Isaiah Zemke, business manager and financial secretary-treasurer of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART) Local 49, joined the America's Work Force Union Podcast for Trades Day to discuss the union's growth across New Mexico and West Texas.
Zemke described his path from non-union shops to union leadership, the work driving demand, the apprenticeship center in Lubbock and programs that bring high school students into the trade.
- Zemke said Local 49 has grown by about 300 members since last year, due to data center projects and other federal and public work. He sees no reason why further growth is not possible if the work continues.
- The Local has about 280 apprentices, Zemke said, its most ever. They are split between training centers in Albuquerque and Lubbock, where the new facility teaches fabrication, welding certification and HVAC service and controls.
- A new beginner-learner program, a signing day event for graduating seniors and a welding competition are all helping increase apprenticeship applications, with parents increasingly steering kids toward trades to avoid college debt, Zemke said.
A Hard Lesson in Non-Union Wages
Isaiah Zemke, business manager and financial secretary-treasurer of SMART Local 49, said he grew up in a small farming town south of Albuquerque. He landed in the sheet metal trade through friends whose families ran non-union shops. In high school, Zemke recalled, he did not even know that a union sheet metal shop existed in New Mexico.
The non-union years were a struggle, Zemke said. He found himself negotiating his own pay, asking for wages he knew his work had earned, only to hear that the company could not afford them. His mother knew a union sheet metal worker, a woman, who suggested he apply for the apprenticeship program because it would change his life.
After three years on the applicant list, Zemke got the call and the difference was immediate, he said. He quickly received better training and fringe benefits. As his wages climbed through the apprenticeship, he was finally able to afford a home, something he had never managed before, he said. That left him feeling like he owed the union something, so he became a youth organizer while still an apprentice, organizing non-union shops and salting. After he completed his apprenticeship, he ran high-profile jobs at Sandia and Los Alamos National Labs before moving into union leadership roles.
Data Centers, Labs and a Membership Boom
Local 49 has grown by about 300 members since last year, Zemke said, fueled by data center work, federal projects at Los Alamos, Sandia and the Pantex facility in Amarillo and other public and private jobs. He described a big economic boom, with manhours rising every month and enough work on the books to keep members busy for the next four to five years.
Contractors are hungry for work, Zemke said, and so far the union has manned every job, which gives them the confidence to bid more. If work keeps growing, he sees no reason membership cannot continue to grow, and the Local has built a public-facing website to appeal to non-union contractors who might need skilled training or manpower.
Skilled hands on those job sites give the end user, who is putting up the money, a product that will last, he said, and members are pulling in hefty checks every week.
Guardrails in New Mexico, No Rules in Texas
New Mexico's first data center, a Meta project that arrived around 2016, was welcomed at the time as a huge economic incentive, Zemke said. The Local has had members on site continuously. He said the center's older air-wash cooling has given way to a closed-loop system that conserves water. The controversy around data centers is more recent, he said, and the union is looking to work with legislators on a guardrail bill to ensure data centers are mindful of electricity and water consumption, while a one-year moratorium is also being considered.
Texas is a different ballgame, Zemke said: no regulations, ranchers selling land and annoying their neighbors, and a controversy that has not stopped anything from being built. That surplus of work is what pushed the Local to build a new training center in Lubbock, Texas.
Why Lubbock Needed Its Own School
Apprentice training is consolidated at five weeks a year, 40 hours a week, and apprentices are paid to attend, Zemke said. Everything used to be based in Albuquerque, but contractors and members in Lubbock wanted a school there, and provided additional funding. The timing could not have been better, he said: the Local has about 280 apprentices, the most ever, and two facilities let it split the apprentices between the two locations.
Zemke described the Lubbock training center as a metal building where apprentices learn to fabricate duct fittings from flat metal sheets. It includes an American Welding Society-certified welding lab and HVAC service training in controls, low-voltage wiring, reading schematics and working with customers, he said. The investment was not cheap, he said, but contractors are on board because skilled workers deliver a return, which he called a complete circle of training, management and labor.
Signing Day for the Trades
To fill that need for more apprentices, Zemke said the Local rebranded itself and its training center and built partnerships with high schools and community colleges across New Mexico and West Texas. Under its beginner learner program, Zemke said high school instructors teach the union's curriculum in class using materials the union provides, and students graduate with credentials, including OSHA 10 and direct entry into the apprenticeship program, with much of the first year already behind them.
Students also compete in a chili roaster welding cook-off, Zemke said, but the real prize is entry into apprenticeship. To further promote its new apprentices, the Local borrowed the college signing day event. New apprentices sign a letter of intent at a table with a specific company, with their families watching, followed by direct entry after their high school graduation. One mother arrived in tears, he recalled, not wanting to believe the wages and benefits were real.
Parents Rethinking College Debt
Parents across the country are changing course, Zemke said, and in his area, many do not want their children to be saddled with large student loan debt; especially when the apprenticeship pays students to attend school.
More information on SMART Local 49 is available at smwlu49.org.
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