Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1975. Fisk Station (the "Street" was dropped after Chicago changed the street name of Fisk to Carpenter in 1937) continued to be a leader in electricity generation. In 1914 another pioneering engineering feat was implemented: horizontally shafted turbines replaced the vertical units. The horizontal orientation allowed the station foundations to support larger, faster spinning turbines. Electrical World, a trade magazine, waxed eloquently in 1908 on the plant's long standing significance: "No article can do justice to the care and thought bestowed on it, or to the completeness and beauty of the whole. It is a great cathedral, devoted to the religion of power, and a feeling of worship is inspired by the gigantic machines, the towering walls, the long-drawn aisles" Midwest Generation purchase In 1999, Midwest Generation, a subsidiary of Edison Mission Energy, paid $4.8 billion to acquire seven fossil-fuel generating plants and five peaker plants from Commonwealth Edison's corporate parent. With this purchase, Midwest Generation took over operation of the Fisk station as well as Crawford, Waukegan, Powerton (Pekin), Joliet (two) and Will County (Romeoville) stations. Strike The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) had represented workers at Commonwealth Edison generating plants since World War II, after a company-dominated representative group, called the Utility Employees Union, was deemed illegitimate by the NLRB in 1942. In June 2001, IBEW Local Union 15, with approximately 1,150 members working at seven fossil fuel generating stations throughout Illinois, went on strike against Midwest Generation when contract negotiations broke down. After two months, Local 15 members voted on August 31 to return to their jobs. The union made an unconditional offer to return to work while still negotiating an agreement. "Some of the guys were hurting financially, that's why we voted to go back to work," said Tom O'Reilly, Ass't Business Manager for Local 15. "We have no intention of agreeing with the company's current proposal." Midwest rejected that offer and locked out all of its workers who honored the picket line at the time IBEW Local 15 made the offer to return. Faced with a lockout, the union accepted Midwest Generation's contract offer and the locked-out employees returned to work nearly seven weeks later under the terms of a new agreement which was less favorable to employees. Immediately after the company instituted the lockout, IBEW Local 15 filed an unfair labor practice charge with Region 13 claiming that