Unions support Line 5 in Wisconsin

Union welder Fred Hankel in annual training at Steamfitters Local 601 Training Center in Madison, WI.

Wisconsin welders sharpen their skills at Steamfitters Local 601 in Madison

June 2, 2022

“If I could get on Enbridge’s Line 5 Wisconsin Segment Relocation Project, it’d be heaven sent for me. That’s close to home, and I wouldn’t have to travel,” said Fred Hankel, a journeyman welder with the Steamfitters Local 601 in Madison, who grew up in Arena, WI.

Enbridge is seeking permits to re-route a segment of Line 5 in northern Wisconsin. The Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa filed a federal lawsuit in 2019 seeking to shut down Line 5 and remove it from the Reservation. The proposed re-route would move the pipeline off the Reservation while allowing it to continue to provide propane and other energy supplies for the Upper Midwest.

A project labor agreement signed for the Line 5 re-route ensures the project will be built by a trained union workforce creating 700 family-supporting construction jobs and pumping millions of dollars in project-related spending into local communities.

Neil Sickich, who has worked on multiple Enbridge projects in Wisconsin dating back to 1998, says he and his union are looking forward to working on the project. “Local 601 plans on building that project together with other unions,” he says. “I’m looking forward to the start of the project.”

Steamfitters 601 is part of the North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU) which represents 3 million members of 14 national and international unions. NABTU joined with the United Steelworkers (USW) representing over 600,000 members, in supporting Line 5 in federal court recently.

The NABTU and USW amicus brief filed in April urged the Court not to close Line 5 and said shutting down the pipeline would put thousands of people out of work and devastate communities across the Midwest and Canada. From the brief, “Operating and maintaining the pipeline and its associated industrial facilities provides thousands of members of the union…with meaningful work and solid, middle-class wages and benefits. Shutting down Line 5 would threaten these workers’ financial security, both in the present economy and in the future.”

Line 5 supplies 10 regional refineries in Ontario, Quebec, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, producing transportation fuels and countless consumer goods. Millions of people rely on Line 5 for energy every day.

Continuous education, pride in craft, and strict safety standards

“We keep our skills up with yearly training,” said Sickich a proud union welder who was born and raised in Ashland, Wis. “The integrity of the welds is second to none. The quality, the pride, it all comes together.”

Continuing education at Local 601’s training facility in Madison is critical to the craft, he says. So is a focus on safety.

“All the pipelines have to be safe—not just for the people working on them, but for the communities they are traveling through,” says Hankel. “That’s why Enbridge makes us go through the safety standards they do—all the procedures are written that we have to follow.”

“Pipelines are by far the safest way to transport crude oil and natural gas,” Hankel added. “This is our life, and our careers for people like me.  It’s rewarding in the end when you can see a finished project and see all the people who benefit from a finished project.”

Construction on the re-route will move forward once all necessary permits are received.