IUEC 1

Platinum SPONSOR 

Platinum SPONSOR

I.U.E.C. 1 

125th Anniversary 

ELEVATOR CONSTRUCTORS LOCAL ONE 

125-YEAR ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION 

Saturday, May 14, 2022 

6:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. 

Past and Current Efforts Empower Local One at 125 Years 

Brothers and Sisters, Family and Friends: 

On behalf of Local One, I welcome you to our Quasquicentennial Anniversary Celebration. 

It is a great pleasure to commemorate this occasion with each of you. Serving as President and 

Business Manager of Local One has been one of my greatest honors, and when I say I am proud to “… 

fight the good fight …” alongside our more than 3,000 members, it is an absolute understatement. 

Making it to 125 years is no easy feat. That said, I often wonder what Local One Founding Father, 

Brother Enoch Hill, would think of what we have become and how our union has grown from just 

six signatory contractors in 1894 to more than 54 today. 

Brother Hill was nothing short of a visionary, and I am sure that as he looks down on us, he 

appreciates that in this ever-evolving trade, our members continue to adapt, thrive and innovate. 

While much has changed over the past 125 years, Local One’s core values have remained 

constant. We understand the power of the collective voice. We know the value of our relationships 

with righteous contractors and we build mutually beneficial partnerships with these entities. We 

recognize the skills and tenacity it takes to make it in the elevator industry. 

Local One elevator constructors developed and continue to shape the world-famous New York 

City skyline. In a city with more than 80,000 elevators, our members keep things running – rolling up our sleeves and working each day to help 

New Yorkers go about their daily routines safely and efficiently. 

With a training and education program that is second to none and a first-in-class workforce, safety is ingrained in our culture. In order to 

ensure that our members are safe on the job and empowered to live healthy, fulfilling lives, our union prioritizes the highest standards of health 

and safety while focusing on continued education and training opportunities. Empowering workers is at the heart of all we do. 

Local One’s organizing efforts keep workers front and center. We believe every worker in the elevator industry deserves a fair opportunity to 

join a union. Whether it’s effectively organizing companies or engaging with individual workers, our objective is to level the playing field once 

and for all. 

Thanks to leaders like Enoch Hill and all the past and present officers and members of Local One, this union has made great strides, and while 

the fight surely continues, we must be proud of how far we’ve come. I am inspired by our past and can only imagine what our future holds. We 

are men and women of unbending principle, and we are card-carrying members of the greatest union in the world. 

Thank you again for joining us as we celebrate our union, our active and retired members, and our journey over the past 125 years. Together, 

let’s commit to another 125 years of success and growth. 

Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel 

811 7th Avenue, West 53rd Street 

Lenny Legotte 

President/Business Manager 

I.U.E.C. Local No. 1 

Cocktail Reception........................................................6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. 

This book was proudly produced by 

Dinner & Dancing........................................................7:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. 

Local One and Union Histories give special thanks to the Local One 

Retirees Club for its invaluable contributions to this book and for the 

input provided by many of its individual members. 

Head Historian: Calvin Jefferson 

Research Assistant & Proofreader: Ann Wilkins Jefferson 

Art Direction: Andy Taucher 

Layout & Design: Steven Demanett

The 125 th Anniversary History of 

Elevator Constructors Local One 

Taking New York & New Jer sey Toward the Sky & Back 

for 125 Years 

“The elevator’s wide adoption had a dramatic effect on how we work and live. 

Before, most buildings were built only a few stories high, since climbing stairs is 

a tiring, high-impact activity. With elevators, the sky became the limit. Offices, 

and later homes, on higher floors commanded the highest prices, for the view and 

the respite from street noise. The world-famous New York City skyline? Impossible 

without the elevator.” 

– WIRED Magazine, March 23, 2010 

Nearly half a century after powered elevators 

first appeared in U.S. factories and hotels 

during the 1840s and more than three 

decades after Otis Elevator Company installed 

the country’s first commercial elevator in a fivestory 

department store at Broadway and Broome 

Street in New York City in March 1857, Brother 

Enoch Hill led a group of men in forming the 

city’s first union of elevator constructors in 

1891. Among the city’s fast-growing number 

of skyscrapers on which members of the new 

local worked was the Manhattan Life Insurance 

Building, which when completed in 1894 was 

the first skyscraper to surpass 330 feet in height 

in Manhattan, and the 13-floor Mutual Reserve 

Fund Life Association Building, one of the first 

in the city built with a steel-frame structure. 

On June 6 of the year, the union elevators 

constructors also went on strike against the 

owner of a large building at 75 th Street and 

Amsterdam Avenue to protest its employment 

of non-union constructors on the project. 

The union carpenters, plumbers, varnishers, 

marble workers, cement workers and tile 

layers all walked off the job in support of the 

elevator constructors.

I.U.E.C. 1 

125th Anniversary I.U.E.C. 1 


Local 1 Founding Father 

Local One charter member Brother Enoch 

Hill was one of the pioneers of the Elevator 

Constructors union, having been one 

of the first elevator constructors to 

see the need for organizing. He and 

several others formed the Elevator 

Constructors and Millwrights Union 

of New York, which would become 

I.U.E.C. Local One, for which he served 

as financial secretary for a number of 

terms while he was employed by the Otis 

Elevator Company for more than 35 years. 

Brother Hill passed away in 1921, after which his 

obituary in the November Elevator Constructor read, in 

part, “He was a man of many admirable characteristics — 

singing a rollicking ditty or telling a humorous story, yet 

always mindful of the feelings of his hearers lest he offend.” 

The following day, June 7, 1894, the 

constructors reorganized their local into the 

Elevator Constructors and Millwrights 

Union of New York City – the direct 

predecessor of today’s International Union of 

Elevator Constructors Local No. One. Again 

headed by Brother Hill, other organizers 

included Brother Edward Frost and Brother 

Harry McLaughlin, who would later serve as 

the local’s president. 

Among the contractors for which the 

fledgling local’s membership worked at the 

time and into the succeeding years were Otis 

Brothers Elevator, McAdams & Cartwright, 

Reedy Elevator, Graves Elevator and Sprague 

Electric Elevator. 

Throughout its earliest years, the local 

remained active in its staunch efforts to gain 

better working conditions and wages for its 

membership. By March 17, 1896, for example, 

the local had informed its employers that on 

and after April 1, members would work only 

eight-hour days and their wages would be 

$3.25 per day for mechanics and $2.25 for 

helpers. The New York Times reported the next 

day that “most of the employers will grant the 

men’s demands.” 

Among a litany of seemingly continuous 

actions, the elevator constructors on 

April 2, 1896, joined other buildingtrades 

members in a strike at the 

construction site of Siegel-Cooper 

Building in the 600 block of Sixth 

Avenue after they discovered nonunion 

cornice- and skylight-makers 

were employed on the job. Then on 

April 29, the constructors and union 

mechanics of other trades went on strike on 

the 13-story Syndicate Building at the corner 

of Liberty and Nassau streets after Sprague 

Electric refused to sign the union agreement 

for a standard wage scale and eight-hour day 

and hired non-union elevator constructors on 

the project. 

As it would into the coming years and decades, 

the Elevator Constructors and Millwrights 

Union was also fending off jurisdictional 

incursions by other building trades unions. 

Most notably were attacks by the International 

Association of Machinists, which were 

temporarily halted on March 11, 1897, when 

the two sides reached an agreement whereby 

the elevator constructors “were given charge 

of most of the outside work on the elevators 

and the machinists would control most of the 

work in the shops,” according to the March 12 

New York Tribune. Among additional features, 

the pact further provided that the machinists 

would no longer be required to pay $10 per man 

each month to the Elevator Constructors and 

Millwrights Union, the newspaper reported. 

Meanwhile, the elevator constructors and 

millwrights had joined with several other 

unions to form the New York City Building 

Trades Council in an effort to present a 

unified front within the construction industry. 

The constructors and millwrights had also 

been affiliated with the Board of Walking 

Delegates, a central group 

of labor organizations, 

but on June 6, 1898, 

the union and six other 

building-trades locals 

disassociated with that 

body after it issued an 

ultimatum stating that 

because the methods 

of the Council were 

“antagonistic,” all 

unions that had joined 

the Council “must either 

resign from the Council 

… or be suspended from 

the Board,” The New York Sun 

reported on June 7. 

International Brotherhood of 

Electrical Workers (I.B.E.W.) Local 

No. 3 of New York City also regularly 

clashed with the elevator constructors 

over electrical work performed for 

elevator installations – which would 

remain an issue for decades to come. 

In April 1901, for example, the 

constructors union won a fight with 

the electricians over work in the 

Atlantic Building on lower William 

Street in Manhattan, while Local 3 

(which was affiliated with the Board 

of Walking Delegates) was awarded 

disputed electrical work in the Broad- 

Exchange Building on Broad Street 

and Exchange Place. 

Local to National Organization 

Like all other elevator-constructors 

local unions in cities across the 

country at the turn of the 20 th 

Century, the Elevator Constructors 

and Millwrights Union of New York 

City was an independent local with 

its own unique name and bylaws 

and no national-union affiliation. 

However, by that time, the elevator 

First I.U.E.C. General 

President F. W. Doyle 

A Brief History of The I.U.E.C. 

“They were unanimous in their resolve and 

solidarity.” 

– From “History of the I.U.E.C.,” 2001 

Eleven men representing six unaffiliated elevatorconstructor 

local unions from six different cities (including 

New York City) met on July 15, 1901, at the Griswold Hotel 

in Pittsburgh to bring together the various independent 

locals across the country into one national union. That very 

day, those delegates officially formed the National Union 

of Elevator Constructors, and by July 18, they had also 

adopted the new union’s bylaws and elected its first slate of 

officers, including President F. W. Doyle of St. Louis. 

Just two years later in 1903, the union became the 

International Union of Elevator Constructors after it committed 

funds to the Ottawa Defense Fund on behalf of striking 

constructors in Canada. 

Although an agreement between the I.U.E.C. and the elevator manufacturers 

that stated only the union would construct elevators was recognized when 

the American Federation of Labor granted the I.U.E.C. a charter in June 

1903, contentious jurisdictional disputes with other trade unions persisted 

throughout the following decades. Most notably or at first, ongoing clashes 

with the Association of Mechanics were not resolved until 1914 at the A.F.L. 

National Convention. Then in 1920, the elevator contractors again successfully 

protected their jurisdiction over electrical work on elevator construction from a 

major challenge by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. 

Then in 1922, the I.U.E.C. and its employers signed their first national 

agreement. Known as the Atlantic City Agreement after the city in which it was 

agreed upon, it set a wage scale for elevator constructors based on those of the 

seven primary trades in the building industry: bricklayers, plasterers, carpenters, 

electricians, sheet metal workers, plumbers, steamfitters and ironworkers. 

Among the countless benefits the union would go on to attain for its 

membership, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, it worked with 

elevator manufacturers to put a plan in place to create more work to counter 

the rampant unemployment of the membership across the country. As part 

of the strategy, the manufacturers made agreements with building owners 

by which repair work on elevators would be handled through the installing 

company, while the I.U.E.C. accepted a reduction in wages for the new 

maintenance work, which created a large amount of new jobs. 

Seven decades later when the I.U.E.C. marked its 100 th anniversary in July 

2001, it was more than 25,000 members strong. As the union’s centennial 

history states: 

“There could be no skyscrapers without elevators. 

Technology created the need, and members of 

the I.U.E.C. filled that need, becoming the most 

qualified and trained constructors of elevators 

in the world. This need for qualified elevator 

constructors to make higher rises possible gave 

the I.U.E.C. its strength.” 

(Abridged from “History of the I.U.E.C.”)

I.U.E.C. 1 



and vicinity nearly complete at that time, the 

union was having difficulty supplying enough 

constructors to its employers – to the extent 

that, according to Brother Coppers, “The 

employers even went so far as to cast aside the 

discrimination list, which stands so prominent 

before you when seeking a position from some 

of the elevator concerns in this city.” 

Local One hosted the National Union of Elevator 

Constructors’ Second Annual Convention in New York City 

from September 8 through 15, 1903. Among the actions 

taken by delegates from locals across the country during 

the convention, they created The Elevator Constructor as 

the official journal of the union. The first issue of the monthly 

magazine was subsequently published for November 1903. 

