WOMAN LINEMAN:

YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE A MAN TO BE LINEMAN.

SUE LONGO PROVED IT.

When Sue Longo hired on at Pacific Gas & Electric as a groundman in 1980, she admits she had “no clue” what a groundman even was.

“But I knew it was outdoors and I wanted to do something physical—didn’t want to be in an office,” said Longo, who would go on to be one of the few women to ever serve as a lineman at PG&E. In April, preparing to retire after 30 years of service, Longo discussed her experiences in an interview with the Utility Reporter.

Sue Longo at the switching center in Pittsburg on March 31, her final day at PG&E

About three years into her career at PG&E—including a Title 206 displacement to the Martinez Power Plant—Longo was recruited into the lineman apprenticeship program. It was the early 1980s and affirmative action was in full flower at PG&E.

But let’s be clear. We’re talking about becoming a lineman, physically one of the most demanding and historically one of the most macho jobs on God’s green earth. Longo smiles as she recalls what it was like arriving at Kettleman with two other women for training.

“It was a lot of fun. They had a barracks for the guys (but) they didn’t know what to do with the women. So they put us in a vacant house.”

Longo doesn’t remember any resistance to the women’s participation.

“Most of the people in the apprentice program were more interested in learning and passing the school than (saying) ‘We don’t want these women doing this job.’ We were all working together. It was a good group.”

But things could be a little different back at the service center.

“Some of the guys definitely did not want women on the crews, didn’t think women could do the job,” Longo recalls. “I had one foreman that told me I should be home baking cookies and having babies. I wasn’t on his crew very often, which was a good thing.”

The first all-women Local 1245 team to participate in the Lineman’s Rodeo, in 1992, from left: Sue Longo, Lineman, East Bay Region, Concord; Geraldine Curtin, Lineman – General Construction, Fresno; Meri Issel, First Field Clerk – General Construction and former Line Driver, Oakland; Lynn Rasmussen, former Lineman, Manteca.

Other foremen, however, showed acceptance through good-natured teasing. One joked to Longo, when she was having trouble getting a throwing rope over a tree limb: “You throw like a girl.” Longo grins at the memory: “Duh!”

But it was a fact: line work is more physically challenging for women, who generally have less upper-body strength than men. Women, Longo says, sometimes have to come up with alternate tools or approaches to get the job done, like using two hands to nail in a lag instead of one.

“We got the same thing done.  I just had to do it different is all.”

Union Steward

Even before she became a lineman, Longo recognized the important role played by the union and volunteered to be a steward about two years after she was hired. She made it her business to tell new employees what it means to be a union member.

“Get familiar with the contract, know what your rights are,” she says. “Understand that you have rights, that if you’re being mistreated by the management, you can go to the union and file a grievance. Don’t let them bully you—you’re not management, there a lot of things they can’t just say, ‘You have to do this.’ ”

She credits the late Richard Hoyer, a crew foreman, with introducing her to the union and persuading her to become a steward.

Longo’s career as a lineman was cut short in the mid-1990s when PG&E undertook a massive downsizing. Fearing she didn’t have the seniority to hang onto her position, she successfully applied to become a first-line construction supervisor. She began by supervising T-men, and later, Distribution Operators.

She wasn’t nervous about being a woman supervising men. But she was definitely concerned about being a woman supervising people in the field who had more experience than she did. Her superintendent reassured her that she had the “people skills” for the job, and that she could learn the technical skills.

March 31 was the last day at the Pittsburg Switching Center for (from left) Gary Feddersen, 39 years; Kathy Franks, 31 years; Lesley Green, 31 years; Sue Longo, 29 years, and Boster Chinn, 30 years. Much of the work has been consolidated into the GCC in Vacaville.

Longo says she enjoyed supervising, and believes she had “good rapport” with the people she worked with. But after nine years of supervising, the long hours began to interfere with her family life. In 2002 she came back to the bargaining unit (and an eight-hour day) as a provisional operator in Concord. It was second nature for her to immediately resume her role as a shop steward. In 2006 she bid to Pittsburg, where she remained until her retirement this spring.

Views of Management

Her views of management have changed over the years. Back when she was a groundman, a manager called everyone into the bullroom and announced there would be displacements and layoffs. Longo remembers thinking, “Oh gosh, I finally got a really good job and they’re laying off.”

But when she left the bullroom, the manager called her over by name and offered some words of encouragement.

“I thought, This guy’s the manager and he knows my name? I’ve only been here a year. I thought that was pretty impressive,” she says. “I’ve always looked back on that and thought, gee, what a great company, if they’re cutting back in one department there’s somewhere else that you can still work for PG&E and continue your career. I always thought that was fantastic.”

But her view of management has changed over the years, as PG&E drifted away from being a “family company” where the managers came up through the ranks.

“Now we’re at the point where management rotates about every two years, and keeps changing direction, and there’s no ‘employee family’ anymore. I think it’s kind of sad the turn that it’s taken,” she says.

She thinks the company has lost its way on safety issues, putting way too much emphasis on imposing discipline rather than trying to help everyone learn from mistakes in the field.

Decades ago, she remembers, PG&E had safety days in the yards.

“You could bring your family, you could have kids dress up in your hard hat and your gloves and your belt,” she says. “You had a safety attitude that you carried home with you. It became second nature to always be safe and you taught your kids how to be safe, because that’s what you did at work and it became a way of life.”

Today, she says, there are “a lot of signs and a lot of verbiage coming out and a lot of discipline…but a piece of paper is not going to keep you from having an accident.”

The bottom line, she says, is that people have to look out for themselves and whoever they’re working around.

“Even if they’re not in your work group, (if) they’re in your area and you see something, stop them. You’ve got to be able to say, ‘Don’t, let’s stop, right now.’ ”

Despite some of the changes that bother her, Longo wouldn’t hesitate to encourage other women who might be thinking of pursuing a Physical job in the field at PG&E.

“I’d tell them the same thing I’d tell any other women, back then and now: ‘If it’s something you really want to do, go after it. Remember that you’re a woman, you don’t have the upper body strength that the men do, you’re going to have to think about what you want to do…but you can do this work.”

Developing the respect of your co-workers is very important for a woman trying to succeed in the job, she says. But that doesn’t mean you have to try to out-macho the men.

“Don’t go in there thinking that you’re a truck driver and you can do what they do and cuss and carry on, because they’re still going to look at you and see a female, so don’t try and be them,” Longo advises. “Be yourself and do the work. Always do your job 100%.”