Iron Workers Local 396 swears-in new officers, looks to the future

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IRON WORKERS LOCAL 396 swore-in a new slate of officers at the regular union meeting on July 31. They are in the FRONT ROW(from left) Business Manager/Financial Secretary Treasure Bob Hunt, Business Agent Phil Decker, Trustee Dan Walsh, Examining Committee member Aurora Bihler, Sergeant-at-Arms Tony Martin, Executive Committee members Jake Pendergrass and Marvin Duncan, Trustee Brian Goedde, Executive Committee member Marty Weir, Conductor Scott Barnes, Trustee Dan McIntyre, Executive Committee member Carlos Sanchez. In the BACK ROW are (from left) Examining Committee member Katie Johnson, Executive Committee member Bobby Heibeck, Recording Secretary Mark Penrod, President/Business Agent Mike Heibeck, Business Agent Jeremiah Bates, Vice President Mark Crowe, Business Agent Travis Barnes, and Examining Committee member Patrick Wolfmeyer. – Iron Workers Local 396 photo

Iron Workers Local 396 is looking to the future with a diverse slate of new officers and an embrace of new technology.

“I’m looking forward to working with all the newly elected officers,” newly elected President/Business Agent Mike Heibeck said. “We’re brand new at every position except two. We have a young group, they’re from the tech age. We are going to be looking into moving the local forward with the technology, including paying our union dues online.”

Newly elected Business Manager/Financial Secretary Treasurer Bob Hunt agrees.

“We’ve got a good young diverse team of officers,” he said “They’re ready to keep us moving forward with the technology and the way everything is changing. It’s going to be a good team. They have a lot of ideas.”

One of the changes that Local 396 has embraced is the Dodge Pipeline, an online lead service that connects construction professionals with active public and private construction projects, providing access planning documents through post-bid phases, project details, key contacts, bid lists, plans, specs and addenda.

WORKING THROUGH COVID-19
Even with the COVID-19 pandemic pummeling much of the economy, there’s still plenty of work in the building and construction trades – from the new NGA (National Geospatial Agency) headquarters, new soccer stadium and Forsythe Pointe (a major office and parking development) in Clayton.

“They haven’t really shut any jobs down,” Heibeck said. “They may have somebody test positive on a job and they shut it down for a day or two, but then they’re back up. It seems like for the most part, people are going back to work.”

As a result, Hunt and Heibeck say Local 396’s membership is at about 85 percent employment.

“We might have a couple of people down at the hall in the morning looking for something, but for the most part, the membership is working,” Heibeck said. “Pretty much, the ones that aren’t working are in between jobs. Work is really good, and it looks to continue to get better. We have a lot of big jobs in the pipeline. Even out in Franklin County, where my territory is, there’s two or three decent jobs going on.”

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