Work outlook remains good, over 130 crews working

Outside Construction Report

By Ron Cochran

Work outlook is good, there are well over 130 crews working on Distribution, Transmission and Substation projects in our jurisdiction. We will hit another all-time record for hours worked this year.

Work in Northern Nevada is better than anyone can remember.

As the weather changes and PG&E finishes this year’s budget we expect to reduce the wood distribution crews from 80+ to around 35 between December and April. The work projection for next year looks very good everywhere. We added two extra apprentice classes late this year to meet the needs of the industry.

We have seen a lot of the Travelers go home for the winter as the storm work in the Mid-West and East Coast picks up. The Linemen books have been running open calls for weeks now. Some of this is the churn from the Travelers leaving, weather changes and some of it is the local power companies trying to spend the maintenance budgets before the end of the year.

Organizing

We have been contacted by numerous contractors bidding work for PG&E gas leak survey. We will be signing those awarded the work soon.

Proposition 32

Outside Line & Tree staff spent the majority of the month talking with members about the ramifications if Prop 32 were to pass. We talked one-on-one to about 750 members throughout our jurisdiction. The message was well received and a lot seemed to be already informed about this issue.

Recent Grievances

We have several open grievances; one related to solar work and a few related to Outside Line work. We have many related to AMI work in Northern Nevada. There will be Unfair Labor Practices filed on those grievances in Northern Nevada.

A Labor Management meeting was held in October to resolve an outstanding wrongful termination grievance. We feel the outcome of this labor management meeting was fair for both sides with the grievant agreeing to not wanting to return to this employer and receiving a settlement that was calculated based on the time it took him to find another job.

With several new contractors showing up in the jurisdiction we are experiencing problems with benefits reporting. It appears several of these new contractors have been reporting benefits based on pay periods rather than monthly cycles. This doesn’t mean the employee doesn’t receive his benefits eventually; however, we have had several cases where an employee was short on hours to activate his health and welfare due to this. All members should keep track of all the hours they work each month. If they have the required hours and have issues with their health and welfare due to not having enough reported, they should contact one of the reps assigned to Outside Line Construction to get this remedied.

“A” Member On-Line Service

We went live with new software on Sept. 24 that will allow Local 1245 “A” members” to see where they are on the out of work books, make dues payments on-line, check calls as well as view their personal information. This new service can be found on the Local 1245 website – look for the flashing button toward the upper-right corner of the home page. Click it and follow the directions for getting yourself set up in the system.

Red Books Safety

The Outside Line Construction safety “Red Books” new revision has been approved and is being sent out to print. We have had several inquiries into their availability so we are hopeful there will be a quick turn-around in getting them printed and into the hands of the members who want them.

Helicopter Long Lining Concerns

We have a couple of projects out right now where members are performing external human load (long lining) operations. It is important to know as the IBEW and NECA work to standardize a training program that is portable from one contractor to another the current requirement is that each contractor must provide its own training which needs to be documented by that contractor. Some members feel that if they were trained by one contractor they don’t need it again if they work for another. This is not true. Once the training has been standardized and mutually agreed upon there will be documentation that allows this training to be portable from contractor to contractor. We are hopeful this standardization process will be complete around the first quarter of next year.

Bargaining

We have contract bargaining scheduled with several contractors for the Pole Test and Treatment contracts and GoodCents Inc. through December 2013.

2011/2012 Training Schedule

OHSA ETD Classes: Members can sign-up in our dispatch office for any up-coming classed offered through the Cal-Nev JATC. Members will be contacted directly by the JATC regarding dates and location of future trainings. Future classes will be held at the Hedge Road facility.

First Aid & CPR is the 2nd Saturday of every month at our Riverside and Sacramento facility.

Special Events

The International Lineman’s Rodeo was held on Oct. 13 in Bonner Springs, KS. We sent five journeyman teams from various properties: TID, MID, NVE, Liberty Energy and PG&E. We also sent four apprentices: two from MID and two from NVE. SMUD and PG&E also sent numerous teams and apprentices to compete.

The Golf Tournament was held on Oct. 20 in Vacaville; with a BBQ and raffle at the Union Hall afterward. We had 27 teams sign up to play this year. Thanks to all our sponsors and volunteers who made this a fun and huge success!

Dispatch

	Dispatched as of 10/25/12	Year to Date
Lineman	177	1397
Apprentice Lineman	13	238
Equipment Man	36	213
Groundman	90	685
Fabricator Tech	14	226
Cable Splicer	4	47
Total	334	2806

 

Apprentices

We currently have 303 outside line apprentices registered in our JATC program and four traveling apprentices working in our jurisdiction.

• 104 apprentices are working out of Local 1245
• 185 are working out of Local 47
• 5 are working out of Local 396
• 13 are off of work (2 are on disability, 9 are on leave of absence)
• 37 apprentices have graduated this year to journeyman lineman.
• 42 outside line apprentices have been indentured this year.

We have 3 traffic signal maintenance apprentices registered.

• 1 is working for Republic Electric in Local 1245’s jurisdiction.
• 2 are working for Republic Electric in Local 47’s jurisdiction.
• 17 traffic signal apprentices have graduated this year.

Injured Workers Fund

We paid out two claims in the month of October. The balance of the fund as of Sept. 30 is $483,390.31.

Ron Cochran is Senior Assistant Business Manager, IBEW Local 1245