Electrical construction / St. Louis / Two contracts compared

What's Different. Why It Matters.

Two collective bargaining agreements cover electrical construction in the St. Louis area. Both are signed. Both are public. This is what separates them, line by line, with the article numbers so you can look it up yourself.

$26,640A card
$40,880B card
$52,080C card

behind the area standard every year, at 2,000 hours, on the rates both contracts published for August 2026

Article XX and the 2026 AEC wage rates

Three journeyman rates for one trade

The area standard

IBEW Local 1 Inside Agreement

One journeyman classification. One rate. $51.79 an hour.

Your agreement

Mid-America Carpenters Regional Council and AEC

Three. A card $50.31, B card $43.84, C card $38.24. The employer decides whether you carry an A or a B. A B card must hold that card five years before he is even eligible to apply to test for an A.

Why it mattersTwo electricians on the same crew, doing the same work, to the same code, signed off by the same inspector, can be $12.07 an hour apart. Over a year that is $24,140. Nothing in the agreement limits how many C cards a contractor may put on a job, so the lowest rate is what sets the price of the bid, and the rest of us get measured against it.

$24,140a year between an A card and a C card doing the same work

Article XX. "C card" appears twice in the entire agreement.

Nobody will tell you what a C card is

The area standard

IBEW Local 1 Inside Agreement

We have classifications below journeyman too, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Residential and commercial wiremen work at a percentage of the journeyman rate. The difference is that each one is written down: what work it covers, what supervision it requires, and a path to upgrade to journeyman by examination.

Your agreement

Mid-America Carpenters Regional Council and AEC

The C card was set up for communication workers. The agreement never says so. Read the whole book and the words communication, sound, low voltage, data and fire alarm do not appear one time. "C card" itself appears exactly twice, once in the annuity rate and once in the raise schedule. There is no scope of work, no eligibility standard, and no way off it.

Why it mattersHaving a lower classification is not the problem. Having one nobody defined is. Article XX goes to real trouble over the other two cards. It tells the employer it may not be "arbitrary, capricious or unreasonable" in deciding whether a journeyman "qualifies for an A or B card." It says an apprentice who finishes the program advances to a B card, or an A card if qualified. It lays out a full pathway from B to A: five years, two classes, three certifications, two exams and a practical evaluation. Not one word of that language mentions the C card. The apprenticeship does not lead to it, no standard governs who gets put on it, and no pathway leads out of it. And run a crew as a C card foreman and the premium is ninety cents an hour against four dollars for an A card, a number that is not in Article XX with the other two but buried at the bottom of the wage sheet. Here is what that gets you in practice. The C card is supposed to be low voltage, but we have seen C card electricians doing the same commercial and residential work as B cards, on the same jobs, at $38.24 against $43.84. When a classification has no written scope, there is nothing to point at when it gets used for work it was never meant for. That is not an accident of drafting. A classification with a wage schedule and no definition is not a classification. It is a discount.

Twicethe number of times "C card" appears in your agreement, both times in a rate table and never in a definition

Article XIII and Article XIX

You are paying for your own vacation

The area standard

IBEW Local 1 Inside Agreement

The employer contributes 10.5 percent of the wage to a vacation fund. At the journeyman rate that is $5.44 an hour, paid on top of the wage.

Your agreement

Mid-America Carpenters Regional Council and AEC

$1.00 an hour is deducted from your wage, after taxes. Article XIII then defines vacation as an unpaid leave of absence, two weeks a year, and only one worker on a job may take it at a time.

Why it mattersThis is not a vacation benefit. It is you saving for your own unpaid time off, out of a wage that is already lower, and then scheduling it around your coworkers. Article XIX also allows the Council to raise that deduction once a year, taken straight out of your hourly wage, on thirty days notice and without a vote.

$5.44an hour the standard puts into vacation. Yours puts in nothing and takes a dollar.