Delegates to the I.U.E.C. First Annual Convention, held in Chicago in September 1902, included Local One officers 

Brother Henry McLaughlin (back row, fourth from left) and Brother Edward Oliver (back row, sixth from left). 

constructors had realized that they needed to 

organize nationally to gain the strength and 

representation necessary for their movement to 

move ahead. 

To that end, 11 men, including New York 

City union members Brother McLaughlin and 

Brother Edward Oliver, met in Pittsburgh on 

July 15, 1901, and formed the National Union 

of Elevator Constructors (N.U.E.C.) – which 

would soon after become the International 

Union of Elevator Constructors (I.U.E.C.) 

in 1903. “It had taken just three days to form 

an organization which would promote and 

protect the interests of thousands of elevator 

constructors across America then and now,” 

the “History of the I.U.E.C.” recounted 100 

years later. 

During the three-day conference, the 

six local unions in attendance applied for 

charters with the new national body and paid 

their $5 charter fee. Subsequently, the New 

York City Union was designated N.U.E.C. 

Local No. One when it was issued its charter 

on July 18, 1901. 

Meanwhile, the millwrights who had been 

affiliated with the New York City union 

remained associated with Local One, as 

they would into 1906. When the elevator 

constructors joined with the N.U.E.C., they 

reserved to themselves the unofficial title 

of “Elevator Constructors and Millwrights 

Local No. 1,” retaining an affiliated union of 

millwrights known as Elevator Constructors 

and Millwrights Local No. 2. 

As the union’s centennial history states, being 

a member of a union during that time was highly 

divisive. But as the essay also goes on to declare, 

“Being a union member allowed protection 

against unfair employers even if there weren’t 

any labor laws to protect a worker.” 

However, many internal dilemmas faced 

the elevator constructors. During the 

summer of 1902, for instance, the local 

was “badly handicapped for mechanics,” as 

Corresponding Secretary Edward Coppers 

decried a letter published in the March 1904 

Elevator Constructor, the monthly publication 

of the I.U.E.C. With numerous jobs in the city 

Additionally, while early discussions 

between the national union and elevator 

manufacturers in December 1902 resulted in a 

“letter of mutual agreement” that stated “only 

one union, the I.U.E.C., would construct 

elevators,” jurisdictional infractions in New 

York City persisted. In particular, fighting with 

the electrical workers continued, highlighted 

by a work stoppage on the new Mutual Life 

Building in February 1902. 

But Local One also made many inroads 

during that time. As such, beginning April 

1, 1903, the wage scale for its journeyman 

members increased to $4.25 per day for 

an eight-hour workday. Members were 

consistently employed on projects such as 

construction of the 18-story luxury St. Regis 

Hotel, which was the tallest hotel in New 

York City when it opened in 1904. 

Then to further improve its standing, in 

August 1903, Local One struck against all 

construction projects on which elevator 

contractors who were members of 

the Employers’ Association – with 

which the union’s employers were 

not affiliated – were working. 

However, by the end of that year, 

nearly 350 of the local’s more than 

700 members were unemployed 

as the elevator construction 

business in and around New York 

City became “very dull,” the local 

reported in the December 1903 

Elevator Constructor. 

The following April 1, the local 

and its roughly 700 members 

Local One Brother Edward 

Coppers, pictured in 1907, served 

as the local’s corresponding 

secretary and also as the third 

vice-president of the I.U.E.C. 

again went on strike as they sought to 

enforce an advance in wages from $4.25 

to $5.25 per day for journeymen. Brother 

Coppers reported in the May 1904 Elevator 

Constructor that during the strike, “The 

elevator constructors of New York were 

never more thoroughly organized than they 

are at this present writing, and for the repair 

portion of our vocation I can speak even 

better, as out of the six repair shops doing 

work of any consequence, five have signed 

our agreement.” 

After nearly a month of negotiations with 

the Elevator Manufacturers’ Association, the 

dispute was settled on April 22, 1904, through a 

special arbitration board of two representatives 

each from the employers and the union. The 

board subsequently awarded the local a raise 

of 75 cents to $5 per day for mechanics and 

$3.50 per day for helpers. 

Regardless, the elevator trade 

remained “very dull” that spring, 

with half the local’s membership 

still idle much of that time. 

Before the end of that year, 

however, employment picked 

up rapidly and conditions 

improved for Local One. What’s 

more, an arbitration umpire 

in late 1904 ruled in favor of 

the elevator constructors in yet 

another jurisdictional dispute, 

declaring that the constructors 

had jurisdiction over hoisting

I.U.E.C. 1 



I.U.E.C. Local 1 Union Halls 

(No records of meeting and office locations exist before the I.U.E.C. was 

formed in 1901. The local’s offices and meeting spaces were situated at 

different locations until 2009, when the local moved into its own union hall.) 

Meeting Locations and Union Halls 

Breevort Hall 

154 East 54 th Street 

1901 into 1919 

Central Opera House 


1919 into 1946 

Caravan Hall 


1946 into 1961 

Various Locations including: 

Fashion Industries High School 

Long Island City High School 

Queens Vocational High School 

1961 into 2009 

235 Broadway, Room 47 

1904 

Central Hall 

32 nd Street & 7 th Avenue 

1904 into 1907 

Central Hall 

54 th Street & B Avenue 

1907 

Breevort Hall 


1908 into 1919 


1919 into 1961 

Fisk Building 

250 West 57 th Street 

1961 into 1967 


1967 into 1977 


1977 

55 West 39 th Street 

1978 into 1986 

150-42 12 th Avenue 

Whitestone, New York 

1986 into 2001 

I.U.E.C. Local 1 Union Hall 

47-24 27 th Street 

Long Island City, New York 

2001 to Present 

Local 1 New Jersey Union Hall 

340 Convery Boulevard 

Perth Amboy, New Jersey 

Present 

engineers for the “removal of apparatus 

to operate all elevator cars, irrespective 

of what purpose they are used for, until 

completion of the building.” 

Nevertheless, into the summer 

months of 1905, employment 

conditions for Local One remained 

poor, with 400 of its 716 members 

unemployed by that June, despite a 

settlement on a new so-called “Plan 

of Arbitration” between the building 

trades and the Employers’ Association. 

But the agreement eventually helped 

gain business for the contractors and 

manhours for the union later that year, 

prompting Local One Corresponding 

Secretary William Havenstrite (a 

former international president) to 

Local One moved its Union Hall into the former Staley 

Elevator building in Long Island City in 2001. 

The completed Manhattan Municipal Building in New York City, circa 1915. 

(Waugh, F. A., 1869-1943. Frank A. Waugh Papers (FS 088). Special Collections 

and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.) 

announce in the December 1905 Elevator 

Constructor, “At present our local is enjoying 

a most promising outlook for the future. 

With abundance of work on hand ….” 

A strike by the ironworkers union in New 

York City throttled employment for the 

elevator constructors beginning in early 1906 

and idled a large number of its members. 

Compounded by another prolonged lull in 

the construction industry and prolonged 

unemployment, by April 1906 Local One fell 

into debt to the I.U.E.C. for failure to pay its 

per-capita tax or assessment for three months. 

Subsequently, the local was suspended from 

the union. 

Also that year, the International Association 

of Machinists filed a complaint with the 

American Federation of Labor (A.F.L.) against 

Local One and its affiliated Millwrights 

Local 2, claiming that the locals were taking 

jurisdiction over all types of millwright work, 

such as “The erection of all shafting, hangers 

and pulleys; the erection and assembling of 

machinery for the transmission of power, either 

by belt, gear, chain or cable; also the assembling 

and erecting of all machinery driven by same; 

also the erecting and placing in position of all 

The Manhattan Municipal Building in New York City under 

construction in 1913. (Form the U.S. Library of Congress.)

I.U.E.C. 1 



motors, also all fans for ventilating, suction or 

blowing purposes. The placing of all mills for 

grinding purposes, also lathes and planers in 

machine or woodworking shops.” 

The A.F.L. Executive Council eventually 

sided with the machinists, agreeing with their 

declaration that “Elevator Constructors and 

Millwrights No. 2 is not composed of elevator 

constructors and has never been affiliated 

with this international union either directly 

or through Local No. 1 of New York; (and) 

that while Local No. 1 … retained locally 

its old title of ‘Elevator Constructors and 

Millwrights,’ the latter title was not recognized 

by this international union, and the local, so 

far as we are aware, does not include in its 

membership any men who are not engaged as 

elevator constructors.” 

Despite those setbacks, before the end of 

1906, Local One, with a membership of more 

than 980, paid its indebtedness of $4,413.45 to 

the international union. Afterwards, I.U.E.C. 

Secretary-Treasurer Henry Snow ended his report 

in the January 1907 Elevator Constructor, “To the 

members of No. 1 we say: ‘A hearty welcome back 

into the fold of the international union.’” 

At Emergence of The Skyscraper 

“Work still continues brisk, and 

the future promises great things in the 

building line. This means work for 

the elevator constructor.” 

With multiple buildings over 600-feet tall 

being erected in New York City into 1907, 

Brother Havenstrite was able to make that 

announcement in the March 1907 Elevator 

Constructor. Just a few months later, Local One 

Business Agent Andrew Eagan similarly told 

the June 2 Standard Union newspaper “Affairs 

in (the) organization are booming, and the 

prospects are for a steady run of work for some 

time. In Manhattan, business was never better 

and indications all along the line are of peace 

and prosperity.” 

With a membership approaching 1,800 and 

work abundant, the local in late October 1907 

threatened to strike the Elevator Manufacturers’ 

Association if its contractors did not raise its 

previously reduced daily scale of $4.50 up to 

$5. However, as work waned before the end of 

the year, the local agreed to renew its current 

agreement with employers into 1908. 

Members of Local One who worked on the new Municipal Building in New York City in 1914 included (left to right, first row) 

W. Price, W. McGregory, P. Leonard, W. McNally, J. McGrorey, J. Murphy, J. McNally and T. Chesley; (second row) J. Barry, W. Callum, 

C. Tiernan, A. Williams and J. McQuade; (third row) H. Gray, L. Kugleman, A. Clarkson, D. Healey, H. Boyle, J. McCormack, P. Gennoy, 

F. Rogers, R. Coates, A. Charbonneau, J. Haupt and T. Lynch; and (back row) W. Loughlin, F. Ferguson, E. Degranby and H. Cuff. 

Brother John G. Green, after whom the Local One Union Hall was 

named in honor of his long-term of service as an officer of the local, 

including vice president/business agent from 1974 through 1984 and 

president/business manager from 1984 through 2003. 

Lethargic employment conditions continued 

that year, putting some 400 Local One 

members out of work by March – forcing 

many of them to find work in other vocations 

until the elevator business improved. Many 

of those members who were working in the 

trade were employed by smaller firms that were 

performing a large amount of overhauling and 

repair work. 

Conditions steadied for Local One during 

the balance of the first decade of the 1900s, 

fluctuating at times with the highs and lows 

of the seasonally and economically dependent 

construction industry. Some of the major 

projects on which the union elevators worked 

heading into the 1910s included the Gimbel 

Building and the Municipal Piers at the foot 

of 23 rd Street, in which about 50 elevators were 

installed by the National Elevator Company 

under the direction of Local One Brother 

Harry Thompson. 

I.U.E.C. Local 1 Leadership 

(No records of officers exist before the I.U.E.C. was formed 

in 1901. At that time and for the next three decades, Local 

1 was headed by a President, who was assisted by a slate of 

officers and multiple Business Agents, before the position of 

Business Manager was created and combined with the position 

of President sometime during the early 1930s.) 

