B.C. Apprentice Is First Member From Canada to Win Coveted Organizing Award

*This article was originally published in the December 2024 issue of The Electrical Worker Online

Justin Santos, an energetic apprentice using social media to help squash myths about unions, was honored in August as the IBEW’s Rank-and-File Organizer of the Year during the union’s annual Membership Development Conference in Chicago.

He’s the first member of a local in Canada to win the award.

“I grew up wanting to be an electrician,” said the 25-year-old Santos, an Ontario native who’s now a fourth-year inside wireman apprentice with Vancouver, British Columbia, Local 213. “Tradesmen would come to my grandma’s house to help her out. I was mostly fascinated by electricians.”

Santos took electrical courses in high school and later worked nonunion electrician jobs. But after Santos learned that he hadn’t been properly registered as an apprentice — rendering worthless more than two years of work — a neighbor who worked a union job for General Motors told him to consider joining the IBEW.

“I didn’t know much about unions,” Santos said. “He told me that he retired with a good pension and had good benefits and wage increases.”

Santos applied for an apprenticeship with St. Catharines, Ontario, Local 303, and in early 2021, he also met with Rich Di Pietro, then a Local 303 organizer, who was trying to organize Santos’s contractor.

“We grabbed coffee at a Tim Horton’s outside Niagara Falls and froze as we talked in the parking lot for about an hour,” said Di Pietro, now a First District international representative and district organizing coordinator.

Once Santos was in the IBEW, “what I noticed was that brotherhood the union preaches,” he said.

In 2022, Santos moved to Kelowna, British Columbia. To his dismay, he discovered that many area electrical contractors had declined to work with the IBEW.

Worse, while working nonunion and awaiting admission to Local 213’s apprenticeship, “I was going through the same thing I did in my first year — not getting registered, not getting [credit for] my hours,” Santos said. “Being a part of the IBEW before, I had different standards at that point, so I was pretty angry.”

He channeled his frustration into conversations with people about unions, making fliers and stickers touting the IBEW and posting union-themed videos on his TikTok account, @itssparkyjay, in his spare time.

He was surprised when some of his union-themed videos received hundreds of thousands of views. “I was like, ‘Holy crap, I can make a difference up here,’” he said. “I still get messages asking how to join, from everywhere.”

“He’s really on it, with internal organizing and promoting us with young people,” said Local 213 Business Manager Jim Lofty.

Santos also volunteered to be an IBEW salt at one of Kelowna’s larger nonunion contractors. “Anything I could do to help at this point, I would do,” he said. “I wanted to hear people’s opinions and convey them to the local.”

Since then, the Local 213 member has participated in IBEW organizing meetings across North America — including the First District’s recent national Membership Development Conference in Kelowna.

For now, Santos is focused on his traffic signal and street light installer job with IBEW signatory contractor Cobra Electric, adding that his managers there happily helped him arrange his work schedule so he could travel to Chicago to receive his award.

“Justin is as active as he can be,” said Organizer Dustin Brecht, who was a Local 213 organizer when he got to know Santos.

“Justin brings energy into our membership, inspiring and motivating others,” Lofty said.

Local 303 Business Manager Mark Cherney said he’s pleased to see Santos become an online ambassador for the IBEW. “I’m really glad things have worked out well for him,” he said.

“Justin is proof that organizing at all levels of membership is crucial to the success of the IBEW,” First District International Vice President Russ Shewchuk said. “We are grateful for Justin’s continued solidarity and congratulate him on this well-deserved recognition.”