Union Leader saw World

Union leader saw world during government work
By Erin Zureick
Staff Writer
Sunday, Aug 1, 2010

Ken Ward's career as an electrician has taken him around the world and into some of the United States' most tightly secured nuclear programs.

Ken Ward is in his second term arranging and monitoring jobs and leading negotiations for International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers members in 16 counties. He spent 15 years working for Savannah River Site, and he went back to college in 1996 to receive a business administration degree.

Ken Ward is in his second term arranging and monitoring jobs and leading negotiations for International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers members in 16 counties. He spent 15 years working for Savannah River Site, and he went back to college in 1996 to receive a business administration degree.

Occasionally, the occupation also has sent him tumbling off a ladder and into the emergency room.

"(It's) one of the most hazardous jobs there is because you cannot see electricity," Ward said. "It only takes a milliamp to kill someone."

The Aiken native followed his father into the profession and now serves as business manager and financial secretary for Local 1579 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in downtown Augusta.

He has been involved with the union since he took up the trade after graduating from Langley Bath Clearwater High School.

Ward, 62, is serving his second three-year term in the post. He spends his days arranging and monitoring jobs for about 750 local union members and negotiating contracts.

"I try to follow the IBEW constitution. I am a rule person," Ward said. "Any rules I follow to the best of my ability. I try to be honest and keep everything out in the open for our members."

IBEW Assistant Business Manager Will Salters said he enjoys working for Ward.

"Ken is laid-back and fair, but he's strict when he needs to be," Salters said.

Finding a career

Love led Ward to become a member of the union. He had planned to go to college but fell for his wife of now 43 years, Dianne, and put in an application for the union, where his father also was a member.

He completed a four-year apprenticeship while attending IBEW night classes to be trained in electrical construction.

Ward spent 15 years working at Savannah River Site and also has taken jobs in places such as Texas, Michigan and southeast Asia for the U.S. government. The work gave him an insider look at the country's nuclear weapons program during the Cold War.

While working for the Department of Energy, Ward also was sent to Japan; Guam; and Seoul, South Korea, to complete projects.

Learning more about the nuclear industry was one of his favorite parts of the job, Ward said.

"We can go out and work in these places if we use extreme caution and follow safety procedures and don't do anything foolish," he said.

In 1996, Ward followed a dream and went back to college at the University of South Carolina. He received his bachelor of science degree in business administration management in 2000.

"That was something I wanted to do and I just put it off," he said. "I just wanted to finish something I started years ago. It was a challenge. It was one of the toughest things that I think I've done."

His wife is also a USC graduate and works as a registered nurse at Medical College of Georgia Hospital.

She said her husband was very determined to complete his course work.

"It wasn't easy," she said. "I think he was probably the oldest student in his class."

Union man

Ward is in charge of negotiating contracts for IBEW members in 12 Georgia counties and four South Carolina counties that represent about a 50-mile radius.

Local contractors who work with the union will call the IBEW office and request a certain number of workers. Those jobs are then listed by the local union and filled on a first come, first served basis.

Ward estimated that 25 percent to 30 percent of electrical workers in the Augusta area belong to the union.

"The unions in the Southeast are not as prevalent as they are a little farther up north, say Ohio and Pennsylvania. We work to try to unionize as much as we can."

He said the main difference between the union and nonunion is the extra benefits IBEW provides.

"We try our best to organize as many people as possible in the CSRA to be part of the IBEW," Ward said. "We have some of the best negotiated wages; we have health insurance and one of the best pensions in the United States here at 1579."

A down economy means smaller bids usually are tougher to win for union workers because the benefits do add to costs, he said. The union is more successful bidding for larger projects because union benefits don't make up as large a percentage of the bid, Ward said.

The union negotiates annually with a group of electrical contractors for wages and benefits. Meetings are going on weekly now for a contract that expires at the end of September, he said.

Sometimes Ward is faced with particularly tough negotiations, such as talks that lasted about a year and a half with the contractor handling the construction of two reactors at Plant Vogtle. The talks wrapped up in March.

"We did convince them that we have the ability and manpower in the Southeast and people are willing to come here to work," Ward said.

He said he plans to serve a third term before retiring.

"My biggest challenge is trying to get the best that we can for our membership in bargaining contracts," he said. "My biggest challenge is to keep all of our members employed."

His wife, Dianne, said he knows what it's like to be in a worker's shoes and be unsure when the next job will come.

"I think he's an asset as a business manager. He's got a lot of experience," she said. "I think he's on the job 24-7."