Article XIV

There are no paid holidays

The area standard

IBEW Local 1 Inside Agreement

Nine holidays, funded by an employer contribution of 10 percent of the wage, $5.18 an hour, whether you work the day or not.

Your agreement

Mid-America Carpenters Regional Council and AEC

No holiday contribution at all. Double time if you work the holiday. If the job is down that day, nothing. Veterans Day or the Friday after Thanksgiving, chosen by the employer, employee by employee, not both.

Why it mattersA holiday you are not paid for is not a holiday, it is a day without a check. Across a year the standard's holiday contribution comes to about $10,358. That line does not exist in your agreement.

$10,358a year in holiday contributions that are never made for you

Article III

Your overtime never reaches double time

The area standard

IBEW Local 1 Inside Agreement

Time and a half for the first two hours past eight, then double time. Double time on Sundays and holidays. Overtime goes first to the crew already on the job and is rotated as equally as practical.

Your agreement

Mid-America Carpenters Regional Council and AEC

Time and a half for everything past eight, no matter how long the day runs. On service and emergency work the first ten hours of overtime each week are mandatory, and you may refuse only for a documented reason acceptable to the company, at its discretion.

Why it mattersWork a fourteen hour day. The standard pays you eight at straight time, two at time and a half, and then four at double time. Yours pays eight straight and six at time and a half, and never a minute more, however long the day runs. On an A card that single day comes out about $129 apart. The long days are where a construction electrician actually makes his year, and that is exactly where the gap opens widest.

Zerohours of double time on a weekday, however long the day runs

Article XV

Your health contributions stop at 150 hours a month

The area standard

IBEW Local 1 Inside Agreement

$12.10 an hour, for every hour paid. No cap.

Your agreement

Mid-America Carpenters Regional Council and AEC

$11.02 an hour plus $0.20 to a health reimbursement account, capped at 150 hours a month.

Why it mattersThe money is not really the point. The point is what a cap does to your reserve. Building trades health plans run on a bank of hours: the hours you work beyond what a month of coverage costs go into a reserve, and that reserve is what carries you and your family through layoff, weather, and the slow stretch after a job tops out. A cap on contributions is a cap on that bank. A steady forty hour week is already about 167 hours a month, so you are over the ceiling before you work a single hour of overtime, and every hour past 150 builds you nothing. You can work a hard year of overtime and still come into a layoff with a thin bank. Ours has no cap, so every hour, straight or overtime, keeps building the reserve. Ask your fund office how many banked hours you actually have right now, and how many months of coverage that buys if the work stops.

150hours a month is the ceiling, and a normal full time month is already 167. Everything above it builds no reserve.

Article II, Sections 4 and 5

Anyone can be hired, from anywhere, and laid off in any order

The area standard

IBEW Local 1 Inside Agreement

The union is the sole and exclusive source of referrals, through four priority groups based on experience and residency. Layoffs run in reverse order, temporary employees first and longest standing last. Two hours' pay if you are told to report and are not put to work. Fifty dollars if you are referred and rejected.

Your agreement

Mid-America Carpenters Regional Council and AEC

The employer "reserves the right to determine the source from which its Employees shall be secured and to be the exclusive judge of their qualifications," including temporary employment agencies and loaner programs from other contractors. There is no referral procedure, no layoff order, and no show up pay.

Why it mattersYour years in the trade buy you nothing when the job winds down. The man next to you may be a temp from an agency, hired the same week and kept in whatever order the employer prefers. Seniority you cannot enforce is not seniority.

Nonereferral procedure, layoff order, or show up pay

Article IX

Your first 520 hours have no protection

The area standard

IBEW Local 1 Inside Agreement

No probationary period. The grievance procedure is available from your first day.

Your agreement

Mid-America Carpenters Regional Council and AEC

Ninety working days or 520 hours, whichever comes first. During that time "the Union and Employee waive any right to use the grievance/arbitration procedure" to challenge a layoff, discipline or discharge.

