Once a sleepy but stable local headquartered in Idaho Falls, Laborers Local 155 is booming. in Boise, the local nearly doubled its membership over three years, from 203 members at the beginning of 2023 to 387 at the beginning of this year. On Sept. 10, the local celebrated the graduation of an apprentice laborer, the first in a swelling cohort.
“Everything is coming to fruition,” said Brian Davidson, the union’s training director for Oregon and Southern Idaho. “You struggle for 20 years out here trying to get a good foothold, and finally you’re starting to see the fruit of all that labor.”
Historically Local 155 drew much of its employment from work at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) a nuclear energy research center run by the U.S. Department of Energy. Today, a growing share of its membership is busy in Boise building two multi-billion dollar chip fabs that will produce computer chips that are in huge demand for AI.
Davidson said it’s hard to exaggerate just how big the Micron project is. Micron is reportedly investing $50 billion on the two chip-making facilities across a 1,000-acre site.
Sam Cortez, the newly minted journeyman laborer, transferred in August 2024 from a Laborers apprenticeship program in Southern California to work on the Micron project in Boise. Currently he’s employed by Hoffman Construction as a spotter, guiding forklift drivers to help prevent collisions. Micron is paying a $10-an-hour premium over the area’s regular $35-an-hour journeyman laborer wage.
In recognition of his graduation, Cortez, 27, received a certificate of completion, a union-branded hardhat, and a Carhartt jacket.
Davidson said currently there are 67 apprentices enrolled in the union training program, a number that he expects to top 100 by year’s end. The apprenticeship program typically takes two to two and a half years to complete. It combines 360 hours in the classroom with 4,000 work hours in the field supervised by journeyman laborers. The classroom portion takes place at a training center in Idaho Falls and a rented meeting space at a Best Western in Boise. It otherwise mirrors the training offered at the Laborers training center in Portland.
