I felt great organizing and knowing we’ll have more members as a union. That’s one of the greatest things; knowing they can have a better workplace.
Boilermaker Darryl Brookins, who works at Imerys, knows a Trojan Battery worker who was fed up with conditions at his job. Brookins helped organize Trojan Battery workers through IBB’s Organizing Our Future program.
National Cement Lodge Boilermaker Darryl Brookins is about to cash in on the union’s investment in his assistance. Brookins’ involvement was instrumental in successfully organizing Trojan Battery in Sandersville, Georgia. Brookins, who works at Imerys in the Sandersville area, provided the lead and connections and actively assisted with the organizing campaign that ultimately led to Trojan Battery workers voting “yes” to unionize.
He did that through the Boilermakers’ Organizing Our Future incentive program. Announced during the 2025 Industrial Sector Operations Conference, International President Timothy Simmons launched the program as a way to reward Boilermakers and local lodges for their active engagement in the union’s organizing work. Organizing, recruiting and training are top priorities to grow and strengthen the union.
The program offers potential financial incentives to members according to their participation in different organizing steps—plus a matching incentive to their local lodge. Details are outlined on the “Organizing Our Future” website.
Brookins and his local lodge each earned $1,000 for his work because he provided the initial, viable lead and inside connection to Trojan Battery and then supported the full initiative to its successful conclusion. He and his lodge will each earn another $1,000 if he continues to assist Trojan Battery’s new Boilermaker bargaining unit through ratification of their first contract.
But for him it’s not about the money, he says.
“That’s great,” he says. “But the greater sense of pride is organizing. I felt great organizing and knowing we’ll have more members as a union. That’s one of the greatest things; knowing they can have a better workplace.”
Even better, he says other facilities in the area are on now the radar for organizing because they’ve heard about what happened at Trojan Battery—and he’s eager to get started with them. It’s especially exciting in a notoriously antiunion right-to-work state.
“Some are scared,” he said. “It’s a small town, so I understand why they’d feel that way. I just encourage them and tell them they can have rights as workers as Boilermakers!”
Brookins urges other Boilermakers to get involved with organizing in their areas, find viable leads and help other workers unionize as Boilermakers.
And for the record: He says he never worried or doubted what the outcome of the Trojan Battery vote would be.
READ MORE ABOUT THE TROJAN BATTERY ORGANIZING WIN IN GEORGIA