Presidents 

William Bullis 

1901 through 1903 

W. T. Dunford 

1903 

Edward Oliver 

1904 

Edward Brown 

1904 into 1905 

Eugene Conger 

1905 

Joseph F. Murphy 

October 1905 through 1906 

Joseph F. Cogan 

1907 


1908 

Henry McLaughlin 

1909 into 1910 

Verne J. Lanning 

1910 into 1912 


1912 into 1916 

Andrew Eagan 

1916 into 1921 

Jere Rohan 

1921 into Late 1920s 

Business Managers/ 

Presidents 

Edward A. Smith 

Late 1920s into 1960 

Hugh T. Cuff 

1960 into 1967 

George W. Koch 

1967 into 1972 

L. Vincent Watson 

1972 into 1979 

Karl Stork 

1979 into 1984 

John G. Green 

1984 to 2003 

Raymond Hernandez 

2003 to July 2007 

Lenny Legotte 

July 2007 to current 

Local One brokered a new agreement with 

the employers on January 4, 1910, for wages 

of $5 per day for journeyman mechanics and 

$3.20 per day for helpers, but only after the 

union successfully spurned the contractors’ 

proposal to be able to hire their own workers 

regardless of union affiliation. Instead, the two 

sides agreed to a clause in the agreement that 

provided that “all men hired by the employers 

shall be examined as to their qualification by 

the regular examining board of the union, and 

in case of rejection shall be re-examined the 

following week by a committee consisting of 

two employers and two employees.”

I.U.E.C. 1 



Then on May 1 of that year, with work 

“plenty in (the) craft,” as Brother Eagan told 

that day’s Standard Union, Local One and its 

employers signed a new, three-year agreement. 

The pact held the local’s daily wages at $5 

for the duration and gave its members “very 

satisfactory working conditions.” 

As New York at that time was one of the 

few cities in the world that did not impose a 

limit on the height of its buildings, 40- and 

50-story structures were growing out of the 

ground in relatively rapid succession, helping 

to keep Local One members busy throughout 

much of the 1910s. In fact, the local’s members 

participated in one of the largest elevator 

installations in recent years in 1912 and 1913 

while working for Otis Elevator in the new 

Woolworth Building in New York City. The 

$1-million installation included air-cushions 

and signaling devices and was, as an essay in the 

May 1920 Elevator Constructor later recounted, 

“one of the wonders in mechanical achievement 

and engineering of the world.” 

Among other projects, Local One elevator 

constructors also installed the 33 passenger and 

Local One employees of Otis Elevator Company are among those at the Fourth Annual Outing of the Otis 

Elevator Constructors’ Social Club held at Johnson’s Swift Creek Hotel in Freeport, New York, on July 25, 1926. 

freight elevators in the grand 40-story Municipal 

Building (later the Manhattan Municipal 

Building and now the David N. Dinkins 

Municipal Building) for its opening in 1914 

to provide needed additional space for the 

city’s government following the consolidation 

of its five boroughs in 1898. Located at the 

intersection of Chambers and Centre streets, 

the new facility featured elevators rising from 

the first to the 24 th floor and three others that 

ran from the 22 nd to the 44 th floor in its tower – 

all operated by double-worm traction overhead 

motors and each with a then-impressive speed 

of 600 feet per minute. 

Brother Charles Tiernan, the local’s treasurer, 

served as foreman for the construction. 

According to Brother Havenstrite, who wrote 

in the September 1914 Elevator Constructor, 

Brother Tiernan was “instrumental in placing 

… several of the helpers of Local No. 1 into 

permanent city positions. Since May 1, 1912, 

all the operators on the cars have been helpers of 

Local No. 1. They numbered 142, and the lowest 

amount drawn for a week’s pay was $25.80.” 

Meanwhile and throughout the decade, wages 

for Local One likewise escalated, climbing 

from $5.28 per day in 1913 to $6.80 in 1918 

and $7.50 in 1919, while helpers also saw raises 

from $3.40 per day in 1913 to $5.50 in 1919. 

The increases were not always gained without a 

fight, as in February 1919, for instance, when 

the local pulled its maintenance men out the 

Woolworth Building and threatened to stop 

working in many of the other large buildings 

in the city if their demands were not met by 

the employers. Brother Eagan, at that time 

president of the local, even reminded the city’s 

populace in the February 19, 1919, New York 

Times, “These are the elevator maintenance 

men. If any of these elevators break down, 

people will have to walk downstairs.” 

Iconic Jobs Despite Turmoil 

The “Roaring Twenties,” a decade of 

unprecedented economic growth and 

prosperity in the United States that, 

among other things, generated a dramatic rise 

in construction around the country, was also 

a successful period for Local One. As a result, 

wages for the local’s journeyman mechanics 

soared from $9 per day in 1920 to $12 in 1926 

and then $13.20 in August 1929, at which 

time the helpers’ scale reached $9.92 per day. 

However, Local One was suspended from 

the I.U.E.C. in late 1922 apparently for its 

refusal to support a nationwide agreement 

the union brokered with employers on behalf 

of all elevator constructors locals across the 

country. The first national agreement between 

the I.U.E.C. and management, known as the 

Atlantic City Agreement, set wage scales for 

the locals based on those of the seven principal 

building trades. 

Meanwhile, problems with anti-union 

employers also persisted in the elevatorconstruction 

industry around the nation and 

in New York City. 

Before beginning his 40-year career with Local One 

in 1926, Brother James C. “Hank” O’Day was one of the 

first professional basketball players, having played for the 

Brooklyn Big Atlantics in 1919 and 1920 and other teams 

including the New York Original Celtics, a “barnstorming” 

professional squad. After spending 36 years working in 

the Otis Elevator Company’s Brooklyn maintenance office, 

Brother O’Day retired in November 1966. 

It was also during that time that Elevator 

Operators and Starters Local Union No. 

67 of New York City became affiliated with 

the I.U.E.C. 

It would not be until mid-1924 the 

international union would reinstate Local 

One after the New York City local met the 

demands of the international officers. “This 

removes a stumbling block,” I.U.E.C. Local 

No. 5 of Philadelphia excitedly declared in 

the September 1924 Elevator Constructor, 

“and paves the way for the adoption of an 

international agreement.” 

The following year began the “peak of a 

skyscraper construction spree that ran from 

1925 to 1931,” according to “Building the 

Skyline: The Birth and Growth of Manhattan’s 

Skyscrapers,” ushering in a period of good 

fortune for the union elevator constructors. 

Compelled by the soaring economy and a fastgrowing 

need for additional office space, the 

surge topped out in 1930 and 1931 with the 

completion of the 71-floor Bank of Manhattan 

Trust Building (now the Trump Building), 

the 77-floor Chrysler Building with its 32 

elevators and the 102-floor Empire State 

Building with its 67 elevators – which were 

installed with the labor of union mechanics. 

Additionally, in May 1929, the elevator 

constructors and all the building trades unions 

in New York City gained a promise from 

the Employers’ Association for a 40-hour 

workweek of 8-hour weekdays. When the

I.U.E.C. 1 



Heisman Trophy Is Likeness of Local One Member 

Local One Brother Edward R. “Ed” Smith Sr. served as the model 

for one of the most prestigious awards in all of sports, the John W. 

Heisman Memorial Trophy, which is given each year since 1935 to 

the most outstanding college football player in the country. A star 

fullback at New York University at the time, Brother Smith posed for 

the award after being enlisted by friend and sculptor Frank Eliscu 

when New York City’s Downtown Athletic Club commissioned the 

artist to create the statue of a football player. 

Brother Ed Smith poses with his Heisman Trophy circa 1985. 

But before he attended NYU, posed for the Heisman and led the 

school’s football team to the 1935 Rose Bowl as a “triple-threat” 

running back, Brother Smith joined the I.U.E.C. and Local One in 

1929. Following his football days, which included a year each with 

the Boston Redskins and the Green Bay Packers of the NFL before 

a knee injury forced him to retire in 1941 and a stint as coach of 

a semi-professional team that included a young Vince Lombardi 

of NFL coaching fame, Brother Smith worked for Otis Elevator and 

retired as an international officer of the union in 1976. 

It was not until eight years later in 1982, when a filmmaker 

was making a documentary about the Heisman, that Brother 

Smith learned the sculpture for which he had posed decades 

earlier was the Heisman. “It was a favor I was doing for a friend,” 

he said in 1984. 

According to the Heisman Trophy Trust, Eliscu prepared a “rough 

clay study” using Brother Smith that was sent for approval by the 

head football coach at Fordham University, Jim Crowley, one of 

the legendary Four Horsemen of Notre Dame. “The prototype was 

set up on a field, and Crowley’s players were asked to assume 

various positions to illustrate and verify the side step, the forward 

drive and a strong-right arm thrust,” according to the Trust. “The 

artist closely observed these action sequences and modified his 

clay prototype.” 

Brother Smith went on to serve as Local One’s recording 

secretary from 1953 through 1958 and its vice president and 

business agent from 1958 through 1965, after which he was 

assistant to the general president of the I.U.E.C. until he retired. He 

was then inducted into the NYU Hall of Fame November 3, 1983, 

and was given his own replica of the Heisman by the Downtown 

Athletic Club in 1985. 

Brother Smith passed away in 1998. 

His son, Edward Jr., told the December 12, 2008, Naples 

(Florida) Daily News that his father enjoyed the attention he 

received as the model for the Heisman Trophy. “He loved it,” the 

younger Smith said. “He was a good guy, my dad.” 

Brother Ed Smith during his college football playing 

days at New York University during the 1930s. (Photo 

courtesy of New York University Sports Information.) 

building trades, including Local One, went out 

on a sympathy strike on behalf of the electrical 

workers and were subsequently locked out by 

the contractors on May 13, the association 

also declared that day that the five-day week 

“had been withdrawn,” according to the next 

day’s New York Daily News. However, once the 

dispute was resolved, the 40-hour week became 

effective for Local One on August 24, 1929, 

along with a 10-percent raise to $13.20 per day 

for its journeyman mechanics. 

The Great Depression, the historic, decadelong 

economic and human catastrophe that 

began after the U.S. stock market crashed on 

October 29, 1929 (history’s “Black Tuesday”), 

was especially harsh for elevator constructors 

around the country. For example, while 

government assistance for some building trade 

unions came through subsidized housing 

projects, as the “History of the I.U.E.C.” 

notes, “this did nothing to help the elevator 

constructors.” Conversely, according to the 

international history, elevator-manufacturing 

industry sales of elevators reached $77 million 

in new sales for 1929 but by 1934, sales had 

dropped to only $11 million – “and nearly all 

elevator constructors were out of work.” 

By the time the Empire State Building 

started going up, “the development frenzy of 

the ‘20s had gone bust,” according to an article 

in the April 23, 2006, New York Times. “The 

Empire State was the only game in town …. 

During its 13-month run, the construction 

was the best show in town, and the workers 

the accidental stars.” 

Construction of the Empire State, Chrysler 

and Bank of Manhattan Trust buildings helped 

buoy the elevator constructors and building 

trades of New York City as the Depression first 

took hold and tightened its grip, though only 

temporarily. After 13 months of construction, 

the Empire State Building opened on May 31, 

1931, to great fanfare, “But when the work was 

done, those thousands of men walked away and 

Local One member Brother John T. Finnerty, working for the Otis 

Elevator Company’s Midtown New York Service Department, lifts 

a 4-ton armature during an overhaul of a No. 79 Gearless Traction 

Machine on the 82 nd floor of the Empire State Building in 1948. 

(Photo courtesy of and used with permission from Otis Elevator Co.) 

disappeared into the obscurity of their lives,” 

The Times recounted. 

Seeking to alleviate some of the devastating 

effects of the times on its membership, the 

I.U.E.C. in 1931 approved a new agreement 

for maintenance work that called for a slight 

reduction in wages. As a result, it created a 

considerable number of jobs to fix and upgrade 

existing elevators – and especially in New York 

City, with its thousands of lifts and elevators. 

Among the drastically reduced amount of 

new construction projects on which Local One 

members were employed as the 1930s trudged 

on was the new Radio City Music Hall that 

began in December 1931 and was topped out 

in August 1932. During construction, however, 

the elevator constructors halted work on Radio 

City and other projects on May 2, 1932, after 

they refused to accept a union construction-

I.U.E.C. 1 



industrywide 25-percent reduction in 

daily wages to $10, instead demanding 

a cut only to $11.20 per day. 

After 30,000 union building-trades 

workers from 32 other unions walked 

off their jobs that day to protest Local 

One’s rejection of the agreement offered 

by the Building Trades Employers 

Association, Building Trades Council 

President John Halkett told the 

Brooklyn Daily Times that the strikers 

“would remain off the job until the 

elevator constructors ‘come around.’” 

