Local 165 Vice President Pat Kunkle led the successful organizing campaign.

Members of UE Local 165 have organized a group of security alarm service and installation technicians in Delaware and eastern Maryland into UE and their local. On September 21 they won an NLRB election by 11 to 7. The new members have the same employer and do the same kind of work as members of the existing Local 165 bargaining unit in the Greater Philadelphia area.

The group of 19 workers organized around the issues of dignity and respect - and for the higher wages paid to UE Local 165 members doing the same work in nearby New Jersey and Southeast Pennsylvania. Needing virtually no assistance from the union staff, UE Local 165/Brotherhood of Alarm Technicians initiated this campaign and carried it to victory, defeating the high-priced union busting law firm that the employer - now known as Tyco Integrated Security - hired to stop workers from organizing.

Local 165 President Bob Kunkle tells how it happened. "About a year ago my son Patrick (who's the vice president of the local) started this quest, and he pursued it." Patrick Kunkle met several times with the Delaware and Maryland workers and kept in touch by phone. "Finally he brought them around. We had one more meeting and they signed cards."

Local 165 negotiated with the company and the NLRB over which workers would be eligible to vote, and the union came out representing three more workers. "We thought the bargaining unit should be the 16 technicians and one material handler," says Bob Kunkle. "The company insisted that we either give up the material handler or take two other coordinators who are generally administrative people. Pat wasn't willing to give up the material handler, so we stipulated to take them all. That was a unanimous vote by our local executive board. We rolled the dice and it looks like we came out good."

UE Director of Organization Bob Kingsley had high praise for the local's successful organizing effort. "Our brothers in Local 165 bring to life the idea that the members build this union. The initiative they are taking on the organizing front is an example for other locals throughout UE. "

Local 165's goal now is to negotiate to include these new members in the existing labor contract. The new members work from Tyco facilities in New Castle, Delaware and Salisbury, Maryland.

This impressive rank-and-file organizing victory comes less than two years after UE Local 165 came into existence. On February 23, 2011 the Brotherhood of Alarm Technicians voted to affiliate with UE; the workers then received a charter as Local 165. This group of Tyco/ADT workers in the Greater Philadelphia area had constituted themselves as an independent union just a few months before that, and won an NLRB election to oust the union with which they had previously been affiliated, in which they felt they were poorly represented.