5-8-25 LT_ISSUU by Labor Tribune

Earth City, MO – Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 562 volunteers marked 30 years of partnership with Rebuilding Together-St. Louis April 26 with a huge crowd of volunteers fanning out into the region to help needy St. Louis area residents with plumbing repairs and upgrades.

“What makes days like today successfual and how we keep coming

back each year and now for 30 years, is all of you in this room,” Local 562 Business Manager/SecretaryTreasurer John O’Mara told the scores of volunteers who turned out to help. “You all continue to give back and make this community better every day. You are changing lives today, giving hot water to someone that has never had hot water. Thank you all for continuing to show up and represent Local 562 in the best way possible.”

In addition to Rebuilding Together-St. Louis, Local 562 partners with the Plumbing Industry Council, supply houses, Local 562 contractors, it’s training center staff and many more to make the annual event possible.

Plumbers & Pipefitters Local

Don Gallo opens Gallo Plumbing

Union retirees take aim at Elon Musk, DOGE

South St. Louis County – More than 75 union retirees and their allies showed up at the Tesla dealership at 5711 S. Lindbergh Blvd. to protest company owner Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). As Trump’s primary advisor on government spending cuts, Musk and his young techies are supposed to be looking for waste and fraud. Instead, their work has resulted in the reckless

and has crippled

government services. The April 26 protest was

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Labor brings out the big guns for Labor/United Way Trap Shoot

Bridgeton, MO – Ninety-four shooters turned out for the 17th Annual Labor/United Way Trap Shoot and BBQ April 25 at Gateway Gun Club to benefit the United Way of Greater St. Louis.

The annual trap shoot and barbecue lunch is the major fundraising event for the annual Labor/United Way Campaign.

One million people in our area are helped each year by United Way-supported nonprofits – that’s one in three people in 16 counties throughout Missouri and Illinois.

The annual trap shoot is sponsored by the Greater Madison County Federation of Labor, Southwestern Illinois Central Labor Council, Southwestern Illinois Building and Construction Trades Council, the St. Louis Labor Council and St. Louis Building and Construction Trades Council.

Walter Schuette, son of Cody Schuette, Operating Engineers Local 513

Landon Krakosky, grandson of Bob Hobbs, IBEW Local 309

Harold Brown, retired Laborers Local 42

Zach Brennell (left), grandson and Adam Brennell, son of Charlie Brennell, Sheet Metal Workers Local 36

Mike Lavoie (left), retired CWA 6300, and Kevin Woodcock

By DAN ZARLENGA Missouri Department of Conservation

Let’s face it, moles aren’t exactly popular with many homeowners. They have a reputation for defacing lawns with their below ground tunneling, making it more difficult to mow or walk. Gardeners blame them for chewing on and uprooting their plants. Even the name itself conjures up the idea of an unwanted interloper.

But like so many other things in nature, our negative feelings about moles are based on how they inconvenience our attempts to shape and remake the landscape to fit our desires. Once we dig a little deeper to discover the “hole” story, we might find that in nature’s scheme of things, moles aren’t so bad.

The ‘hole’ story on moles

True, one might have to be pretty creative to find physical beauty in moles. The eastern mole is a chipmunk-size creature that has a featureless head, except for a flexible, piglike snout. Its tail is almost naked. A mole’s eyes aren’t much to look at, or through, being able to detect nothing more than basic patterns of light and dark. But this suits their underground existence just fine.

What moles are extremely good at detecting though, is smell. They also excel at gathering input through sound and touch. Their velvety fur is usually slate gray but can look silvery. This slick coat helps them easily shed dirt and soil as they travel through it.

Moles breed in late winter or spring and litters of two-to-five young are born in March, April, or

May. After only about four weeks of rapid development, the young are off on their own to fend for

themselves. Beyond doing what they must do to reproduce, moles live very solitary lives.

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The mole uses its extra-large front feet to move through the soil the same way we might swim underwater. If you think swimming in water burns calories, try swimming through dirt! It’s likely why a mole needs to consume about half its body weight in food each day.

Contrary to some beliefs, moles do not dine on your plants. But many of the critters that moles eat, do eat your plants. Moles feed on soil-dwelling invertebrates like grubs, beetles, spiders, centipedes, ant pupae, and cutworms. They even munch on larvae of invasive Japanese beetles! By helping control insect pests, moles are the friends of our farmers. And true to the cycle of life, moles are essential food for other animals, such as snakes, hawks, owls, skunks, coyotes, and foxes.