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Local 597 Hosts UA Tripartite Conference

Construction, government and labor leaders met in Mokena, Illinois this past September to address energy issues confronting America at the United Association’s Tripartite Conference held at the newly built UA Local 597 Training Center.

William Hite, the General President of the United Association opened the conference and Patrick Quinn, Governor of Illinois and a host of other politicians followed with addresses geared towards the contractors and labor officials in attendance, eager to learn plans and initiatives government has to help boost construction activity in the energy sector especially in the development of large energy plants that will be needed to replace aging plants and foster industrial and manufacturing growth in the U.S.

Michael Wallace, Vice-Chairman & COO of Constellation Energy and Chairman of Unistar Nuclear Energy displayed a master labor agreement his company had entered into as a preliminary step towards breaking ground for a new nuclear plant the company is attempting to build. Constellation is involved in development of several nuclear plants in the Atlantic states region.

Wallace emphasized that while the idea of smaller nuclear facilities have dominated discussions centering around a nuclear renaissance in the United States, plans moving forward today are for large capacity plants centered around the Evolutionary Power Reactor (EPR) design that brings unprecedented safety measures to nuclear facilities.

With the promise of 4,000 construction jobs being created during the development of one nuclear power plant and the thousands of jobs created from the operation and on-going support required by such facilities, it may be that the time has finally come to once again embrace zero emission nuclear plants in the United States.

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