Two years after taking over for John Dougherty, Local 98′s new leader says the union has hit ‘the reset button’

Mark Lynch used to keep his sleeves pulled down during important meetings to cover his tattoos. But the 37-year-old business manager for IBEW Local 98 isn’t hiding his ink anymore.

“It’s a different culture. It’s a different environment,” Lynch said. “So I decided to start rolling up my sleeves and be me.”

That’s just one small way Lynch sees himself as taking the union into the future and letting his generation’s values mesh with the local’s long-standing traditions. A much larger way is the new Local 98 headquarters at the Navy Yard, where Lynch sat down with The Inquirer last month, for his first long-form media interview since taking his leadership post in 2021.

“The building we’re sitting in is literally the reset button that Local 98 needed,” Lynch said.

A reset from what, Lynch didn’t exactly say. But he did reference “the difficult circumstances” his organization has experienced in the past few years. Getting through that time, he said, was about communicating with members and keeping their trust.

Longtime Local 98 business manager John Dougherty was convicted on federal bribery charges in 2021. In a second federal trial against Dougherty, a jury on Thursday found him guilty of more than 60 counts, including conspiracy, embezzlement and wire and tax fraud, while acquitting him on three counts. Former Local 98 president Brian Burrows was a codefendant and was also found guilty of all but three counts. Several other Local 98 members entered guilty pleas in the same case.

While others close to Local 98 still acknowledge Dougherty’s skills as a recruiter who more than doubled union membership, during his sit-down with The Inquirer, Lynch did not talk about his predecessor as a condition of the interview. Instead, he discussed his plans for the years ahead, and how he’s already set them in motion.

In the past two years, “At times we were definitely more separated or divided than we ever could have been,” said Gabby Edwards, an 11-year member. But she believes that’s resolving. “People are starting to realize that the more we stick together the better we’ll be able to get over those hurdles.”

Lynch isn’t shy about the ways Local 98 looks different now. But, he contends, its community brand and involvement in politics — for the benefit of membership, he emphasized — hasn’t changed.

“There are challenges in every new role no matter what’s going on,” Lynch said. “Right now, my focus is on the future and not in the past.”

Lynch’s first year-and-a-half leading Local 98 was an audition of sorts.

“He took over in turbulent times,” said Ryan Boyer, business manager of the Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council, who also got his current role when Dougherty resigned in 2021. “I think when he looks back on his tenure he’ll see it made him grow quickly.”

Lynch first assumed his role by appointment. As the first new business manager the union had seen in nearly 30 years, he made a few significant changes from the jump that gained him supporters.

Lynch replaced some union staff. He also kick-started the local’s first women’s committee and encouraged members to form a Philadelphia chapter of the Electrical Workers Minority Caucus (EWMC).

Also during his interim status, the union reached a new contract with the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA) that “put more money directly into our members pockets than they’d been used to getting in the past,” he said, declining to give detailed numbers. And, amid a competitive primary race for Philadelphia mayor, Lynch took a new approach to deciding which candidate would earn Local 98′s endorsement.

“We were stagnated for 30 years and now it’s time to move forward,” said Elaine McGuire, a 27-year member and now president of the EWMC’s Philadelphia chapter. “You can’t move forward unless you make some changes.”

Still, after a year-and-a-half, not everyone agreed Lynch should keep the job. And Dougherty, who had appointed Lynch, reportedly withdrew his support before the election.

The three-way race for business manager went to a runoff, which Lynch won in June.

Just a few weeks later, the union announced its plans for a new headquarters.

Lynch said he didn’t want to “sit stagnant” during his time as interim business manager. Forming the women’s committee seemed like a logical early move.

“We’re recruiting women to come into the business. They need to have safe space where they can come in and talk about their problems,” Lynch said. He also hired McGuire — the EWMC chapter president — as a business agent, a role that allows her to look out for workers’ rights and serve as their liaison.

“I had never seen a woman in that type of role,” said Edwards, who was elected recording secretary in June, becoming the first woman to hold that job.

The vast majority of Local 98′s 5,000-person membership is still male. About 100 members are women, Lynch said.

McGuire said that when she became an electrician, a single mother of young children, all the stewards and business agents representing her were men. Now, “I’m available to be there for any women’s issue that comes about,” she said.

“When I came into the business you’d be so afraid to take a day off because you had a sick child,” McGuire said. “Now it’s not frowned upon.”

This year, the local launched a high school recruitment program called Rosie’s Girls, in which McGuire and Local 98 pre-apprenticeship coordinator Teila Allmond are instructors.

