As a Jouneyman, you can check out IBEW without any financil obligation on your part with our "Try It, You'll Like It" trial period. During this period, you'll receive IBEW wages & benefits, yet you'll pay nothing to the IBEW.

No admission fees - No dues - Nothing!

At the successful completion of this trial period, you'll be offered membership into the IBEW.

If you choose to join, and almost everyone does, the admission fees are as follows:

Journeyman Electrician
If you can document at least 5 years of commercial / industrial electrical construction experience, have a Kansas Electrical Journeyman's license and have good overall skill and knowledge, don't delay, come see us today.

Apprentice Electrician
Whether you are a multi-year helper or are new to the electrical trade, this program will provide you with good pay and benefits while you get the classroom and on the job training needed to become a highly skilled, highly paid Journeyman Electrician. In fact, this years' starting class will earn around $220,000 each in wages and benefits duing their 4 year apprenticeship.

Construction Electrician

For those who don't fit the Apprenticeship mold, the Construction Electrician program gives you the opportunity to progress to the Journeyman level at your own rate in a slower, less structured environment. You must be able to document at least 4 years commercial / industrial electrical experience to qualify.

You and your family already enjoy many 'benefits' that the IBEW and America's other Labor Unions played major roles in securing for all workers!

Here are just a few examples:

Public Education - Did you know that there was a time when the only elementary and high schools were private? Children of workers like ourselves could not attend because of the high cost of tuition. It was the unions and their public-spirited allies that first championed free public schools.

Wage and Hour Act - Before the passage of this Act, workers were compelled to put in 60 or more hours a week plus half a day on Saturday, with no overtime pay. There was no minimum wage law, so employers were able to pay workers who were without a union a bare substinence wage. Children as young as 10 and 12 years old worked in textile mills and coal mines because there were no child labor laws to prevent employers from hiring them. Unions took up the fight to establish the 8-hour workday. They had to face fierce resistance from employers who said it would force them to shut down their businesses and cause mass unemployment. Newspaper editorials asked "What would workers do with all that free time, except booze, gamble, and get into all kinds of mischief?" But thanks to persistent pressure by unions and the worker friendly government of Franklin Roosevelt, the Wage and Hour Act was passed in 1938 and established the 8-hour workday and the 40-hour workweek, with time and half for overtime. It also put into effect a federal minimum wage law and prohibited the hiring of children under 16 in most occupations and under 18 in hazardous ones.

Unemployment Insurance - Another important provision of the Social Security Act was the creation of unemployment insurance. The business community ridiculed the idea of paying workers who were jobless. "Who would want to work," they asked, "if he or she could get a regular weekly check from the government?" Fortunately the provision became law and has served workers well during economic recessions and layoffs. And contrary to employer predictions, Americans are working harder than ever.

Social Security - Before Social Security, workers were supposed to save up for their retirement. Those who couldn't, had to depend on family and friends, seek out charity or go to the poorhouse. If they suffered a serious accident on the job and were no longer able to work, neither the government nor employers felt the slightest obligation to them. As a result, most workers kept on laboring for years past their retirement age because they couldn't afford to quit. The notion of a government-supported pension system into which employers would have to make contributions aroused violent opposition from our nation's employers. They claimed the cost of the program would be an intolerable burden on businesses. They ridiculed the very idea that every retired worker should get a monthly pension check for the rest of his or her life. Despite this opposition, America's unions fought tenatiously for Social Security with marches, rallies, petitions and delegations to Washington. In 1935, America's working class wond and the Social Security Act was passed. This landmark legislation provided a monthly pension, not only to retirees, but to disabled people, widows and widowers. If unions had not put up a winning fight, tens of millions of workers just like yourself would have suffered economic hardship over the past six decades.

Wokers Compensation - Through the efforts of unions, every state has workers compensation laws to provide monetary compensation for workers injured on the job. This legislation has benefitted millions of workers who were temporarily or permanently disabled.

Pure Food and Drug Laws - Unions played an important rold in curbing the sale of adulterated food products and harmful drugs. Although food and pharmaceutical companies fought the law, insisting that they had a right to run their businesses as "they saw fit", unions and consumer groups won out with the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act.

Private Pension Funds - America's unions fought hard for the enactment of the Employment Retirement Income Security Act, known as ERISA. This law is aimed at halting the abuse and mismanagement of private pension funds by employers and insuring that workers who contribute to these funds will get the pensions they have been promised.

You've probably heard some people say that, while unions may have done some good things in the past, they've outlived their usefulness. Ridiculous! Because we live in a dog-eat-dog society, and most of us aren't rich and powerful, it's far too easy to be victimized if we stand alone. Employers love success and profit, but in today's society, most fail to share that success and profit with those who labor so hard to obtain it for them. That's why people you'd never suspect would become part of a union are doing so: lawyers, doctors, writers, pilots, professional athletes, TV newscasters, film stars, ballet dancers and college professors, to name a few. And the number one thing that becoming part of a union does for anyone who works for another is to give them collective bargaining strength.

This collective bargaining strength gives workers protection against the arbitrary power of employers and creates a "level playing field" between workers and employers. The result of this "level playing field" is mutual negotiations that enable both sides to find a middle ground where an amicable agreement can be reached. The workers who make up any particular union want their employer to be competitive and profitable. That's to everyone's advantage. At the same time, these same workers know that by being part of a union, their employers will have to share that success by paying them more money and bigger and better benefits. The old adage is as true as ever, "In unity, there is strength."