Labor & Employment Law

IBEW Photo Contest Winners Announced

By Mike Hall

Blaine Logan?s picture of a fellow Electrical Workers (IBEW) member clad in a fire retardant suit and face shield as he reaches into a tight spot to place a weld on a carbon steel refinery conduit was the runaway winner in the 2010 IBEW Photo of the Year contest.

Logan, a member of IBEW Local 545 in St. Joseph, Mo., was working with Jim Amos from IBEW Local 177 of Jacksonville, Fla., at a Conoco refinery in Alton, Ill., on a blazing summer day as Amos began work on the tricky weld.

You?re in really tight environments and you almost have to stand on your head sometimes to get the weld. Then you?ve got the heat on top of that. I took this picture to show my dad and fellow IBEW brothers how hard it was.

We don?t usually do a whole lot of welding in the trade. But when that work falls in our jurisdiction, we want to show that we?re capable of doing an excellent job.

The 15 contest finalists garnered more than 12,000 votes, and Logan?s photo received nearly twice as many votes as the runner-up. First place comes with a $200 check.

Voters awarded Casper, Wyo., Local 322 member Ezra Kelly second place for his vivid rendering of power lines gliding over an icy landscape.

Mike Muscat of Local 320 from Poughkeepsie, N.Y., placed third with a tongue-in-cheek underwater shot of a fellow lineman who coupled safety garb with scuba gear to ?fix? a downed pole.

Click here to view the runners-up and honorable mentions.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on January 23, 2011 (boomark / email).