Local 5 members featured on TV show

“How It’s Made” films Zone 175 at Fulton Boiler Works

MEMBERS OF LOCAL 5’s Zone 175 (New York) will make their television debut next year on the TV show, “How It’s Made.” The show airs Fridays at 9PM/EST and chronicles the fabrication of various industrial, commercial, and household products, featuring a narration of the process from conception to shipment.

Discovery Channel’s “How It’s Made” films members of Local 5’s Zone 175 making vertical steam boilers for a show to be aired in the spring of 2009.

On May 27, the show filmed the manufacturing of vertical steam boilers at Fulton Boiler Works in New York, where Local 5 members work. The episode is scheduled to air on the Discovery Channel and Science Channel in the spring of 2009.

The program will show boiler fabrication from beginning to end. Boilermakers will be featured at every step of production, from welding a series of heavy-walled, large-diameter flue pipes, to the certification of the boiler prior to shipment.

Additional filming took place at a concrete production plant where Fulton steam boilers are used during cold months to heat water used in mixing concrete. The military and a variety of industries also use the boilers for applications such as dry-cleaning, large-scale laundries, hospital sterilization, and food processing.

Chartered in 1939, Local 175 (Oswego) represented workers at Fulton’s New York facility since 1955. On June 30, 2008, the lodge merged with Local 5 (New York City). The members are now represented by a unit called Local 5 Zone 175.

Intl. Rep John Fultz, who served as business manager for Local 175 prior to the lodge consolidation, said Fulton Boiler Works is known world-wide for its boilers.