However, on June 15, the Employers 

Association and the Building Trades 

Council signed a blanket agreement for all 

the trades for the 15-percent wage reduction 

sought by the elevator constructors, providing 

them with the $11.22 daily journeyman scale 

they had sought. 

In the wake of the triumph for the union 

tradesmen, The Brooklyn Times Union 

newspaper praised Local One in a June 15 

article: “It was the elevator constructors union 

which caused the break between employers and 

employees by arranging with their employers 

Local One members working for Otis Elevator assemble the elevator machine in the new 100 

Park Avenue in 1949. (Photos courtesy of and used with permission from Otis Elevator Co.) 

Local One members working for Otis Elevator in 1949, (left to right) 

brothers Harold Rahner, Joe Kelly, Joe Motyczka, Joe Sleys, Ray Martins 

and Nick Clifford, raise a bed plate and field ring for a No. 77A gearless 

machine up to the high-rise machine room of the new 100 Park Avenue 

office tower, one of the first of a handful of new towers built Park Avenue 

south of Grand Central Terminal during the post-War War II period. 

Local One members (left to right) brothers Ray Martins, Joe 

Sleys, Joe Motyczka and Nick Clifford hoist an armature for 

final machine assembly in the 36 th -floor machine room of 

100 Park Avenue while working for Otis Elevator in 1949. 

on April 29 for a wage scale of $11.22 a day 

instead of the $10 a day that some of the other 

trades had been willing to accept.” 

As the Depression wore on through the 

decade, wages for the elevator constructors 

fluctuated, rising to $14 per day for journeyman 

construction mechanics and $10 for helpers 

on September 1, 1937, before dropping to 

$12.95 for journeymen and $9.45 for helpers 

for a reduced 7-hour workday on January 1, 

1939. Journeyman members working on 

maintenance jobs earned $12.24 per day 

beginning September 1, 1937, while helpers 

earned $8.72 per day. 

By 1939, I.U.E.C. locals across the country 

were “getting back on their feet and the 

unemployed were returning to work as jobs 

began to grow in the industry,” according to the 

union’s history. In New York City, Local One 

renewed its working agreement in October 

1938 for 1939 and later that year again 

extended its wage scale with no concessions 

into the 1940s. 

War & Peace Conditions 

New York City’s economy was boosted after 

the United States entered World War II 

following the Japanese attack on the U.S. 

Naval Station at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on 

December 7, 1941, although not to the extent 

of more-heavily industrialized cities such as 

Pittsburgh, Chicago and Detroit. The Local 

One elevator constructors and maintenance 

mechanics who were not called to serve in the 

U.S. Armed Forces were called upon on the 

homefront for steady building and maintenance 

work and remained busy throughout the war. 

While industry and wage controls were put 

into place by the government to help keep 

in check the costs of in-demand goods and 

services that were in short supply because of 

the war effort, the Local One wage scale grew 

steadily if not dramatically. On May 1, 1942, 

Local One International Leaders 

Three Local One brothers have ascended 

to the position of General President of the 

I.U.E.C. since it was organized in 1901. 

Brother William Havenstrite was 

elected general president during the 

union’s September 1905 convention. 

He vacated the position in July of 

1906 (after which the vice president 

assumed the role of president until 

the 1907 election). 

Brother Joseph F. Murphy served 

as general president from 1907 

to September 1916, during which 

time he also served as Local One’s 

president. After his term as general 

president, Brother Murphy was the local’s 

secretary treasurer for 14 years before he 

passed away on May 21, 1935. 

Brother 

Joseph F. 

Murphy 

Brother Edward A. Smith served as general president 

beginning in 1955 until he stepped down in 1959 for 

medical reasons. A former business manager of Local One 

and an I.U.E.C. member for 58 years when he retired, at 

which time the I.U.E.C. Executive Board conferred upon 

him the title of “President Emeritus,” Brother Smith passed 

away on December 1, 1974, at age 90. 

during which time the 8-hour workday was 

reinstated, the journeyman rate was increased 

to $14 per day. 

It was following the war’s end in September 

1945, after which federal economic controls 

were lifted in 1946, when Local One and 

the Greater New York City and vicinity 

construction industry received its greatest 

boost. “The economy began rampaging,” the 

“History of the I.U.E.C.” states. “Prices soared 

and wages moved in unison.” At the same 

time, New York City became one of the largest 

cities in the world primarily because of the 

flourishing post-war economy. 

Consequently, on April 15, 1946, after the 

war had been over for just more than half a 

year, the Local One wage scale was raised by

I.U.E.C. 1 



its employing elevator companies to $2.25 per 

hour ($18 per day) for journeyman construction 

mechanics and $1.90 per hour ($15.20 per day) 

for service mechanics for the first year of a new 

four-year agreement. Those rates subsequently 

increased the following February 3, 1947, by 

$2.50 per hour for construction work and 

$2.11 for maintenance and repair work. 

Also by that time, Local One members were 

receiving six paid holidays off: New Year’s Day, 

Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Labor Day, 

Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. 

The pace of construction work in and around 

New York became so frenetic as the second 

half of the 1940s progressed that that Building 

Trades Employers Association on October 17, 

1947, offered wage increases in 15 of 38 building 

trades unions in negotiations for a stabilization 

agreement in order “to speed an estimated 

billion dollars’ worth of construction,” the 

October 18 Daily News reported. Among the 

Local One delegates to the 1966 I.U.E.C. convention held in Los Angeles. 

115,000 workers the new two-and-a-half-year 

agreement, which provided for an industrywide 

apprentice system, were the elevator 

constructors, whose hourly wage scale for 

journeyman construction mechanics was raised 

from $2.50 to $2.75. 

Beginning on January 1 the following year, 

Local One journeyman service and repair 

mechanics were also given a pay boost up to 

$2.32 per hour. 

Then on June 30, 1950, the contractors and 

building trades reached agreement on a new, 

three-year stabilization pact for New York’s 

multi-million-dollar construction industry 

that banned strikes and lockouts while calling 

for wage boosts of 15 to 25 cents per hour 

for more than 100,000 craftsmen. Local One 

mechanics were provided with 25-cent hourly 

raises, increasing their scale to $3 per hour for 

construction work, while service and repair 

work wages were increased to $2.53 per hour. 

Additionally, the local’s members would 

also be paid for 11 holidays: New Year’s Day, 

Lincoln’s Birthday, Washington’s Birthday, 

Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Labor Day, 

Columbus Day, Election Day, Armistice Day, 

Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. 

Meanwhile, the federal Taft-Hartley Act, 

passed in 1947 primarily to inhibit the activities 

of unions, was having its intended effect – it 

“was a blow to solidarity and a setback to 

the unions,” as the “History of the I.U.E.C.” 

notes, though it was “hardly a fatal setback 

as its sponsors hoped.” What’s more, federal 

economic controls were put back in place in 

1951 to again help curb escalating costs and 

wages in the booming U.S. economy, when on 

July 26, the Construction Industry Stabilization 

Commission issued a basic regulation covering 

the payment of union construction workers 

that prohibited wage increases above 10 percent 

of the “area rate.” 

“The restrictions were severe for the I.U.E.C.,” 

the union’s history states. “The Commission 

disallowed double time as overtime pay for 

elevator construction work, allowing only time 

and a half. No wage increases were approved 

for elevator constructors.” 

After the rigid economic controls were lifted 

in 1953, the I.U.E.C. returned to its national 

Atlantic City Agreement, which allowed for 

regular wage increases. 

However, Local One was not a party to the 

national pact, instead negotiating locally with 

the Building Trades Employers Association 

through the New York City Building Trades 

Council. As such, into late 1952, the local had 

provided a healthcare insurance benefit to its 

membership through the agreement with the 

Employers Association. 

Meanwhile, the I.U.E.C. negotiated with 

the National Elevator Manufacturing 

Industry for the new National Elevator 

Manufacturing Industry (NEMI) Welfare 

Insurance Plan to be included in its national 

agreement effective October 1, 1952, for all its 

locals, except Local One. But the New York and 

vicinity local during its December 10, 1952, 

general membership meeting began making 

plans to switch its health-and-welfare benefit to 

the national plan when its current agreement 

expired on June 30, 1953. 

That new, three-year pact with the local’s 

employers raised journeyman wages to $3.30 

per hour for construction and $2.80 per hour 

for service and repair work beginning July 

1, 1953, while also providing the healthcare 

benefit and six paid holidays. The hourly scales 

would advance to $3.65 for construction and 

$3.10 for service until the contract expired on 

June 30, 1956. 

During that time, Local One became more 

politically active in order to help positively 

influence legislative decisions that would affect 

the local and the elevator construction industry. 

To that end, in 1954, the local’s administration 

passed a resolution calling for “each member of 

this local pledge to become a member of Labor’s 

League for Political Education by making a 

voluntary contribution of no less than $1.” 

Out in the field, projects on which the 

local’s members worked during the second 

half of the 1950s included construction of 

a Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company 

building in Newark, New Jersey, in 1957. 

However, a jurisdictional dispute between 

the elevator constructors and the operating 

engineers union that erupted on the job was 

finally settled on July 12 by a joint board that 

ruled, “The operation of elevators of all kinds 

when used for hoisting any material used in the 

construction of buildings is hereby conceded 

to the hoisting engineers affiliated with the 

International Union of Steam Engineers. The 

operation of elevators used exclusively for the 

hoisting of personnel and workmen without 

tools (except pocket tools) shall be assigned to 

elevator constructors.”

I.U.E.C. 1 



Local One closed the prosperous decade with 

a multi-year contract that carried into the 1960s 

that ultimately provided wage rates of $4.46 per 

hour for journeyman mechanics working on 

construction and $3.80 per hour for journeymen 

performing repair and service work. 

Growing Benefits, Membership 

Many of Local One’s more than 1,900 

members would be employed on a large 

amount of apartment-building work 

throughout “The Sixties,” in addition to a steady 

quantity of new construction and maintenance 

work throughout the local’s jurisdiction in 

New York and New Jersey. These included 

construction of the Polo Grounds Towers 

public-housing complex, four, 30-story buildings 

in the Washington Heights neighborhood of 

Upper Manhattan containing 1,616 apartments 

that, before they were completed in June 1968, 

employed many union elevator constructors for 

a long period of time. 

But first, after its contract expired a month 

earlier on July 1, 1960, Local One staged an 

18-week-long strike beginning August 1 over 

wages and working conditions, which included 

the request of large elevator-manufacturing 

companies to take over maintenance work. “The 

work stoppage “hobbled millions of dollars’ worth 

of construction in the city, since no elevators were 

being installed in buildings going up,” according 

to the December 4 Daily News, “and this often 

prevented completion of other work.” The strike 

ended December 3 after the local’s membership 

voted, 1,030 to 348, to accept a new, three-year 

pact that gave them a 75-cent-per-hour raise that 

would take the construction scale to $5.21 per 

hour for the final year. 

Local One also continued to expand its ranks, 

most notably when in 1961 it organized the 

New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) 

civil-service elevator workers, approximately 

90 percent of which joined the union. (Because 

of departmental issues, the local’s civil-service 

In Remembrance of Our Fallen Brothers 

Kory Guglielminetti 

March 17, 2021 

Walter Green 

November 16, 2018 

Ricky Hendricks 

December 28, 2017 

Ed Kanzler 

June 9, 2017 

Thomas Patane 

June 5, 2014 

Larry Esposito 

April 11, 2013 

Edward Bradley 

March 28, 2012 

Robert Melito 

September 23, 2011 

Michael Rusinak Jr. 

March 11, 2008 

William Linton 

March 28, 2003 

Daniel McQuillen 


These Local One brothers perished while working on the job. 

We will always remember. 

Jimmy Macias 

July 4, 2002 

Herbert Tomitz 

April 8, 2002 

Michael Frankenbush 

March 31, 2002 

Charles Costello 

September 11, 2001 

Norman Warwick 

October 30, 2000 

Lucas Alvarez 

March 26, 1999 

Don Spellman 

1999 

William Coyle Jr. 

June 16, 1994 

Frederick McCourt Sr. 

