Rosendin Electric Terrorizes, Exploits Workers

“I feel like we’re being exploited.”

That’s what one IBEW Local 20 member stated, testifying to the intolerable working conditions at Rosendin Electric’s facility in Lewisville, Texas. Nearly 500 workers, members of IBEW Local 20, are pooled there, assembling prefabricated racks and electrical equipment. Much of the work comes by way of the recent AI data-center boom, fueling the growing demand for companies such as Rosendin Electric, who is contracted by Modular Power Solutions (MPS).

Scrutiny for Rosendin Electric’s ill-treatment of their workers and the IBEW union has intensified after the recent unjust firing of their sole union steward on May 18. New Worker briefly covered that story here. Joseph, an IBEW union steward for the facility, was, according to interviews with workers, unjustly terminated for handing out buttons demanding double-time pay for overtime—a policy Rosendin Electric currently implements at other projects in the Local, but not at its MPS sites.

The workers' reasonable demands were nipped in the bud. The same day that he passed out the buttons—which nearly every worker excitedly wore—the steward was terminated for “lack of production/not work-related activities while on the clock.” Rosendin Electric management was seen gathering a list of workers who would testify that Joseph wasn’t at his station.

Testimony from workers paints a picture of a local, purely voluntary movement for better pay cut short by employer terrorism. After terminating Joseph, Rosendin Electric management went around threatening workers in various ways to get them to remove the buttons.

Other workers took matters into their own hands, despite the threats to take off the pins. A few workers fashioned cardboard signs with the button slogan on them (“We Want DOUBLETIME PAY For OT”) and propped them up next to their stations.

Apprentices, worried about getting fired and losing their track to become journeymen, were cowed. Other lower classifications, including new union members from Mexico and Venezuela, were also exploited with threats, however subtle. Those who don’t speak English are easily threatened to sign off on management diktats and testimonies, lest they lose their job.

Rosendin Electric did not respond to questions regarding the incident or the working conditions in their facilities, neither did Modular Power Solutions.

Workers on every job site, just trying to earn an honest living like everyone else, deserve the support and protection from a union that will fight for them. IBEW has so far failed to do that.

Some were entirely against the button campaign and were happy to sell out their union brother. “We have a bunch of fake brothers here,” one worker said. One superintendent, Olga, appears to have their sympathies entirely with management, and apparently often boasted how little they cared to show up to union meetings. The foremen on the site are “yes-men to the supers,” and “bootlickers,” another worker told us.

At a safety meeting after the termination, management dressed down the workers, giving the usual talk about how the workers signed up for this job, and if they didn’t like it they could go somewhere else. Management claimed that if workers wanted to make change they should join management!

IBEW Local 20 has failed to mount a principled defense of Joseph. In fact, they have done the opposite—they folded and sided with Rosendin. They claim that since he passed some of the buttons around during work hours, his termination was justified. But it’s hard to understand how a steward is supposed to help their brothers and sisters if they can’t do basic tasks.

The balance of power here must change in favor of the union if anything is to ever get done, and the workers of IBEW must find their collective strength.

It appears that Rosendin Electric had it out for Joseph that day. “They really locked onto him that day,” trying to find the smallest infraction to justify a termination. His termination was targeted, as testimony shows that even the lowest performing workers simply get sent to other jobsites—this was the case for one worker known to take 4-hour bathroom breaks. Previously, Joseph’s activities as a steward were curtailed as much as possible by Rosendin. One worker stated they tried to put him in a corner as much as possible and offered to send him to other jobsites with higher pay just to get rid of him.

Testimony with workers proves that Joseph was an upstanding worker, and a great steward. “He’s a perfectly acceptable worker. There’s no way he’s performing any less than anyone else here.”

Workers we interviewed told us they wanted the union to do more to protect them, and to reinstate Joseph. “That’s why we all joined the union, right?” one worker told us. IBEW Local 20 has been known to take “a small eternity” to get back to its workers.

IBEW must immediately reverse course and fight for Joseph’s reinstatement and the workers of Local 20. If it doesn’t, those who are running the union bureaucracy will prove themselves to be collaborators of Rosendin Electric’s terroristic practices.