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One of those projects
included the rewiring of Birmingham Terrace, a LMHA property
on the east side of Toledo in 1987. That win attracted the
attention of the local unions. (The entity lurking in the
shadows.) Particularly, IBEW Local 8 wanted Parker
Construction to become signatory to that union. The
leadership team advised Ed Jr. not to do it. We preferred to
get back on the road and do our thing in localities where
IBEW did not control the electrical construction industry.
Additionally, many on the
leadership team were not interested in joining because of
the chicanery that they employed as our employees prepared
to take the journeyman electrician exam in the City of
Toledo. What do I mean by that?
Well in 1985/86 IBEW used
its influence to delay and block many of our employees from
taking the examination to obtain their journeyman
electrician licenses, all because we were not signatory to
the local union.
It did not matter that Ed
had created a Department of Labor-approved electrical
training school or that many of the guys had been wiring
since the early 1970s. It was unfortunate and very
disappointing to me.
I personally worked and
studied with many of them and was acutely aware of their
capabilities to install electrical, controls and
communication systems. I wrote a variety of letters to Gene
Borton, the building commissioner/director at that time,
imploring him to put political pressure aside and allow
members of our team to take the exam.
Eventually, a few members
of the team were allowed to take the exam, including me. So
in 1986 I became a licensed journeyman electrician after
obtaining my initial electrical apprentice card in 1978.
Remember in an earlier article I mentioned that Ed Jr. had a
school in the 1970s as well. Sandra, my oldest sister earned
her journeyman license under Ed Jr’s tutelage and eventually
became the first African American female with an electrical
contractor’s license in Ohio. In 1980, she was recognized
during a ceremony attended by Walter Mondale.
Ed Jr’s desire to return
to Toledo to compete in a hostile business environment was
considered a controversial move amongst many of the
leadership team. We knew that we would have to sell our
souls to IBEW if we wanted to be considered for work in the
area. I was firmly opposed to the idea.
I and another one of my
colleagues were eventually out voted and Ed Jr. decided to
take the company signatory to mitigate any issues with
growing the business in the Toledo area in 1989. This set
the stage for another shift in the cohesion of Parker
Construction. I was obviously ticked off!!
At that point I began to
thinking about exiting the family business. Now the union
was not truly our friend!!
We understood that our
team members would enter the union at the level they were
when they worked in our business as determined by our
leadership team. However, IBEW informed the team, after we
signed, that each of us would have to take an exam to
validate our slot.
Now many of us had already
passed the City of Toledo’s journeyman exam and others had
several years of working experience. I, of course, cussed up
a storm and reminded Ed Jr. that I told him not to trust
those #@$@!%!!!
Well several of us passed
the exam and were admitted into the union as journeyman
electricians. Others, unfortunately, were not so lucky
because the exam that we were given was difficult! I am
positive that 75 percent of the existing IBEW workforce
could not have passed that exam.
Ed’s plan worked and we
began winning jobs in Toledo area. However, some of our
colleagues suffered as a result of being placed in an
apprenticeship program. Again I was not happy and decided
that it was time for me to accelerate my exit plan.
To be continued in Part VII - Entrepreneurship – Who should
you partner with or hire?
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