March 9, 1993 

Thomas Crotty 


Michael Muratore 

April 5, 1989 

Gerald Keating 

August 30, 1988 

William Bennett 

May 1, 1986 

William Schmied 

February 10, 1986 

Kevin McClosky 

July 20, 1985 

Thomas O’Brien 

July 20, 1985 

Jack Rudic 


Karl Stork 

May 3, 1984 

Donald Kidd 

July 26, 1983 

Karl Graves 

July 26, 1983 

Edward Provost 


H. Curren 

January 2, 1904 

Local One members, including Brother Joe Kelly (foreground) participate in a rally with other 

building tradespeople in support of the United States flag and president on May 20, 1970. 

members later voted in 1978 to disenfranchise 

from the elevator constructors and joined 

Teamsters Local No. 237.) 

Likewise, new agreements with the Building 

Contractors’ Association of Greater New 

York kept growing Local One wages. A new, 

three-year contract between the employees 

and employers, for instance, raised the scale 

for construction mechanics to $5.70 per hour 

beginning July 1, 1963, and eventually to $5.96 

on January 1, 1965, for reduced seven-hour 

workdays; for modernization mechanics initially 

to $5.35 per hour and eventually to $5.50; and 

for service mechanics initially to $4.48 per hour 

and eventually to $4.63 per hour. 

What’s more, not only did that agreement 

include outlays for the NEMI Welfare Plan, 

it also included provisions for the National 

Elevator Industry Pension Plan for the 

local’s membership. 

The local continued to grow into the second 

half of the decade, reaching more than 2,350 

members by the end of January 1966 and about 

2,500 members the following year.

I.U.E.C. 1 



Local One Business Manager George Koch (right) shakes hands with U.S. President Richard Nixon during a 

meeting at which the president thanked the building trades unions for their support in the 1970 election. 

Its next new, three-year agreement with 

the New York Elevator Manufacturers’ 

Association beginning July 1, 1966, provided 

another escalating wage scale in addition to 

health and pension benefits through June 30, 

1969. Perhaps more notably, the Local One 

administration negotiated a new Annuity Plan 

retirement benefit into the pact – which would 

prove to be invaluable in the decades to come. 

For each successive year of that agreement, 

employers initially made contributions into the 

plan’s fund of $2, $3 and $4 for construction 

mechanics; $1.50, $3 and $3 for modernization 

mechanics; and $1, $2 and $3 for service 

mechanics for each hour worked. 

Although work slowed considerably for the 

elevator constructors in late 1966 and into 

1967, construction of the World Trade Center 

complex of seven buildings in the Financial 

District of Lower Manhattan beginning in 

1966 boosted employment for the coming 

years. Members working for Otis Elevator 

installed the 255 elevators and 71 escalators 

in the center primarily during 1967 and 

1968, including the 99 elevators in each of its 

110-story Twin Towers (the original 1 World 

Trade Center and 2 World Trade Center), 

which when completed in December 1970 

and January 1972, respectively, were the tallest 

buildings in the world. 

To enable the elevators in the towers to be 

used more efficiently, two “sky lobbies” on 

which passengers could switch from largecapacity 

express elevators to local elevators were 

installed. Located on the 44 th and 78 th floors of 

each tower, the sky lobbies allow the elevators 

to operate between three “zones.” 

All 2,200 members of Local One went out 

on strike beginning July 1, 1969, over a new 

contract, stalling the region’s $1.5-billion 

construction industry for the next 111 days. At 

the same time, I.B.E.W. Local 3, with which the 

elevator constructors shared all maintenance 

and repair work on the 55,000 elevators 

throughout the New York metropolitan area, 

were also striking for a new agreement. 

After rejecting several offers, including a 

$3.30-per-hour increase to their wage-andbenefits 

package on July 26 and a proposed 

nearly 50-percent increase in September, 

and after all other trades except the electrical 

workers had settled their strikes, Local One 

reached an accord with its employers on 

October 19. (I.B.E.W. Local 3 would agree to a 

new contract the following day.) The new, threeyear 

pact, which would expire on June 30, 

1972, ultimately raised the scale over the final 

six months to $8.36 per hour for construction 

mechanics for a seven-hour day; to $7.59 

per hour for modernization mechanics for 

an eight-hour day; and to $6.74 per hour for 

repair mechanics for an eight-hour day. 

In addition to health and welfare, pension and 

annuity fringe benefits, the contract also provided 

a 35-cent-per-hour-worked contribution into 

a Vacation Fund for members and 2-cent-perhour-worked 

contribution into a new Training 

Program Fund beginning January 1, 1970. 

That year, Local One and its School Committee 

would organize a new training program for its 

apprentices and members. 

Strong Start to Historic Strike 

Local One members remained very busy 

with work into and throughout the early 

1970s, installing elevator systems for the 

construction of many new high-rise buildings 

and other structures throughout New York City 

and vicinity, including Columbus Hospital and 

the 40-story 2 New York Plaza. Union-signatory 

contractor Armor Elevator (which would be sold 

to Kone Corporation in 1981) was performing 

up to half of that work at the time, supplying 

its union elevator constructors with an abundant 

amount of manhours as were other Local One 

employers – especially during the peak of a 

construction boom in the region in 1972. 

That year, the State Division of Housing and 

Community Renewal reported $1.5 billion 

in building in New York City alone, the city’s 

“biggest year of construction since 1960,” 

according to an article in the September 6, 1981, 

New York Times. However, as the newspaper 

reported, by 1975 that total would drop to just 

more than $288 million and would not reach 

the billion-dollar mark again until 1980. 

But after the local’s membership voted during 

its regular meeting on June 8, 1972, for a “no 

contract, no work” stance when negotiations 

with the Building Trades Employers Association 

for a new agreement stalled, the local and 11 

other building trades unions went on strike on 

July 1. The walkout by the elevator constructors, 

who were trying to improve on their $10.83 

total wage-and-benefits hourly pay package 

under the former contract, would end up being 

Facing the Racial Issue 

During the racially charged times of the 1960s and 

1970s, when minorities were at the pinnacle of their fight 

for equality, in 1970 the City of New York sent notice to 

Local One and its employing contractors informing them 

that unless more blacks and Puerto Ricans were given the 

opportunity to join the union, elevator contracts would not 

be let by the city. At the time, the companies were refusing 

to cooperate in drafting programs to increase minority 

representation in construction, while fewer than 50 of Local 

One’s 3,000 members were minorities. 

That March, seven elevator companies – Otis, Armor, 

Westinghouse, Haughton, Staley, Serge and Burlington – 

agreed to immediately employ more than 50 blacks and 

Puerto Ricans and join with Local One “in re-examining 

employment requirements,” the March 27, 1970, New York 

Times reported. 

However, later in the decade, the Federal Equal 

Employment Opportunity Commission filed a discrimination 

suit against Local One, the Elevator Manufacturers 

Association of New York City and 15 elevator contractors. 

It would not be until June 5, 1978, that a federal judge 

signed a consent decree in which “the elevator industry 

in the Greater New York area agreed to recruit non-white 

employees until union membership of minorities comprises 

one-third of the total,” according to the June 6 Times.

I.U.E.C. 1 



the longest construction-workers strike in 

New York City’s history at that time when it 

ended seven months later. 

Among the $2‐billion worth of construction 

that was stalled during the strike were the World 

Trade Center, the McGraw‐Hill Building on the 

Avenue of the Americas in Rockefeller Center, 

a massive structure at 747 Third Avenue, and 

several other skyscrapers and office buildings. 

However, Local One held firm in its pursuit of 

improved wages, seniority and work rules, and 

after October 18, 1972, its 2,400 members were 

the only union construction tradesmen still out 

on strike, according to the January 31, 1973, 

New York Times – prohibiting the other unions 

to work above the 10 th floor on many high-rises. 

“The picture is very dim,” Local One 

Correspondent Ed Kristan wrote in 

December 1972 in a letter that appeared in 

the next month’s Elevator Constructor as the 

strike dragged into its sixth month. “So, if you 

have any faith left, keep the faith, baby, keep 

the faith.” 

The dispute finally ended on January 30, 

1973, when Local One members ratified a new, 

three‐year contract, allowing about 50,000 

other workers to soon afterward continue jobs 

on many office-towers, housing, hospital and 

school construction projects, as well. As such, 

the next day’s New York Times also noted, 

“Contractors were reported to have lost tens of 

millions of dollars, and so did building owners 

and investors who were faced with mounting 

interest costs while they could not rent or use 

partially completed buildings.” 

The new Local One contract provided a total 

package increase of 50 cents per hour in each of 

its three years, of which 32 cents went toward 

Local One delegates, (back to front, left side) Brothers Walsh, Bland, Ledieger, Sullivan and Wilson and (right side) 

Brothers Koch, Clifford, Ward, McGoldrick and Stork, attend the 1971 I.U.E.C. convention held in Bal Harbour, Florida. 

Members enjoy the Local One Christmas party in 1973. 

wages and 18 cents went toward pension 

and other benefit improvements. Business 

Manager L. Vincent Watson further told The 

Times that “the members had made gains in 

the new contract in such areas as recognition 

of shop stewards at work sites, improved job 

protection for permanent mechanics and 

equalized distribution of overtime.” 

Less than six months after that strike, 

however, 350 Local One repair mechanics 

staged a 10-day-long job action, during which 

they refused to work customary overtime, that 

left more than 400 elevators out of service in 

New York City housing projects. The members, 

whose previous contract had expired a year 

earlier in June 1972, were demanding a new 

agreement with the “prevailing rate” paid to 

men with similar jobs with private contractors 

doing work for the city, according to the July 7, 

1973, New York Times. 

The union mechanics were receiving $7.41 

per hour while their helpers were earning $5.72 

at the time. The union had been asking for 

hourly increases of 32 cents for the first year 

and 42 cents in each of the last two years of 

a three‐year contract retroactive to June 30, 

1972, according to the newspaper. 

The job action ended on July 6, 1973, 

after the union and New York City Housing 

Authority negotiators reached a new 

agreement after “virtually around‐the‐clock 

negotiations,” The Times reported. At one 

point during that time, a Housing Authority 

spokesman told the newspaper, 430 of 3,000 

elevators were out of service and 44 buildings 

had no elevator service at all. 

Construction in the Local One jurisdiction 

virtually dried up beginning in late 1974 and 

remained sparse into the second half of the 

decade. By September 1, 1974, about 100 

members were out of work; however, most of 

them were working three or four days a week 

operating temporary lift cars on jobs, which 

was available in part because the workweek for 

the local’s operators had been reduced to four 

days. Among the employers that would become 

adversely affected by the drought, Armor had 

upwards of 600 constructors working in early 

1975 but was down to less than 10 employees 

Local One held its first annual Family Picnic in the 

summer of 1973 at Kruckers Picnic Grove. The following 

year, 1,250 members and their guests attended the picnic.

I.U.E.C. 1 



Sister Myra Savas was one of the first women to enter the 

elevator-constructor industry when she joined Local One in 

December 1979. Employed in the World Trade Center when it 

was attacked by terrorists on September 11, 2001, she wrote in 

a December 23, 2003, letter to the editor of the New York Daily 

News “Speaking as a WTC 9/11 survivor, I like the new World 

Trade Center design. It looks like New York is giving Osama, 

Saddam and anyone else like them the finger.” She passed 

away a couple of years before the local’s 125th anniversary. 

out in the field by the end of the year, Local 

One retirees recalled. 

That August 19, the local was able to ratify 

a new contract between its operators of 

temporary cars and the building associations. 

The operators received a total of $2.40 

package over three years, retroactive to July 

1, although conditions stayed relatively the 

same, despite pressure from the associations 

for the local to surrender some of its working 

conditions for operators. 

With over 68,000 elevators in Local One’s 

Greater New York City and vicinity jurisdiction, 

in June 1976 the local won another arbitration 

case with I.B.E.W. Local 3, giving it the work 

of installing new elevators after the removal 

of old hydraulic elevators with the rails left 

intact. Shortly after, as disputes between the 

two locals continued – as they would in the 

coming decades – Local One also gained a legal 

victory that year when a court ruled that the 

electrical workers had infringed on the elevator 

constructors’ jurisdiction for the construction 

of new elevators in existing hatches in the Plaza 

Hotel in midtown Manhattan. 

But by March 1977, about 800 Local One 

members were out of work – with only about 

half of those able to run cars, some on the 

one-day basis, leaving about 400 members 

completely unemployed. 