Why it mattersFor roughly your first three months with a contractor you can be let go for any reason or for none, and your union has agreed in advance that it will not carry it to arbitration. The clock runs with the company, not the job, so it does not restart when that contractor moves you to a new project. But this is construction, and you change contractors. Every time you go to work for a new one, the clock starts over at zero, and you spend that stretch with no recourse all over again.

520hours with no right to grieve a discharge

Article XI and Article XX

You do not vote on your own raise

The area standard

IBEW Local 1 Inside Agreement

The wage and benefit package is bargained and then ratified by a vote of the members it covers.

Your agreement

Mid-America Carpenters Regional Council and AEC

The agreement fixes the increase at $3.25, then $3.00, then $3.00 an hour, "in wages or fringe benefits to be determined by the Trustees." Health increases are "deducted from the Total Package increases." Article XX makes the rates minimums that "may be exceeded or not at the Employer's discretion, not subject to the Grievance Procedure." Article XI lets a contractor ask for wage relief on a job at a pre-bid conference, and that decision "shall not be subject to the grievance or arbitration provisions."

Why it mattersYou know the size of the raise. You do not decide how much of it reaches your check instead of a fund. You cannot grieve a coworker being paid above you, and you cannot grieve the rate being cut on a particular job. Every lever over your own pay sits in someone else's hand.

$3.25an hour, allocated by trustees rather than by your vote

Article XII

Two apprentices for every journeyman, and school is unpaid

The area standard

IBEW Local 1 Inside Agreement

One apprentice per journeyman. A journeyman is the first person on the site. Apprentices are paid for their school day and receive fund contributions while they are there.

Your agreement

Mid-America Carpenters Regional Council and AEC

Two apprentices to one journeyworker. Apprentices "shall not be paid wages by the Employer," and no pension, welfare, vacation or holiday contributions are made for time spent in school. They receive a stipend from the training fund instead. The $1.00 vacation does not apply to first through fifth term apprentices at all.

Why it mattersTwo to one is not a training ratio, it is a labor ratio. It holds down the average cost of a crew and it thins out the supervision an apprentice is supposed to be getting. The apprentice pays for that twice, once in what he learns and once in what he is not paid while learning it.

2 to 1apprentices per journeyworker. The standard is one to one.

Article VIII, against Sections 1.04 and 2.11 of ours

Whether you are allowed to stand with anybody else

The area standard

IBEW Local 1 Inside Agreement

We have a no-strike clause too. Ours is Section 1.04, and it covers stoppages "because of any proposed changes in this Agreement or dispute over matters relating to this Agreement." Disputes under our own contract go to the labor management committee and then to the Council on Industrial Relations. But Section 2.11 is titled Assistance to Other Labor Organizations, and it says the Agreement "does not deny the right of the Union or its Business Manager to render assistance to other labor organizations by removal of its members from jobs."

Your agreement

Mid-America Carpenters Regional Council and AEC

Article VIII bans strikes, sympathy strikes, refusing to cross a picket line, slowdowns, work stoppages, picketing, hand-billing and "concerted refusal to work overtime," "regardless of the reason for doing so, under any circumstances." Anyone who violates it may be discharged, and the arbitrator "shall have no authority to alter in any way the amount of discipline." The Union agrees to "grant them no assistance."

Why it mattersBoth agreements give up the right to strike over our own disputes. That is ordinary, and we are not going to pretend it is not in our book too. The difference is how far it reaches. Ours is tied to disputes under our own contract, and our agreement then goes out of its way to preserve the right to pull our people to help another union. Yours reaches everything, for any reason, at any time. It means that when another trade on your jobsite is getting beaten, you are contractually forbidden from declining to walk past them, and it is a dischargeable offense to encourage a coworker toward "reducing his productive output." That is not a no-strike clause. It is a promise that you will never be a problem for anyone. Every other item on this page is a number, and this is the clause that keeps the numbers where they are.

