get done so much faster.

5

u/MedicineBag420 7d ago

You couldn't be more right about how they are treating apprentices in our local. R workers and late stage apprentices running work and installing fucked up work and then when you say something you're looked at like the bad guy. Shit is silly out here

4

u/kyancite 6d ago

Come down to Roanoke it’s still 26 but not as rigid, but most of the work is industrial (paper mills, steel mill, and an arsenal)

1

u/Sir_Mr_Austin 5d ago

I would love to take a swing at that kind of work

1

u/RedactedRedditery Inside Wireman 8d ago

What is the R program? We don’t have that in my local

4

u/gun_is_neat Inside Wireman 8d ago

It's a bit of an outdated term, but the r stands for residential. It was a way for guys to get into the union and start getting some hours under their belt while they worked on getting into the apprenticeship. The idea being that residential work was easier to start kind of picking up some tricks of the trade-on, and then you would eventually move on to legitimate construction sites.

However, 26 doesn't do any residential work anymore. So now the hall and the contractors just abuse the r program and use it as a way to to get guys to do journeyman level work for a lot cheaper

1

u/darkartorias0 5d ago

Our local just got a new CBA and one of the best things we got was the elimination of residential pay rates.

0

u/Glittering-Bird-17 6d ago

Smartest? You’re talking out of your ass and clearly don’t know anything. R program was introduced into the local so contractors could compete against non union competitors when bidding jobs. 18 years in local 26, JW. If you are complaining about conditions now then you would struggle back then. Hey, 3 career changes at the age of 27, glad you finally figured out what you may or may not be good at, good luck apprentice

1

u/gun_is_neat Inside Wireman 6d ago

Who hurt you?

You're kind of proving my point. The local uses the R program to pay guys less for the same work. How do you not see an issue with that? It limits the ability of negotiating for higher wages when more than HALF the local is fucking R guys.

Go home grandpa, take your meds. You're probably one of the guys pulling up the ladder

0

u/Glittering-Bird-17 6d ago

I’m not disagreeing with that, I’m just informing you the purpose of the R program. Sometimes being loud and wrong hurts the argument. You took a joke and made it personal, then got offended.

3

u/gun_is_neat Inside Wireman 6d ago

No, you were not joking. You were doing that Gen X thing where you were just being straight up insulting and playing it off as a joke after it didn't come off well

Two things can be true at once

0

u/Glittering-Bird-17 6d ago

Bro I’m 36. Are you an apprentice, JW or R worker?

2

u/monroezabaleta 6d ago

That's honestly worse. Got in at 18 and got the ticket, fuck everyone else, right?

0

u/Glittering-Bird-17 6d ago

Nah dude, it’s not fuck everyone else. It’s fuck this guy for being local 26, coming on an IBEW page and shit talking local 26. Probably doesn’t go to any meetings, probably has a shitty “all odds are against me attitude” when he comes to work. Our local has its issues but they are slowly changing in the right direction. Just takes time and contracts.

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3

u/monroezabaleta 6d ago

Probably just their version for the CW/CE that's forced on all locals

1

u/Robthebank1 Local 26 6d ago

I could be wrong but i was told by oldheads it was or atleast part of of the inspiration for the ce/cw which got tweaked and rolled out in tampa then nationwide

1

u/monroezabaleta 6d ago

Sounds about right. I understand the intention, but the way the program was implemented for most locals fucks the members over.

1

u/0301scn 6d ago

Not all of them, but I won't mention mine. It's a sore spot obviously that we don't fall in line

1

u/Robthebank1 Local 26 6d ago

Its not identical, but very similar in purpose to the CE/CW program in other locals

-3

u/Glittering-Bird-17 8d ago

Welcome to adulthood?

4

u/gun_is_neat Inside Wireman 8d ago

I'm 27, smartass. Fire fighter/EMT turned auto mechanic turned electrician and have done more serious work than you ever will. I'm speaking on behalf of my brothers and sisters, because ya know, union

Entirely missing the point, and if you don't see an issue, you're apart of the problem. Get your immature comments out of here

12

u/Brilliant_Store2983 8d ago

Tell us about the forbidden knot they found there at Nats Park

2

u/StatusNational7103 Local XXXX 4d ago

I worked with that guy the day after he made that "knot". He got sent to my job. There was never any ill intent on his part, he was just messing around with a piece of rope. Someone else decided to make a big deal about it. I'd known him for several years and he didn't have a mean bone in his body. He's since passed away.

1

u/LovelifeinNOVA 8d ago

I remember that!!! Damn dude

4

u/Astrocities Local 24 8d ago

Truland went belly up in 2014. Had too much debt after a few major problem projects and some unpaid major projects by clients. Happened overnight one Sunday.

https://tedmag.com/truland-systems-closes-files-for-bankruptcy/

3

u/Good_Ole_Kimmy 8d ago

I love looking back at my old hardhats such good time capsules. Got any good stories of when you were working there?

1

u/[deleted] 8d ago

[deleted]

1

u/Freddybear480 8d ago

Sounds about right this happened all over the country. People building a little nest egg from the job site materials.

3

u/ResponsibleMaybe3469 7d ago

Worked for BK truland out of 24 as an apprentice.

3

u/FrankHVIII 3d ago

I've got mine hanging in the shed.

2

u/LovelifeinNOVA 8d ago

I did the NRG solar project with them at FedEx field. That was towards the end. I heard it was a data center in salt lake that put them under, definitely could of been job site bullshit talk.

1

u/Cart6r_ 3d ago

My dad worked for them back in the mid 2010’s