Mercifully, work picked up dramatically 

during 1978; so much so that Local One 

Correspondent Frank Dolan declared in the 

May 1978 Elevator Constructor, “It looks like 

New York is starting to boom again. … The 

holes in the ground are appearing all over the 

city ….” New projects that would get Local One 

members back to work included modernization 

jobs in the Chrysler Building, Radio City 

Music Hall and the Hotel Commodore. 

To help sustain the improving employment 

conditions, a new, three-year contract signed 

that year included provisions for the Industry 

Advancement Program of the Building 

Contractors Association. With the program, 

beginning August 18, 1978, employers 

contributed 8 cents for each hour worked by 

members of Local One to the fund, to be used 

to help employers obtain contracts by offsetting 

labor costs. 

As the decade was coming to an end, the 

local’s fortunes continued to progress, and 

by December 1979, only 130 members were 

out of work, down from 600 just less than 

two years earlier. “The prospects for the future 

look bright, Brother Dolan announced in the 

December 1979 Elevator Constructor, “with 

steel rising up all over the city.” 

Fight for Electrical Work Crests 

Robust construction in its jurisdiction and, 

with it, strong employment for Local 

One blossomed into the 1980s, and the 

local’s elevator constructors would remain busy 

through much of the decade as many new 

office towers and hotels were built and the call 

to install faster elevators helped create a large 

amount of modification work. “New York City’s 

current construction boom, greater than in any 

year since 1972, has given employment in the 

building trades a boost,” the September 6, 1981, 

New York Times reported. 

The union elevator construction industry 

would be further bolstered by the entrance of 

the Fuji Elevator Company into the union 

construction sector later in the decade. 

A new, three-year contract in 1981 raised 

the local’s journeyman construction hourly 

rate to $14.99 and modernization and repair 

rates to $12.72 beginning July 1, with fringebenefit 

contributions of $1.34-1/2 per hour to 

healthcare and 95 cents per hour to pensions. 

The base scale would jump for the third year to 

$19.25 per hour for construction and $16.36 

per hour for modernization and repair work. 

Additional projects that employed 

numerous Local One members during the 

decade included a dramatic expansion of the 

Newark International Airport. Meanwhile, 

as the local’s condition remained healthy, 

its membership experienced more progress, 

among which the scale for its operator 

members reached $20.01 per hour in 1986 in 

the contract with the Building Contractors’ 

Association of Greater New York. 

Although construction work slowed into 

the 1990s, Local One members continued to 

enjoy gainful employment more often than 

not throughout much of the decade as service 

and maintenance work remained steady. 

Construction was often only interrupted by 

regular industry slowdowns, although during 

1994 and 1995 work was scarce as a pause in 

economic growth in the United States kept the 

construction market down. 

“Well, we are going into some real hard times,” 

Correspondent Carl A. DeBellis proclaimed 

in the March 1994 Elevator Constructor. “More 

brothers are getting laid off. The work situation 

has not improved at all.” 

Local One members (left to right, front row) Guy Cerbone, Dennis Donaghy, David Harper, Robert Vinas, Hugo Phillips and John Brady and 

(back row) Mario Ramito, Kenny Carney, Tony Orrigo, Bobby Shannon, Walter Burke, Jimmy O’Neill, Tommy Nolan, George Cataldo, Frank 

Dolan Sr., George Hayes, Mike Woods, Richy Vosseler, Bobby Kozan and Bill Dutka attend a legislative rally in Albany, New York, in 1994.

I.U.E.C. 1 



Nonetheless, Local One gained another 

three-year agreement from its employers to 

begin the decade, which raised the scale for 

construction mechanics to $25.39 per hour the 

first year beginning July 1, 1990, and eventually 

to $27.77 per hour for the final year while also 

retaining the seven-hour workday. Base pay 

for modernization and repair mechanics was 

likewise increased to $22.21 per hour the first 

year and ultimately to $24.21 per hour over the 

final year for eight-hour workdays. 

Members and guests attend Local One’s 100th anniversary dinnerdance 

celebration at the New York Hilton and Towers on June 4, 1994. 

Later in the decade, the constructionmechanic 

wage rate beginning July 1, 1998, 

reached $34.41-1/2 per hour, and employers 

were making contributions of $4.40 per hour 

worked to the Annuity Fund, $3.92-1/2 to 

the Healthcare Fund, $2.36 to the Pension 

Fund, 5 cents to the Work Preservation Fund 

and 12 cents to the Educational Fund. Basic 

scales for modernization and service mechanics 

were set at $25.57-1/2 per hour with hourly 

contributions for the fringe benefits. 

But during that time, Local One went 

through one of the most challenging periods 

in its more than century-long history when 

it sought to end jurisdictional disputes 

with the I.B.E.W. through an election for 

representation of that union’s New York City 

elevator workers. The Local One elevator 

constructors had been clashing with the 

Local One members picket in Times Square on August 16, 1996, during the union’s strike against employer Armor Kone Elevator. 

electrical workers of Local 3 for at least 100 

years, when in 1898, that local claimed all 

inside electrical work on buildings in the city, 

including elevator construction – although 

they were rebuked at the time by the industry. 

What’s more, at least as early as 1920, 

the I.U.E.C. was directly challenged on 

an international level by the I.B.E.W. over 

electrical work for elevator construction, 

before the National Board for Jurisdictional 

Awards in the Building Industry that year 

ruled in favor of the elevator constructors in 

the jurisdictional dispute. Afterward, I.U.E.C. 

International President Frank Feeney declared 

to the union, “Look ahead, and having learned 

our lesson in the past as to the evolution of 

elevator machinery and controls, we will ever 

be on our guard, defend our jurisdiction, and 

see to it that we hold all the work that we now 

have jurisdiction over.” 

It was not until 1996 that the on-going 

battle between Local One and I.B.E.W. Local 

3 climaxed when Local One waged a campaign 

to organize the members of the Local 3 Electric 

Elevator (E.E.) Division into the I.U.E.C. 

“With adversity such as some Local 3 members 

not wanting to sign the petition cards, the 

campaign has been bitter and protracted,” 

Correspondent Lenny Legotte (future Local 

One Business Manager) explained in the 

November 1996 Elevator Constructor. 

Then in January 1998, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. 

ruled that the elevator constructors violated 

the organization’s rules for their raid on the 

membership of Local 3 who were employed by 

members of the Elevator Industries Association. 

Regardless, with the E.E. Division on strike 

against the association over a new contract, 

Local One gained enough support to warrant 

an election for the division’s 1,800 members, 

which was held on May 28 and 29, 1998, 

and was supervised by the National Labor 

Relations Board. In a report in the July 1998 

Elevator Constructor, Local One Correspondent 

Brother Michael Halpin described the scene 

around the election site, Southgate Tower 

Hotel in Manhattan (a separate vote was held in 

Brooklyn for employees of Nouveau Elevator): 

“Four blocks away and there 

are elevator workers on every 

corner. We supply information and 

encouragement to those that hadn’t 

already voted. From a block away, 

we can see the frenzy and both

I.U.E.C. 1 



organizations giving their lastminute 

pitches. We swing the turn 

off 7 th Avenue onto 31 st Street to find 

a sea of elevator workers. The street 

would remain like this for two full 

days. Local One retirees are on hand 

to help out. Banners, signs, buttons, 

stickers and T-shirts are everywhere, 

‘ONE TRADE, ONE UNION.’” 

While the employers agreed that all E.E. 

Division members should vote, objections by 

Local 3 disallowed some members from voting. 

As Local One awaited a ruling on the results 

of the election to be announced over the next 

several months, it recaptured some significant 

jobs that had been maintained by Local 3 

contractors, including modernization and 

maintenance at the Chrysler Building, the 

Kent Building and the Park Central Hotel in 

1998. “Each month brings more work that 

was formerly performed by E.E. Division 

shops,” Brother Halpin announced in the 

January 1999 Elevator Constructor. “With 

this new work comes new brothers. Many of 

these brothers were activists in the organizing 

campaign, and some possess talents that are 

beneficial to our organization.” 

Elsewhere that year, Local One began to 

recover from its depressed employment thanks 

in part to its Work Preservation Fund, which 

was used to recapture jobs for its employing 

contractors. As construction work increased as 

the decade neared its conclusion, many of the 

local’s members were employed on New York 

City prevailing wage jobs (which were lower 

than the local’s wage scale), boosting the local’s 

employment rate. “These members are carrying 

the weight of this market recovery on their 

own shoulders,” Brother Halpin declared in the 

December 1999 Elevator Constructor. 

Resilient to Tragedy, Lockout 

The first year and a half of the new “Y2K” 

millennium was an optimistic period for 

Local One, as its more than 2,000 members 

were working on many projects throughout its 

jurisdiction, which included Manhattan, the 

Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Long 

Local One members participate in the 

New York City Labor Day parade in 2000. 

Island, portions of Westchester and Rockland 

counties and many counties in New Jersey. 

Those jobs employing the union mechanics 

included installing elevators at the Bear 

Sterns Building – the 12 th tallest building in 

Manhattan at the time – for Otis Elevator. 

Local One members (left to right, front row) Mike Killeen, Hank Reeves and Felix Mercado and (back row) Dan Burke, Billy Wallace, 

Walter Burke and Joe Nolan enjoy festivities surrounding the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York City on March 17, 1997. 

Then in September 2000, Kone Elevator, which 

employed members from both Local One and 

I.B.E.W. Local 3, consolidated all its companies 

under the “Kone” name. As a result, Local 3 E.E. 

Division employees of Kone became part of 

the I.U.E.C. collective bargaining unit, after 

which the former I.B.E.W. members working 

at Kone Elevator were sworn into the elevatorconstructors 

union during Local One’s October 

union meeting. 

However, the union elevator-construction 

industry continued to face the constant 

problem of non-union competition in its 

area. “We all have to do our part to put a 

stop to the inferior work and substandard 

wages of non-union companies,” Local One 

Correspondent Mike Duffy warned in the 

July 2001 Elevator Constructor. 

Meanwhile, the local won an election in mid- 

2000 to represent technicians of Bombardier 

Transportation who were maintaining the 

monorail system at Newark International 

Airport. But those new members were forced 

to go out on strike against the employer on July 

24, 2001, after trying to negotiate a contract in 

good faith during the previous year, while the 

company tried to break the strike and brought 

in replacement workers to attempt to maintain 

the system. In the end, the union was unable to 

come to an agreement with the company. 

The world changed dramatically for Local 

One, as it did for the entire nation, when 

on September 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked

I.U.E.C. 1 



four commercial airliners and crashed two 

of them into the Twin Towers of the World 

Trade Center. One of the other planes was 

flown into the Pentagon and the fourth plane 

crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. 

In all, 2,977 victims were killed in the “9/11” 

attacks, including 2,606 at the World Trade 

Center – which Local One members had 

helped build and where several members still 

worked at the time. 

Among the millions of personal experiences 

of agony and resolve in New York City from 

that day, Local One members shared in the 

losses and the anguish of the aftermath, and 

particularly the death of member Brother 

Chuck Costello Jr., who perished in One 

World Trade Center. Commemorating the 10 th 

anniversary of the attack a decade later, the 

local wrote in The Elevator Constructor: 

“Our way of life was challenged 

and we responded. Many Local 

One brothers worked around the 

clock to restore elevator service to 

the commercial and residential 

buildings in the immediate area. 

They had to sacrifice time with 

their families to complete this 

task, which took months. The 

human factor and a good sense 

of doing what is right became 

common for us all.” 

Local One members picket a non-union construction project in Oyster Bay, New York, in June 2001. 

In 2003, Brother Ray Hernandez was elected 

president and business manager of Local One. 

In his new position, he secured a new building 

for the union at 340 Convery Boulevard in Perth 

Amboy, New Jersey, which is now a state-of-theart 

training center. 

Brother Hernandez held office during difficult 

times for the union and took heart in fighting for 

the members. After serving a full term in office, 

Brother Hernandez pursued other opportunities 

in the industry within Local One. 

With a growing non-union presence in 

New York hounding the local, on March 16, 

2005, Elevator Manufacturers Association 

of New York (EMANY) Otis, Kone and 

Schindler Elevator Corporation (which 

together maintained 40 percent of the region’s 

elevators) locked out their 1,200 union elevator 

constructors after negotiations did not yield a 

new contract. One of several issues was EMANY’s 

desire to extend the monitoring capabilities of 

their GPS systems “so that they could call the 

workers at their homes late at night to report for 

work in emergency situations,” according to the 

August 2, 2012, LaborPress. 