Any reasonis enough to make acting together a dischargeable offense, under any circumstances, for three years

A contribution is not a benefit

Look only at the hourly contributions and pension and health will look close. $12.70 an hour into retirement on an A card against $12.43 on ours. $11.22 into health against $12.10. Somebody is going to point at those two columns and tell you the packages are basically the same. They are not, and the columns are the reason the claim survives. A contribution is what goes in. A benefit is what comes out, and what comes out is set by the accrual rate, the vesting rules and the funding of the plan, none of which appear anywhere on a wage sheet. The plainest example never shows up as an hourly number at all: Local 1 members have retiree health coverage. Your plan has none. The same dollar an hour can buy one retirement you can afford to be sick in and one you cannot. We are working up the full pension and retiree health comparison and we will publish it here. Until then, do not let anyone point at a contribution column and tell you the retirements are equal.

The whole package, side by side

Per hour, St. Louis, August 2026 IBEW Local 1 AEC A AEC B AEC C
Wage $51.79 $50.31 $43.84 $38.24
Health and welfare $12.10 $11.22 $11.22 $11.22
Cap on health contributions none 150 hrs 150 hrs 150 hrs
Retirement contributions IN (pension, annuity, NEBF, income security) $12.43 $12.70 $12.05 $12.05
Retiree health coverage yes none none none
Vacation and holiday, employer funded $10.62 none none none
Training $1.10 $0.58 $0.58 $0.58
Total package $88.23 $74.91 $67.79 $62.19
Behind the standard $13.32 $20.44 $26.04
Per year, at 2,000 hours $26,640 $40,880 $52,080

IBEW column: Local 1 Inside Agreement wage sheet, May 31, 2026 through May 29, 2027. AEC columns: published AEC wage and fringe benefit rates effective August 1, 2026, St. Louis and the Illinois counties. The AEC total includes the $0.10 association fee. Vacation and holiday in the IBEW column are employer contributions of 10.5 percent and 10 percent of the wage. The AEC $1.00 vacation is deducted from your wage after taxes and is not counted here as an employer contribution. The retirement row is what goes into the plans per hour, not what the plans pay out. Read it together with the retiree health line above and with the section on why a contribution is not a benefit. Both agreements also carry small industry lines that are not broken out separately here. The IBEW total includes $0.20 for market research, development and public relations. The AEC total includes the $0.10 association fee, and the AEC $0.20 market recovery is deducted from your wage after taxes, so it already sits inside the $50.31 rather than on top of it.

Do not take our word for any of it

Every figure above comes from the two published agreements. We would rather you checked us than believed us. Four things to ask for, and you are entitled to all of them:

  • Your own collective bargaining agreement, the 2026 to 2029 book between the Mid-America Carpenters Regional Council and the Associated Electrical Contractors of St. Louis.
  • The AEC wage and fringe benefit rate sheet effective August 1, 2026, for the county you work in.
  • Which card you are classified under, in writing, and what it would take to move up.
  • The IBEW Local 1 Inside Agreement, which is public. Ask us and we will hand you one.

Then turn to Article XIII and read what your agreement calls a vacation. Turn to Article XX and read who decides whether you are worth an A card, and then look for the sentence that says what a C card is. Look for the word communication anywhere in the book. Turn to Article VIII and read what you have given up the right to do about any of it. We did not write those articles. We are only asking you to read them.

What you are allowed to do

Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act protects your right to join together with your coworkers to improve wages and working conditions. Talking to each other, signing a statement together, presenting it together, filing grievances, speaking at a union meeting, submitting bargaining demands, running for office and filing a charge with the NLRB are all protected, and your own agreement says in Article VII that you remain free to file with the NLRB and the EEOC. Article VIII is the other half of the picture. It prohibits stopping work, slowing down, picketing, hand-billing and refusing overtime together, and the penalty is discharge. So do not stop work. Read, ask, organize, and put it in writing.