Leadership is also working on a new maternity leave policy, Lynch said.

McGuire said apprenticeship classes are showing progress — there were 10 female graduates last year, versus three in her class in the 1990s, and there have been increasing numbers of graduates of color in recent classes.

“As policy, IBEW Local 98 does not publicly disclose the race or ethnicity of its members,” a union spokesperson said. But members said it’s visible.

“The project I’m doing right now is the most diverse project I’ve ever done,” said Joe Brasberger, general foreman on the Jefferson University specialty care center under construction in Center City. He’s a 28-year member, and his son joined the union four years ago.

“The stereotype of a construction worker from 20, 30, 40 years ago is not what we are today,” Brasberger said. “I expect people who work for me to act professional, talk professional and be professional, and treat everyone with respect.”

While the racial and gender diversity of apprentices has been increasing for years, McGuire said she had noticed people of color leaving the business more often than white members, until recently. She thinks they now see a clearer career path ahead.

“I can understand what my future is,” said Allmond, the pre-apprenticeship coordinator and Rosie’s Girls recruiter. She’s a Black woman and a first-generation electrician, and she’s been talking with her wife about children. “I know that in the direction I’m going, that can happen. I can have that family aspect.”

Lynch’s age, 37, was something his detractors initially criticized, members said. But others, even longtime members, liked the idea of a millennial leading the union.

“I watched him go from a 18-year-old kid to a father of three,” said Dave Morris, a 26-year member. “To see somebody so young to have that drive, and step up, and make sacrifices to make our union a better place is a good thing.”

Lynch said new union leaders like him are bringing fresh ideas to labor organizing across industries. He pointed to United Auto Workers, where new leadership this year pushed for a contract that would elevate its lowest-paid members, and Starbucks Workers United, a two-year-old movement of baristas unionizing stores across the U.S. and seeking more influence in how the business runs.

“You can’t do things the same way anymore,” Lynch said. So he tried a new approach to big decisions: He polled the membership.

Ahead of the Philadelphia mayoral primary, he asked members to share their top three concerns about the city. About 1,700 — roughly a third of membership — responded, and their priorities lined up best with mayor-elect Cherelle Parker’s platform.

“We will continue to be involved in politics,“ Lynch said. Those “investments” will be “for the best of the local, not for Mark Lynch, and that will never change,” he added.

The membership had a say again, by an emailed poll, when leadership was considering moving its headquarters. A vast majority approved the new Navy Yard location.

Allowing members to register their opinions via digital survey, not just at an in-person meeting in front of a crowd, makes them “more willing to speak their mind,” Morris noted. “He’s creating a culture of engagement, of members being more involved in decisions.”

The headquarters vote was a landslide, with nearly 9 in 10 participating members voting in favor of the Navy Yard location, according to Lynch. The business manager election, just weeks before the union publicly announced the move, was a bit more competitive.

Lynch had two opponents: Todd Neilson and Tim Browne, both of whom he reportedly fired from union posts after becoming business manager. (A spokesperson for IBEW Local 98 said the union does not disclose details of any personnel decisions.)

The election was “a trying moment,” McGuire said. “It brought about division to so many friends.”

Ultimately, the membership spoke, with 55% of voters backing Lynch in a runoff against Neilson.

McGuire said most or all of the women’s committee and EWMC members voted for Lynch. “I’m proud that the minorities came together and saw which way to go,” she said.

“I’m going to do everything in my power to support him,” Neilson said. “The whole reason I ran to begin with wasn’t to be against the business manager. I just thought we had a difference in philosophy of where the union needed to go.” He declined to give specifics on how their platforms differed.

Lynch is hoping for a long tenure as business manager. He wants to win more of the region’s electrical work for Local 98 members, increase member hours, and have more involvement in residential development, including affordable housing. Getting more work will open opportunities for larger, more diverse apprentice classes, he noted. He wants the electrician’s career to be seen not as an alternative to college, but as a path of equal prestige.

“If he has a 20-year vision, that’s great. That’s the kind of continuity you need in a labor union,” said Danny Bauder, president of the Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO. A multi-decade tenure and a member-inclusive leadership style don’t have to contradict, Bauder said.

“Good leaders are able to engage the dissenters in a way that reminds them ... that they’re important, the engine of the organization,” Bauder said, “and that there’s a process to register their dissent.”

Neilson said he expects and welcomes more contested elections in the coming years. He said members want an environment where people are not deterred from running against the incumbent. But he doesn’t know if he’ll run again.

“A lot can happen in three years,” Neilson said.