The resulting nearly four-month work 

stoppage affected numerous Elevator 

Manufacturers Association projects, including 

Local One’s Hero of 9/11 

Brother Costello Gave His Life so Others Might Live 

Brother Charles G. “Chuck” Costello Jr. 

Among the countless men and women who performed 

immeasurable acts of bravery and selflessness after terrorists 

flew commercial airliners into the World Trade Center towers 

on September 11, 2001, Local One lost a brother but future 

generations gained a true hero. 

Elevator technician Charles G. “Chuck” Costello Jr. was on duty 

for Local One when the terrorists struck The World Trade Center. 

“Despite his partner’s pleas, Mr. Costello jumped out of his work 

truck and ran into One World Trade Center,” the “Portraits of Grief” 

essay in The New York Times issue of October 2, 2001, recounted. 

Brother Costello, in his courageous attempt to help free people 

trapped in the tower’s elevators, was killed when the building 

eventually collapsed. 

“Chuck ran in when others ran out, which says what kind of a 

man Chuck was,” Raymond Costello said in 2011, when the street 

running alongside the Local One Union Hall in Long Island City was 

renamed “Chuck Costello Way.” 

But Brother Costello did not like attention – in fact, he never 

let on to his family about the many people he would routinely 

help, from giving neighbors rides to bus stops, running errands for 

others and thinking about fellow citizens he did not even know. “If 

a bum on the street asked Chuck for money, he would give him his 

last five bucks and go without lunch that day,” Local One officers 

wrote in the November 2001 issue of The Elevator Constructor. 

Among other things that made him special, Brother Costello 

was sincere, thought of others first and cared deeply about family, 

fellow citizens and his fellow union brothers and sisters. “Those 

of us who had an opportunity to work with Chuck also knew that 

he was an eternal optimist who would never say a negative word 

about another person,” the officers continued in the journal. “He 

loved his Irish heritage and was a very proud union member.” 

Brother Costello volunteered at his church by playing guitar at 

Saturday evening Masses, and he was also a soccer coach and an 

avid biker. Putting himself in harm’s way to help those in danger 

with no regard for his own safety, “it is of no surprise that Brother 

Costello reacted on September 11 as he would any other day,” the 

officers further wrote in The Elevator Constructor. “As people tried 

to escape the World Trade Center, Brother Costello ran in.” 

Brother Costello was survived by his wife, Mary, and children, 

Amanda, Theresa, Mary Kate and Charlie. While his remains were 

never found, weeks after the tragedy, 1,000 people turned out at 

a memorial to offer his family their condolences and talk about the 

man they knew. 

The Local One family has continued in the years since Brother 

Costello’s selfless act with peace, strength and the pride of 

knowing that one of its own demonstrated the true meaning of 

“the home of the brave.” 

Brother Chuck Costello (left) stands with fellow Local One 

member Kevin King at a local function.

I.U.E.C. 1 



Starrett City, a 46-building residential 

complex in Brooklyn; the new Hearst building 

on 57 th Street at Eighth Avenue; the new 

research lab for Memorial Sloan-Kettering 

Cancer Center; 7 World Trade Center; and 

the Stuyvesant Town apartment complex in 

Manhattan. However, because the union had 

other, separate contracts with ThyssenKrupp 

and others, the union leadership put economic 

pressure on the Elevator Manufacturers 

Association by allowing members to continue 

working with ThyssenKrupp, Fujitec and 

independent contractors, according to the 

August 2, 2012, LaborPress. 

The lockout actually served to galvanize 

the Local One membership, underscored by 

massive rallies held outside the offices of Otis 

in New York City on April 7 and again on April 

13. “Our membership has only become more 

united and stronger,” the local declared in the 

July 2005 issue of The Elevator Constructor. 

As such, 98 percent of the local voted on 

April 21 to create a lockout relief fund. “Our 

tactic to fight the lockout was to keep half of 

our membership working in order to ‘subsidize’ 

the locked-out workers, whereby the employed 

members contributed money to a fund to 

Local One members employed by Otis Elevator, (left to right) Mary Carr, Elaine Carr, Silvia Ralph, 

Michele Palmer and Debbie Carr Vasak, attend a post-9/11 rally to support military troops. 

help pay for the locked-out workers’ medical 

coverage,” Business Manager Legotte later 

explained in the LaborPress. 

On June 18, the two sides reached a tentative 

deal on a wage increase to end the lockout. In a 

close vote on June 26, the Local One members 

accepted the agreement and all locked-out 

members returned to work the next day. 

Union Strong in Many Respects 

In June 2007, former Vice President and 

Business Agent Lenny Legotte was elected 

president and business manager of Local 

One. Secretary-Treasurer Michael Riegger, Vice 

President/Business Agent Gary Riefenhauser 

and President Legotte currently hold the same 

positions to which they were elected that year; 

other members of the board elected during that 

time continue to hold leadership roles to date. 

Day Secretary Lee Pirone and Vice President/ 

Business Agents Stephen Mazza, Denis Kilduff 

and Thomas Whooley were elected to full-time 

positions since 2007 and continue to hold 

these leadership positions to date. 

President and Business Manager Legotte 

brought progressive initiatives and innovative 

About 1,000 Local One members locked out by Schindler, Otis 

and Kone elevator companies since March 16, 2005, rally 

outside the Otis offices in New York City on April 7, 2005. 

ideas to the union. With a focus on outsidethe-box 

and creative strategies, Brother Legotte 

continues to focus on creating new and 

sustainable practices for the future of Local One. 

The full Local One membership was back at 

work for the balance of 2005. Throughout the 

following two years, employment conditions 

were strong, highlighted by construction of 

One World Trade Center, the main building 

of the rebuilt World Trade Center complex, 

beginning in 2006. The tallest building in 

the United States at 1,776 feet (in deference 

to the year in which the U.S. Declaration 

of Independence was signed) when it was 

completed in November 2014, the “Freedom 

Tower” incorporated an elevator system 

installed by union elevator constructors that 

incorporated sky lobbies and a system of express 

and local elevators. 

By 2008, while One World Trade Center 

was still rising upward, Local One was the 

collective-bargaining agent for roughly 2,700 

elevator constructors in the New York City 

metropolitan area. Of those, about 900 worked 

in construction, 375 in modernization jobs 

and 1,000 in service or repair jobs, and 35 

members were classified as elevator operators. 

The local had jurisdiction over elevator work 

in the five boroughs of New York City, and the 

surrounding counties of New York and New 

Jersey located within 35 miles of New York 

City Hall, including all of Long Island but 

excluding all of Monmouth County. 

As construction lagged as the result of a 

struggling economy, that year the local worked 

with the Coney Island Community and Labor 

Empowerment Alliance for Redevelopment 

to ensure the union had a seat at the table for 

the possibly $4-billion worth of construction 

proposed for revitalizing Coney Island’s parks 

and beachfront property. Then that December 

21, the local’s membership voted, 1,045 to 

663, to ratify a groundbreaking, new, five-year 

contract that would provide stability in the 

industry for the next half-decade after it went 

into effect on March 17, 2009. 

Also in early 2009, the local’s officers 

worked with the New York State Building and 

Construction Trades Council to negotiate and 

write fair Project Labor Agreements (P.L.A.s)

I.U.E.C. 1 



to help stimulate the construction industry. 

Subsequently, the city’s construction unions and 

their management counterparts agreed on May 

29 to their new Economic Recovery Project 

Labor Agreement, which reduced building 

costs by an average of 16 to 20 percent at a 

dozen previously delayed public development 

projects over the next four years. 

Those first-ever P.L.A.s for city agencies also 

included a P.L.A. for the School Construction 

Authority that built on a previous agreement. 

Additional features of the P.L.A.s capped overtime 

at time-and-a-half for work performed from 

Monday through Saturday with no restriction 

on the ability of contractors to schedule overtime 

to meet deadlines, and all trades agreed to 

standardized terms and flexibility for scheduling 

at job sites, including eight standard holidays, 

8-hour workdays, 40-hour workweeks, flexible 

start times and coordinated lunch periods. 

Strikes were also prohibited. 

But construction work remained poor as 

the economy continued to sputter through 

2009, when unemployment among New York 

City’s construction workers reached nearly 20 

percent during the summer. However, the city 

announced at that time that the 12 projects 

would move forward under the Economic 

Recovery P.LA., including the stalled 76-story 

Beekman Tower in lower Manhattan, 80 

DeKalb Avenue, Tower 111, 150 Amsterdam 

Avenue, 200 and 300 North End Avenue, the 

Milford Plaza Hotel, a Hunter College project 

and St. Mary’s Children’s Hospital. 

The local’s work situation slumped once 

again in the second half of 2010 and remained 

poor into 2011 as the local waited for jobs in 

Local One members work on construction of the 

1,776-foot-tall One World Trade Center, the main 

building of the rebuilt World Trade Center complex in 

New York City’s Lower Manhattan, in December 2011. 

One World Trade Center under 

construction in December 2011. 

Local One members (left to right) Tom McClaughry, Frank Oliveri, John Hook, Chris Sciortino, Joe Ratty and Jimmy Strong work on construction of 

the One Vanderbilt 67-floor skyscraper in midtown Manhattan, New York City, in 2019. The tower would be completed in 2020.

I.U.E.C. 1 



the World Trade Center to open. Employment 

then slowly improved in late 2011 and 2012, 

with jobs such as modification at the Empire 

State Building hiring members off the out-ofwork 

“bench,” but construction still lagged as 

a lack of funding for remaining construction 

projects remained an issue. 

Work increased dramatically as 2012 

progressed, while Local One’s market share 

of elevator construction work was about 90 

percent at the time, which was probably the 

highest among other building trade unions and 

helped place the local in a distinctive position. 

“We’re very unique among the building trades. 

We don’t need P.L.A.s because we’re 90-percent 

organized,” Brother Legotte explained in the 

August 2, 2012, LaborPress. “I’ll sign them, but 

the union doesn’t have to rely upon them.” 

That year, Hurricane Sandy, the deadliest 

and most destructive hurricane of the 2012 

Atlantic hurricane season, cost massive damage 

on the northeastern coast, affecting many Local 

One members and families as some even lost 

their homes. But the storm also provided a 

need for manpower and, consequently, cleared 

the local’s bench for the rebuilding effort that 

lasted through 2013 and included downtown 

New York City. 

At the same time, work began in 2012 on 

Hudson Yards in the Chelsea and Hudson Yards 

neighborhoods of Manhattan, the largest private 

real-estate development in the United States by 

area. Built completely with I.U.E.C. labor, its 

first structure, the 52-story 10 Hudson Yards, 

and seven others that contain residences, a hotel, 

office buildings, a mall and a cultural facility 

were completed in March 2019. The second 

phase of Hudson Yards was expected at the time 

to be completed by 2024. 

Local One members and their families participate in the 2019 Labor Day parade, while also rallying for #CountMeIn, a movement 

of rank-and-file New York City union construction workers banded together against non-union contractors and greedy developers. 

New Heights into Its 125 th Year 

At about 2,700 members strong, Local 

One gained a new, five-year contract 

that went into effect March 17, 2014. 

It then stepped up its fight against the 

non-union elevator companies in its area 

in 2017 when it formed its Organizing 

Committee, which put together a plan to 

combat that unwanted intrusion. 

As the local approached the 125 th 

anniversary since it was first organized in 

1894, it remained active on the legislative 

front, as well. As such, the local lead 

efforts to finally have a New York State 

elevator safety law passed and the New 

Jersey elevator license requirement put 

into effect. 

Meanwhile, ongoing large construction 

projects on which the local’s members were 

working during near-historic construction 

activity within its jurisdiction included 

One Vanderbilt, a 67-floor skyscraper at 

the corner of 42 nd Street and Vanderbilt 

Avenue in midtown Manhattan, and its 

42 elevators and lifts. When completed in 

2020, the tower will be the fourth-tallest 

building in the city. 

