“These boys don’t just raise buildings—they raise hell, votes, and cash. Every girder in this city has a name on it, and it sure as hell ain’t yours.”
Primary Power Base: Bridgeport, Back of the Yards, and the industrial South Branch
Reach: Citywide
Veil Involvement: Rumored
Public Face
Local 32 represents the ironworkers, riveters, and foremen who climb the skeletons of Chicago's rising skyline. They sponsor community events, donate to aldermanic campaigns, and brag about "building the city, one beam at a time." Their offices are modest, their handshake hard, and their dues always collected.True Influence
Steel means leverage—literally and politically. Local 32 controls who gets the work, when it gets done, and how much noise gets made doing it. Every high-rise, factory frame, or city-backed repair runs through them. Permits get held up or rushed depending on who’s owed what. And when their boys walk off a job? The city grinds to a halt. They don’t just build—they block. Strategic work stoppages, "lost" deliveries, ghost crews, and phony inspections are all part of the playbook. Their hands are in zoning boards, bid reviews, and OSHA paperwork. Word is, they’ve even loaned out their more... aggressive members to enforce contracts of a more arcane nature.Known Members
- Ray “Red” Kilpatrick, Business Agent – pipe-thick neck, voice like gravel, known to quote scripture between threats
- Tina Doyle, Secretary-Treasurer – sharp eyes, sharper pen, rumored to have once blackmailed an entire committee
- Joey Bricks, Enforcer – doesn’t carry a gun, just a six-foot steel bar with a grip wrap
- Big Lou Zelenko, Crane Coordinator – says nothing, sees everything, files false injury claims with artistic flair
Allies & Rivals
- Allies: Quinn Construction Co., The Outfit (Bridgeport wing), certain factions in the Archdiocese’s building maintenance office
- Rivals: CPD Internal Affairs (especially Arcane Oversight), IWW-aligned radicals, a breakaway crew trying to form a “clean” union chapter
Assets & Quirks
- Asset: A Veil-infused girder from the 1893 Fair buried under their HQ—rumored to bring “structural luck” and spiritual protection
- Asset: Deep bench of skilled workers who double as bruisers and smugglers when overtime’s thin
- Quirks: All members wear union pins dipped in powdered rust from the first steel beam ever raised in Chicago
- Quirks: Weekly “blessings” from a retired priest who knows more about anchors and sigils than scripture
Current Agenda
They’re maneuvering to lock down the next round of city-funded housing construction—and rig the contracts in favor of allies. At the same time, they’re trying to root out a mole feeding schedules to a rival crew, and fending off rumors that a group of their younger members have been dabbling in Veil-channeling enhancement rituals for “performance.” Ray Kilpatrick denies it. Loudly.Rumors & Hooks
- A string of accidental deaths on high steel may not be accidents—but part of a ritual cycle using blood and height
- A buried tunnel beneath a job site near the lakefront was “quietly” reburied by Local 32 after something was found below it
- Their old HQ burned in ‘46 under suspicious circumstances—some say it was housing a Veil breach sealed inside the boiler
- Kilpatrick once made a deal with “something” to prevent site collapses—now it wants interest
- The iron pins every member wears? They whisper under full moons
- A foreman’s ghost is said to walk the cranes of an unfinished tower on Sundays, guiding hands that don’t know they need help
- A powerful alderman owes them a favor—but they haven’t called it in yet
- A rival union is about to bring in outside muscle—and it ain’t human
- One of the beams used in the latest job downtown… wasn't made of steel. Or at least, not entirely
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