Operating Engineers Local 3 and the Transbay Terminal
Organized Labor
Operating Engineers Local 3
Demolishing the Transbay Terminal
Demolition work provides instant gratification. As one operating engineer stated, “When you arrive, there's a huge building, and at the end of the day, it's rubble. You can really see what you did that day.” Some workers take photographs of the building they are about to destroy so they have a record of what they did, because once the building's gone, it's gone.
Demolition is the most dangerous part of a project, because it is the most unpredictable. When a 9000-pound wrecking ball hits a a concrete pillar, the concrete explodes. Dodging flying concrete is part of the crane operator's job.
Fallen skyscrapers create a riverbed of waist-high concrete chunks. Transversing the construction site at that point is like hopping from one unsteady boulder to the next. The concrete is eventually ground up and recycled.
On the Job Site visited Operating Engineers Local 3 members as they demolished the old Transbay Terminal to prepare the site for the building of what will become the mega transportation hub of the Bay Area. When completed, it will be the Grand Central Station of the west coast, connecting metro, buses and light rail.
Local 3 represents not only heavy equipment operators, but also construction inspectors, testers, and surveyors. Local 3 has 40,000 members and covers Northern California, Northern Nevada, Hawaii and Utah, making it the largest construction trades local in the United States.