In 1919 utility workers started a 20- year fight for fair representation and quickly demonstrated a perseverance that helped them win that fight. A valiant strike attempt against the Brooklyn Union Gas Company (BUG) was crushed by vicious opposition from the company, the use of callous scabs, police intervention and injunction action. Employees suffered worsened working conditions after the strike.

In huge, unheated gas manufacturing plants men worked 12-hour days in freezing conditions in the dead of winter and in unbearable heat during the summer. Foremen reigned supreme in a hostile working environment where pink slips were handed out on flimsy premises, workers only received two Sundays off each month, overtime was uncompensated unless it was worked during their few time off days, and overtime books were often disregarded by management.

In 1935 gas men at the Greenpoint Coke Oven Plant tried to organize into the Brotherhood of Utility Employees and stayed strong while the company made several attempts at breaking their union. In February of the following year BUG fired a union member so the morning and afternoon shifts walked off the job in solidarity. But the night shift was not well organized and after 10 days the company strikebreakers had gained too much power which enabled them to win the strike.

Workers who returned to BUG were reinstated at lower wages and about 40 were fired in direct contradiction to the National Labor Relations Act, which management refused to recognize. Even with the law on the workers’ side, it took four years of persistence to win $30,000 of back pay and the reinstatement of 15 workers.

In 1940, the CIO Utility Workers Union became BUG employees’ union but failed workers; even though it negotiated a contract, it did not enforce the provisions of the agreement.

The hardworking utility workers needed a Brotherhood like TWU. Many had strong ethnic ties with Mike Quill and his Clanna- Gael and IRA Club cohorts, and they were also impressed with the TWU’s strong gains made for NYC transit workers. Hoping for similar support from the Union on their behalf, utility workers voted for TWU representation.

A mass rally in the Labor Lyceum in downtown Brooklyn on December 30, 1941 resulted in a 90 percent approval vote from the Independent’s Executive Board. Three months later TWU won a New York State Labor Relations Board election by a twoto- one majority. On July 28, 1942 members of Utility Division Local 101 endorsed their first TWU contract.

Along with a check-off for Union dues, the contract included wage increases of 10-18 percent each year, union security, double time pay for Sunday work, and a 5 percent night differential.

Local 101 soon organized Brooklyn Borough Gas and Queensborough Gas and Electric Company employees. Today, the local represents about 1,700 utility workers at what is now known as National Grid.