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The spring 2024 Belonging and Excellence for All (BE4ALL) challenge asked SMART members to tell their union story, prompted by the question: Why are you proud to be a SMART member? For Paul Garner, a longtime Local 55 sheet metal worker out of Boise, Idaho, the answer boils down to our union’s tradition of mentorship and solidarity:

“My story begins in May of 1998. As an aimless young man, I applied for a shop clean-up job at a sheet metal shop. But it became an experience in guidance-by-exposure to the materials and parts the shop created. As well as gaining friendships with mentors (both gruff and patient), that guidance encouraged me to pursue this career. It occurred to me then that I admired their knowledge and would seek to be that source of knowledge and mentor the generations that followed me.

Paul Garner, right, with his brand-new BE4ALL champion jacket, presented by Local 55 Regional Manager Kolby Hanson.

“In my four-year apprenticeship, I gained more friendships with classmates of varying ages and backgrounds. But we were brought together in this program, and we bonded over a shared set of struggles. Learning to be good workers, having a good income for ourselves and our families, and gaining knowledge for our careers ahead. Back then, you could tell who would coast through easily, and who would have a harder time doing HVAC work. But the folks who were doing better helped those who weren’t getting the understanding as easily. And we all had different strengths to lend in that experience.

“So, 26 years later, I have mentored and taught. Bought tools, meals and drinks for young workers, shared travel expenses, beat up my body and learned what not to do, to keep myself able to return to work each day. I am sought after by different foremen to help guide their workforce. I am approached as a person that others want to learn from.

“In a decade, I will be able to retire with an income comparable to or better than my weekly income. My parents didn’t have that stability. And I have guided my kids to understand the true benefits of unions and the trades.”

Thank you, Brother Garner, for embodying the best of our union!

On Thursday, April 25, the Biden-Harris administration announced that the United States Department of Commerce and Micron Technology signed a non-binding preliminary memorandum of terms to provide up to $6.14 billion in CHIPS and Science Act funding to help build Micron’s semiconductor facilities in upstate New York and Idaho. The proposed funding is expected to create approximately 20,000 construction jobs, including union sheet metal positions for SMART members.

“Today’s announcement of proposed funding for Micron’s semiconductor fabrication facilities in New York and Idaho would essentially amount to a multi-billion-dollar investment in SMART members,” SMART General President Michael Coleman said in response. “Thanks to the CHIPS and Science Act — a groundbreaking, pro-worker bill that is already creating jobs for our members from coast to coast — these project labor agreement-covered megaprojects would bring even more union sheet metal workers onto the jobsite, as well as create more opportunities for local residents to enter a middle-class career in our trade. We applaud the Biden administration and the Department of Commerce for continuing to invest in America’s workers, and we look forward to getting to work.”

Waterfowlers in the North­west will have access to several new duck hunt­ing blinds in the Mid-Columbia River National Wildlife Refuge Complex (NWRC) because of a recent Union Sports­men’s Alliance (USA) Work Boots on the Ground conservation project completed by union volunteers.

Twenty sheet metal apprentices of SMART Local 55 donated 400 hours of labor to build eight blinds, including three wheelchair-acces­sible blinds, to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) specifications, according to Travis Swayze, IBEW Local 112 business manager and the project leader.

“When the pandemic was in full swing, we postponed a couple of things, including a Take Kids Fishing event,” he said. “So this is really our first USA project. And I must hand it to the sheet metal workers for step­ping up and getting it done in the amount of time we had.”

“When we proposed the project to Travis, he jumped on it,” said USA Conservation Programs Manager Sam Phipps. “He knew how much of an impact it would have with the hunting public and a valuable partner like the Fish and Wildlife Service — and he picked up the reins.”

Twenty SMART Local 55 apprentices donated 400 hours to build eight blinds.

On Saturday, October 8, 24 union volunteers from SMART Local 55, IBEW Local 112 and IUPAT District Council 5 donated 100 hours to install four of the new hunting blinds on the Umatilla National Wildlife Refuge, said Lamont Glass, Mid-Columbia River NWRC visitor services manager.

“They were put into a high-traffic unit where no type of blind existed before,” Glass said, “so they’ll be a good addition to our lottery draw area.”

Overall, union members donated approximately 500 hours of labor, a value of $26,500, to the waterfowl blind project, while funding for building materials came from the FWS and proceeds from the USA’s Tri-Cities Building & Construction Trades Council Conservation Dinner.

“And there were many more people behind the scenes who were part of the whole process,” added Swayze, “including volunteers from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; Laborers International Union of North America; International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers; Operative Plasterers’ and Cement Masons’ International Association; United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry of the United States and Canada; International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers Union; along with the Washington State, Central Washington and Pendleton Building & Construction Trade Councils, who were heavily involved in our chapter banquets. These fundraising dinners make projects like this possible.”

Twenty-four union volunteers and some family members installed four blinds at Umatilla National Wildlife Refuge.

FWS personnel will install one wheelchair-accessible blind in a newly developed area at McNary Wildlife Refuge, as well as a new blind to replace an old pit blind at the Cold Spring refuge, Glass further explained. Two accessible blinds will be installed over the next year as opportunities to open new areas arise, he added.  

“It was this refuge system’s first partnership with the USA and local union volunteers, and it turned out well,” Glass said. “It was a great savings in labor costs for the FWS, and we look forward to working together on future projects.”

“With the nature of the union building and construction trades, it makes sense for us to work with an organization like the Union Sportsmen’s Alliance that supports our members’ activities,” Swayze concluded. “All the union affiliates strive to give back to the communi­ties in which their members live and work, and our union brothers and sisters are always up for the task at hand.”