The Local One membership most 

recently overwhelmingly ratified another 

landmark agreement with contractors on 

January 20, 2019. The five-year pact, which 

went into effect March 17, 2019, provides 

20-percent increases to the local’s total pay 

package – equal to more than $1 million in 

wages for a mechanic. 

The new contract marked a dramatic 

turnaround for Local One under Business 

Manager Legotte’s administration from 

just a decade earlier. Subsequently, 

Correspondent Brendan McCarrick 

fittingly noted in the March 2019 

Elevator Constructor, “Business Manager 

Lenny Legotte and the entire Negotiating 

Local One Champions 

Life-Saving Safety Law 

For nearly a decade leading up to Local One’s 125 th anniversary 

in 2019, the local worked to get legislation in place to require safety 

training and licensing for elevator mechanics throughout New York City 

and State. According to the August 16, 2019, Labor Press, 23 people 

in New York City were killed in elevators and 48 were seriously injured 

from 2010 to 2019. 

Joined by employers and community leaders, Local One finally saw 

the New York State Elevator Safety Act passed by the State Legislature 

in June 2019. “We have our own training program for apprentices 

and the standards in the new legislation will match theirs,” Local One 

Business Manager Lenny Legotte told the Labor Press. 

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the legislation into law on 

January 2, 2020. The new law requires all individuals engaged in the 

design, construction, inspection, maintenance and repair of elevators 

or other automated people moving conveyances to be licensed by New 

York State. The law also creates the New York State Elevator Safety 

and Standards Advisory Board to help establish recommendations for 

elevator inspections, examinations to satisfy licensing requirements, 

and enforcement to ensure compliance and promote public safety. 

“For too long, unsafe and defective elevators have led to unnecessary 

injuries and even deaths, and this new law will help ensure all individuals 

working with elevators have the proper training and credentials to make 

sure these machines meet the safety standards necessary to provide 

reliable service,” the governor stated at the time. 

Unfortunately, the wait to have the law established while Local One 

worked to have the bill passed cost people their lives. On August 22, 

2019, for instance, 30-year-old Samuel Charles Waisbren was killed 

in an elevator accident at the Manhattan Promenade high-rise building 

on the east side of Manhattan when he tried to exit after he became 

trapped when the car shifted. 

“We can’t let another innocent person die as a result of improper 

training,” Brother Legotte told the August 23 Labor Press. “It is time for 

New York to join more than 30 other states that already have strong 

elevator safety laws.” 

Back in 2014 – and since – similar sentiments were expressed 

following the August 6 death of a man who fell down an open elevator 

shaft in a Queens building that had been cited for 11 elevator violations. 

“This event was predictable, obvious and preventable,” Local One 

attorney Steven Schwartzapfel stated in the August 13 Labor Press. 

“Until the state requires elevator mechanics to be licensed, people will 

continue to be injured and killed.” 

The new Elevator Safety Act will help protect the public and prevent 

injury from unsafe and poorly maintained elevators by requiring all 

individuals who work with elevators and other automated peoplemoving 

conveyances to be licensed by New York State, as stated in 

a January 2, 2020 press release from the Governor’s Office. In order 

to receive a license, these individuals will need to meet necessary 

qualifications and participate in training and continuing education.

I.U.E.C. 1 



Committee did an excellent job and should 

be commended for securing Local One a new 

agreement of which many veteran and retired 

members of Local One are calling one of the 

best contracts they have ever seen.” 

As Local One reached its 125th anniversary 

and prepared to celebrate it with a gala event 

in April 2020, the local and the world was 

faced with the outbreak of the coronavirus 

(COVID-19) pandemic, which first appeared 

in the United States in early 2020. The local’s 

leadership acted to counter the effects of 

the deadly virus on its membership as the 

pandemic would claim the lives of more than 

600,000 Americans while it continued into 

2021, canceling meetings, rescheduling events 

– including the anniversary party to May 2022 

– and establishing safety procedures to protect 

members and administrative staff so that some 

work could continue. 

The effects of COVID-19 left many members 

unemployed as a result, but the local provided 

aid as best it could. By late-summer 2020, Local 

One members started going back to work as 

COVID-19 restrictions were loosened. 

As always, the local continued serving the 

union mechanics in the city and region that 

is home to the first passenger elevator and 

hosts about 12 percent of all the elevators 

in the United States, proudly representing 

nearly 3,000 members who live and work in 

New York City, Westchester, Rockland, Long 

Island and New Jersey. These highly trained 

and certified members specialize in installing, 

servicing, repairing and modernizing elevators, 

escalators and other conveyances – including 

most of the roughly 63,000 passenger elevators 

in New York City alone. 

Local One Executive Board members (left to right) Matt McElduff, 

Phil Ducatelli, John Hook, Joe Harrison and Conie Kazis 

participating in a day of service during the North America’s 

Building Trades Unions (NABTU) Legislative Conference in 2019. 

(Left to right) Local One Business Agent Denis Kilduff 

and Day Secretary Lee Pirone at National Elevator 

Industry Education Program (N.E.I.E.P.) headquarters. 

As such, through the comprehensive training 

they receive through the National Elevator 

Industry Education Program, the members of 

I.U.E.C. Local One are the most progressively 

skilled, best-trained and safest-working elevator 

mechanics and apprentices in the region. With 

that training as its foundation, above all else, 

the local is committed to maintaining those 

standards well into its future as it advances along 

with the elevator-constructor industry. 

(Left to right) Local One Business Agent Tom Whooley, Business 

Agent Gary Riefenhauser, President/Business Manager Lenny 

Legotte, Treasurer Mike Riegger and Business Agent Steve Mazza. 

The Local One Pipe and Drum Band participates in the East Islip St. Patrick’s Day Parade in March 2016. 

Local One delegates and alternates at the 32nd I.U.E.C. Convention 

held in Las Vegas from September 27 to October 1, 2021.

I.U.E.C. 1 



Focus on Local One Member Education 

Apprenticeship, Safety and Upgrade 

Training Come to the Forefront 

“The practical demonstration of the secrets of our craft by competent men will 

ensure increased knowledge and skill on the part of the unions as a whole, which 

will repay the company or companies for any sacrifice on their part.” 

Local One officer Brother William Havenstrite wrote those 

thoughts in the February 1904 Elevator Constructor after the local 

had tasked him with investigating the possibility of establishing a 

“School of Instruction” in the “very near future.” At the time – and 

for the next nearly 100 years – the local’s training of its helpers and 

apprentices to become journeyman mechanics focused solely on 

on-the-job teaching while working side-by-side with experienced 

elevator constructors on active jobsites. 

Up to that time, in fact, the local had been following a rule for 

some years whereby any young man 18 years of age or older 

who enters the local serves as an apprentice for one year, after 

which he becomes a helper and is then “left to work out his own 

advancement into the mechanic class.” 

However, by July 1904, Local One had organized a “school 

for elevator construction,” as Corresponding Secretary Edward 

Cooper described it in the July 1904 Elevator Constructor, for its 

journeyman and apprentice members, 15 of whom attended the 

school’s first session that summer. After Brother Havenstrite had 

drawn up bylaws for the school and they were presented during 

that initial meeting, tuition was set at 25 cents per month and 

Apprentices attend classes and receive laboratory instruction in the 

Local One Education and Training area located in the local’s union hall. 

classes were held every Wednesday night at Central Hall on 32 nd 

Street near 7 th Avenue. 

Fourteen members were present at the second session, during 

which journeymen gave lessons on making and setting templates, 

plumbing hatches and other devices. The third session featured 

journeymen lecturing on the assembling of a vertical hydraulic 

machine, the situation and workings of the pilot and operating 

valves, cut-offs and various other illustrations pertaining to this 

style of machine. 

But into the late 1960s, Local One continued to provide little or 

no regular, formal classroom or lab instruction for its apprentices, 

as on-the-job training remained their primary source of learning 

the trade. That began to change after the National Elevator Industry 

Educational Program (N.E.I.E.P.), a joint craft-training effort 

between the I.U.E.C. and its signatory contractors, was established 

in 1967 and the local’s School Committee, working in unison with 

the I.U.E.C. international office, subsequently organized a new 

school program in 1970. 

It would not be until 2001, however, that Local One became 

the first local in the I.U.E.C. to establish an apprenticeship program 

recognized by the U.S. Department of Labor. The local had also 

set up schools in Long Island City and New Jersey at which its 

apprentices could attend the program’s classes – and journeymen 

could attend upgrade training sessions. To help further meet those 

needs, the local in 2005 also built the I.U.E.C.’s first, state-of-theart 

welding facility in its union hall to help members attain a New 

York City welding license. 

Into 2010, the Local One four-year apprenticeship program was 

meeting once a week for four hours, totaling 144 hours of required 

class time each year for an apprentice. The first seven weeks of 

instruction put safety first, with classes such as Introduction to 

Safety, Safety During Construction and Safety During Maintenance 

being taught by instructors who were veteran members with many 

years of experience constructing and maintaining elevators. 

What’s more, by that time, the local’s training courses were 

far surpassing all of the local laws and regulations on the training 

of elevator workers. For example, according to a February 21, 

2010, article in the Labor Press, “New York City requires all 

elevator workers to be certified by the federal Occupational Safety 

and Health Administration (OSHA). The city demands an OSHA 

10 certification on most construction sites. But it only takes 10 

hours of coursework to get an OSHA 10 certification.” The article 

further pointed out, “The city also requires anyone who works on a 

scaffold to hold a license earned from a four-hour training course. 

These requirements, and others like them, are light compared to 

the hundreds of hours of class time required by the union.” 

Under the direction of NEIEP, the Local One apprenticeship 

and training programs have expanded throughout its union hall in 

Long Island, whereby in 2019, nearly every room available in the 

building was being utilized as a classroom or lab space. 

As the local celebrates its 125 th anniversary in 2019, its 

apprenticeship program requires apprentices to work five days a 

week with a mechanic to get on-the-job training and attend class 

one night a week for four hours in the training center at the local’s 

main Union Hall or at its second training center in Perth Amboy, 

New Jersey. Classes at both locations teach industry skills ranging 

from safety to electrical that can be applied in the field. After four 

years of successful completion of all classes, apprentices are 

eligible to study and take the mechanic’s exam. 

As part of the local’s program, the Local One Education and 

Training Fund offers continuing education for apprentices and 

mechanics. Classes covered by the fund are OSHA 10, OSHA 30, 

4-Hour Scaffold User, 32-Hour Scaffold User, Hoisting & Rigging 

and CPR. 

Meanwhile, the N.E.I.E.P. continues to provide the most 

comprehensive, industry specific, technical education for the 

elevator-constructor industry. As such, the Local One training 

program offers N.E.I.E.P. classes to its members in order to 

provide a program of continuing education and training in the 

basic, intermediate and advanced skills necessary to maintain a 

knowledgeable and productive industry workforce.


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Happy 125 th Anniversary! 

Congratulations on your tremendous 

milestone! We are proud to support 

Elevators Constructors and all you 

do for our industry. Thank you for 

lifting us up.

Congratulations on your 125th 

Anniversary from Local 140 

Members and Officers 

IUEC LOCAL 140 PHOENIX/TUCSON

MORRIS AND SUSSEX 

COUNTY BUILDING TRADES 

David Critchley 

President 

John Mancini 

Sec/Tres 

& 

WARREN COUNTY 

BUILDING TRADES 

Mike Pulsinelli Ken Simone Mark Keple 

President Vice-President Sec/Tres

Christopher O’Neill 

Clint & Teresa Matthews 

Daniel P. Driscoll 

DAY ACCESSIBILITY & MOBILITY LIFT, INC. 

Dylan C. Iorillo 

Jean Schilling-Rochon 

Jeffrey Gitto 

Joseph F. McAllister III 

Joseph Iannicelli 

Kevin O'Neill, Card #5564 

Congratulations to IUEC Local 1 and my dear son, Timothy V. Connors 

Michael J. Fragoso 

Ricardo Pimentel 

Richard A. Schwarz III 

Schilling Family 

Congratulations IUEC Local 1, Pipe and Drum, so proud of you Sean and Pat 

Patrick Shea, Tim Connors, Sean Connors & Patrick Connors. 

Love, Tina Shea and Tina, Brianne & Lauren Connors 

Andrew S. Ayala 

Your Brothers and Sisters at I.U.E.C. Local 85, Lansing

IUEC 1

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