The fingerprints, boot prints, and handiwork of members from the International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 150, can be found across our entire Region and beyond.

Highway and building construction. Landfills and quarries. Drilling and testing industries. Equipment rental and dealership companies. The slag industry and public sector entities.

Local 150 represents more than 24,000 members whose work goes largely unnoticed and unappreciated by most Northwest Indiana residents. The same can be said for other unions whose workers’ collective muscle has helped build this corner of the state from the ground up.

This Labor Day holiday weekend gives us an opportunity to take a pause, stand back, and look around at all the work that’s been done by this union and other unions in our area.

The Local 150 covers 14 counties in Indiana, as well as the northern part of Illinois and a few counties in Iowa. Its members have built schools and skyscrapers, moved mountains of dirt, maintained steel mills, worked in utility and refinery plants, and toiled in other industrial settings for decades.

“Being a union worker means going to work every day, being good at what you do, earning a solid living, and helping companies complete their projects,” said David Fagan, financial secretary of the Local 150.

He’s been in the union for more than four decades, with much of that time as an officer.

“I’m one of the five constitutional officers, overseeing all our contracts, buildings, and personnel in those buildings, from both our Merrillville office and our Lakeville office,” Fagan said. “It’s our job to make sure we have the infrastructure in place, which we do with our training facility.”

Local 150’s training center campus is situated on 300-plus acres in Wilmington, Illinois. It boasts 258 pieces of training equipment, a 223,000-square-foot building, a 207,000-square-foot indoor training center, 30 classrooms, 30-plus simulators, a full-service cafeteria and 200-seat auditorium.

“We are very proud of our apprenticeship and training facility,” Fagan said.

The site, with property totaling roughly 900 acres, also has a construction material testing lab, a state-of-the-art welding facility, and an equipment simulator lab, among other amenities. Just recently, it expanded the indoor arena at a cost of roughly $15 million, allowing for year-round training, regardless of the weather conditions.

The apprenticeship program is currently accepting applications for its heavy equipment operator, heavy equipment repair technician, geothermal/well driller, and construction building inspector programs. Instructors are available six days a week, Monday through Saturday, except holidays. Labor Day is one of those holidays.

“It’s amazing the amount of people that I have taken over the years to see our training sites, including governors, senators and state reps,” Fagan said.

One of those guests, a well-known political name from our Region, arrived with an anti-union attitude but left with a new appreciation for the training programs at the site. He returned the next day, via plane, to take aerial photos of the sprawling site, Fagan said.

“He saw what we do to prepare operators to do the work that the private and public sector needs through contractors,” Fagan said. “He’s now a tremendous advocate of us.”

The training site, approved by the U.S. Department of Labor, is located in the center of the geographical jurisdiction of Local 150.

“When apprentices and journeymen who live more than 30 miles away train at our facility, we cover the cost of their lodging,” said Fagan, a loyal and dedicated union advocate.

“My dad was an operating engineer, and my brothers were operating engineers,” he said. “So I followed in what you could call the family business and went to work.”

He worked in a blast furnace, then the slag industry, before running for election as a union official in the late 1980s.

“I won because I knew a lot of places, and because people were familiar with my last name because of my dad,” Fagan said. “After I served as an election commissioner, I got a call to come to the main office and then got hired as an organizer in my late 20s. I’ve been working for the Local ever since.”

“It’s been an interesting career. Even to this day, I’m still one of those guys on Sunday who’s glad to go back to work on Monday," he noted.

Fagan is proud of Local 150 and its growing footprint across multiple states.

“We’re not losing market share, we’re gaining market share,” he said.

Local 150 manages a pension fund and healthcare fund which includes various healthcare facilities, including the Operator Healthcare Center in Merrillville. The center employs a physician, nurse practitioners, physical therapist, chiropractor, mental health care provider, and a testing lab. Members and their dependents can utilize this facility without a deductible or copay.

In addition, Local 150 manages a retiree medical savings plan, retiree enhancement fund, vacation fund, and the Construction Resource Foundation with multiple entities working under the CRF.

Fagan describes his fellow union members as “brothers,” compared to contractors who could be called “cousins.”

“I get along with my cousins, but if you pick on my brother, we may have an issue,” he joked.