Declaration of the IBEW
“Our cause is the cause of human justice, human rights, human security.”
“We refuse, and will always refuse, to condone or tolerate dictatorship or oppression of any kind.”
“We will find and expel from our midst any who might attempt to destroy, by subversion, all that we stand for.”
“This Brotherhood will continue to oppose communism, Nazism or any other subversive “ism.” We will support our God, our Nation, our Union.”
It’s a powerful statement of the values that IBEW leaders and members pledge to uphold when they take the oath of membership. And combined with the union’s first objective, to organize all workers in the entire electrical industry in the United States and Canada, the message is unmistakable.
“There is a place in the IBEW for working people of every race and gender, every religion and sexual orientation, every background,” said International President Kenneth Cooper in launching the implementation phase of the union’s new diversity, inclusion and equity initiative, “IBEW Strong.”
“This diversity and full inclusion effort is about making sure that the IBEW genuinely represents the interests of every single worker in our industries,” he said. “It’s about ensuring that people entering the workforce today — members of one of the most diverse generations in history — feel that they have a place in the IBEW.”
– IBEW Constitution
Objects are:
- To organize all workers in the entire electrical industry in the United States and Canada, including all those in public utilities and electrical manufacturing, into local unions,
- To promote reasonable methods of work,
- To cultivate feelings of friendship among those of our industry,
- To settle all disputes between employers and employees by arbitration (if possible),
- To assist each other in sickness or distress,
- To secure employment,
- To reduce the hours of daily labor,
- To secure adequate pay for our work,
- To seek a higher and higher standard of living,
- To seek security for the individual,
- And by legal and proper means to elevate the moral, intellectual and social conditions of our members, their families and dependents, in the interest of a higher standard of citizenship.
– The IBEW Constitution