Lodge 29 Receives 2015 Charles W. Jones Award
Kansas City, KS (October 2015) — MOST, the non-profit tripartite safety and training arm of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers (IBB), recently presented the Charles W. Jones Award to Local Lodge 29 (North Quincy, Mass.) during the 2015 National Tripartite Alliance Conference held October 5-7, 2015 in Myrtle Beach, S.C.
Charles Hancock, business manager/secretary-treasurer for Local Lodge 29, accepted the award on behalf of the lodge. “It is a great honor to accept this highly sought-after industry award on behalf of our lodge members, who spend numerous hours to make our craft the very best,” he said.
Chartered in 1928, Local 29 represents nearly 300 members across five New England states – Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. The lodge maintains a training center in North Quincy, Mass., and a secondary training center in Maine at the Portland Arts and Technology High School.
The Charles W. Jones Award is presented annually to the top-performing Boilermaker lodge in the United States. According to IBB International President Newton B. Jones, the award “encourages members to participate in MOST and continue achieving the highest levels of safety and training in the industry.”
To win the national award, a local must have the highest percentage of members participating in seven of the 17 MOST programs: OSHA 10/30 Program, Common Arc Program, Substance Abuse Program, Scaffolding Program, Steel Erection Program, Rigging Program and Leadership Program.
The award is named after the late Boilermakers’ International President Emeritus, Charles W. Jones, who led the effort to establish the national MOST labor-management trust fund in 1989, and vigorously pushed its expansion over the years. In addition to the recognition, winning local receives a cast silicon bronze statue depicting a 1930s-era Boilermaker holding a rivet gun.
Local 29 is the fifth Boilermaker lodge to receive the award and recognition. Other recipients have included Local 154 (Pittsburgh, Pa.), 2011; Local 85 (Toledo, Ohio), 2012; Local 433 (Tampa, Fla.), 2013; and Local 11 (Helena, Mont.), 2014.