By Ron Cochran
We have had another record year for the second straight year. The growth in percentage in 2008 was over 29%. 2009 was nearly 7% over 2008. We have become very diverse and are constantly organizing.
Although our pole replacement work in Outside Line was all but stopped in 2009 on PG&E and SMUD properties we continue to grow our work and membership. If we would have changed poles for SMUD and PG&E the 2009 percentage of growth would have been dramatically steeper as the pole replacement work is our core construction work normally. At some point the utilities will be forced by the CPUC to increase pole replacement activities which will spike our work again.
There was a fair amount of work for the Outside Line group doing transmission and substation work for PG&E. We also landed transmission and substation work with WAPA and Hetch-Hetchy which is not normal.
The AMI work continues to grow. The PG&E AMI work will peak this year. PG&E has implemented revision-ten on the Wellington AMI contract requiring Wellington to remove and replace 3.8 million meters on their property this year. This is up 1 million meters from the last goal. We met with Wellington a few days ago for a work progress meeting. They have roughly 4.8 million meter yet to replace on PG&E property, 75% will be complete in 2010. The remaining meters will be replaced in 2011 and the first six months of 2012. Wellington has been a great contractor to work with and we will be sorry to see this project end.
The City of Lodi is currently bidding a small meter replacement program. SMUD’s AMI program is ramping up and will peak at 75 members in June of 2010.
We had 47 storm crews working on PG&E property during the last storm. Seven of the crews were local crews. The rest of the crews came from Southern California, Montana, Washington and Oregon.
The current work is steady but slow. PG&E and SMUD are not using contractors for deteriorated pole replacement at this time. We do have a few overhead distribution crews replacing cross arms and installing cell packs in distribution poles. We understand there will be very little deteriorated pole replacements contracted on PG&E property in 2010. PG&E tells us there will be substantial transmission and substation work later this year.
Currently, in San Francisco we have WA Chester working on a PG&E underground transmission project. Schimmick is working on SF Muni property on Trolley work; Rosendin was just awarded the Hayes Street project. We are told SF Muni will spend around $20 million rebuilding infrastructure this year. Humboldt Power Plant work continues and we will make a site visit soon. Colusa Power Plant work is winding down. We have members working in all the local oil refineries at this time. Contra Costa Electric tells us they will be making more calls this month
Republic Intelligent Services has done a few small projects. Goodcent has around 40 members working the AC load control project and is working steady on PG&E property. PG&E is starting up their pole testing programs in three areas at this time. We only have a few dozen workers, but we expect many more by late spring. SMUD has one pole test and treat contractor on their property at this time. We have well over 100 “A” members working for a few different contractors doing line and substation inspection work and another group working as elect-techs on a couple of different properties.
We have been organizing many new contractors in the recent months and have well over 125 new Local 1245 members; around 90 are “A” members in the last couple months. We have several wind and solar projects that will be constructed this year from Bakersfield to Burney. We were just briefed on another solar project on Mare Island and a Wind Project in the Montezuma hills. Bonneville Power Administration has released nearly five billion dollars in transmission projects, none of which are in our jurisdiction. I mention this as we will be competing for Journeymen Linemen by 2011 again as we did in 2006.
We are working with Mr. Leslie Asher beta testing an IP software called mega-meeting that will allow 16 user to broadcast and receive video, voice and data over IP. That means we can use it remotely for meetings to save travel. A good example would be a staff meeting where some reps are unable to make it to Vacaville. We could use 2/16 logins at Vacaville location 1/16 for an overall view of the meeting with the voice muted, 2/16 setup at the speaker’s podium fully active. That’s the down side is each speaker would have to step to the podium to give his report. The up side is the absentee rep could participate remotely by just logging in and watching and listening, with access to type messages into the meeting. You might want to fully participate by logging in using a camera and microphone to actively participate in the meeting exchange. We will also be able to share documents and edit them in real time. An example could be editing a proposed letter agreement. If we have it tested and functional before 2/26/10 we will ask to demonstrate it at the staff meeting.
Book Status; Linemen book 1 has 52 members; Linemen Bk II – 80 members; Linemen BK III- 3; Linemen Bk IV- 6; Groundman Book I has 23 members; Grd Bk II-16; Grd Bk III-96; Grd Bk IV-106 Line Equipment Man book I has 13; Bk II -7, Bk III-13
Apprentice status: We currently have 243 outside line apprentices registered in our JATC program, down from over 400 in 2007.10 apprentices are working out of local 1245. 150 are working out of 47. Zero working out of 396. 83 are off of work (2 are on leave of absence – 2 on disability).
We graduated 78 apprentices in 2009 to journeyman lineman. We indentured 50 apprentices for 2009.