In Bastrop, Texas, a Union Member Steps Up

by Barbara Doherty, Jan 13, 2012

Autumn has come and gone in Bastrop, Texas, but many of those who lost homes and possessions in the raging late-summer wildfires there still need help.  This week, Philip Lawhon jumped at the chance to use his skills as an electrician to keep the Bastrop relief effort humming.

Lawhon is director of member development for the 1,150-member Local 520 of the Electrical Workers (IBEW). He put on his tool belt when the Texas AFL-CIO—working with the Capital Area United Way in Austin—sent out a call for help wiring and lighting a temporary distribution center for the Bastrop County Wildfire Relief Center.

The center had been operating without power since October, trying to keep displaced residents supplied with the basics as they put their lives back together. Said Lawhon:

The relief workers were trying to arrange to get the wiring job done on their own. When we got the call, we got right on it.

More than 1,400 homes and many businesses were destroyed in the fires.

“People had no time to grab anything,” said Texas AFL-CIO President Becky Moeller.  Now, she said, burned-out structures and debris have vanished, leaving vacant lots dotting the streets of Bastrop, which lies 35 miles east of Austin.

Along with three United Way labor liaisons from other parts of the state, Moeller and the state federation have coordinated labor’s relief effort.

Many union members who needed tools to get back to work got them through the Texas AFL-CIO’s efforts. The intensity of the need for help has lessened, although Moeller said she just received word of five union teachers who remain in need.

As a Bastrop resident himself, Lawhon didn’t think twice about taking on the relief-center electrical job. In fact, he lived about a mile from where the fires were stopped.

Lawhon, his wife Marliesa and their three children were evacuated and displaced for four days last September before returning to their undamaged home—relieved and happy, but sobered by the area’s devastation.

It was a weird feeling. Just about everybody we knew, or someone in their family, lost their home or some of their possessions.

The family joined relief efforts at their kids’ elementary school, stuffing 570 backpacks for the 120 students whose families were displaced, and helping a dozen teachers who lost homes.

Lawhon also dispatched 20 Local 520 member/volunteers to help the Extreme Home Makeover TV program rebuild the home of a volunteer firefighter who lost her home while she was out fighting the blazes.

For the relief center project, Lawhon rounded up wire, boxes and fixtures—donated by KST Electric, a union company created by an IBEW member that is now part of Rosendin Electric.  A few hours of work over the course of a week, and the job was done.

It’s a great story, made even better by the final chapter.

Space for the relief center, which is located in a small strip mall, was donated by its owner, a pediatrician who operates his clinic there. The doctor was impressed by Local 520’s response and Lawhon’s work. With Lawhon’s contacts, the doctor got a good price quote from a union contractor to pull permits and bring power lines and wiring into the remaining unoccupied spaces.

“We turned it into a little job for one of our contractors and a few of our members,” Lawhon said.

In a right-to-work state sometimes people have a different perspective on unions.  It feels good to let them know that we’re the IBEW, we’re hard workers, we want to feed our families just like everyone else—and that we care about our community.

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