The seeds of the International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers were planted at an electrical
exposition in St. Louis, Missouri in 1890, when American Federation
of Labor (AFL) organizer Charles Cassel granted a charter to a
group of "Wiremen" and "Linemen" who were
seeking a better way of life for electrical workers everywhere.
The charter established
AFL Federal Local Union 5221, and Henry Miller was elected President.
Miller spent the following year traveling and working all over
the United States organizing electrical workers and forming Local
Unions from Chicago to New York.
Ten delegates representing
286 members held the first Electrical Workers Convention in St.
Louis on November 28, 1891. The names of those ten men to whom
our Brotherhood owe its very existence are Henry Miller, J. T.
Kelly, W. Hedden, C. J. Sutter, M. Dorsey, T. J. Finnell, E. Hartung,
F. Heizleman, Joseph Berlowitz, and H. Fisher. These ten Brothers
who founded our Union met in a small room above Stolley's Dance
Hall in a poor section of St. Louis. It was a very humbling beginning,
however, it was where the roots of the IBEW were nurtured. These
delegates adopted the name, National Brotherhood of Electrical
Workers (NBEW) and elected Henry Miller as the first Grand President
and J. T. Kelly as Grand Secretary-Treasurer.
They worked day and night
for seven days to draw up what are basically today's I.B.E.W.
Constitution, general laws, ritual and the IBEW Emblem of a fist
grasping bolts of lightning.
A month after the founding
of the Union, Henry Miller traveled to the AFL Convention in Birmingham,
Alabama seeking a charter for the NBEW as an AFL affiliate.
The Charter was granted
on December 7, 1891 giving the NBEW jurisdiction over electrical
workers in every branch of the Industry. Henry Miller and the
other Union Officers spent their own time and money in organizing
electrical workers throughout the United States and Canada. At
the sixth Convention on October 19, 1899 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
jurisdiction was extended to cover the Dominion of Canada and
the Union's name was appropriately renamed the International Brotherhood
of Electrical Workers.
With the end of the nineteenth
Century at hand and unemployment reaching new highs twenty seven
members of Local Union #44 an outside branch of the National Brotherhood
of Electrical Workers figured their best interest could be served
by petitioning the NBEW to form an inside wiremens Local Union.
A short time later the request was granted and on November 15,
1899 a charter was issued to Local Union #86 and the rest is our
"History".
