Work outlook is good

Outside Construction Report

By Ron Cochran

Construction

2012 was another good year. Construction reported over 5 million man-hours worked. Trees reported 2.28 million man-hours worked. We have no tracking mechanism in place to track hours worked through all of the different Utility Hiring Halls or to track temps working on NVE, Lodi, SMUD and PG&E properties, although there where 640 members working as Utility Hiring Hall employees in 2012.

The construction and tree membership is currently at 4,949 members, with another 806 workers traveling into the local for work. Our membership grew by 350 members in 2012. All signs point to a good year in 2013. We think the PG&E electric contracting will be reduced overall by 15% in 2013. We think the work in Northern Nevada will increase. This will keep the man-hours at or near the same in 2013.

It was a wild ride for contract negotiations in 2012. We renegotiated dozens of contracts that affected well over 100 contractors. We had several goals when negotiating all of these contracts with one being: under no circumstance would we undercut the utility agreements. In every case, staff strived to increase wages and benefits. We also worked towards consolidating contracts that covered the same type of work by developing uniform master agreements where it was a good fit and 5-year contracts. Under the strong leadership of Tom Dalzell, the staff was very successful meeting these goals.

When renegotiating the Outside Line Agreement, we where able to pull 28 independent agreements into the California Outside Line Agreement. We also were able to standardize all the inspection agreements into five categories: Communications, Construction Coordinators, Substation and Relay and Gas inspection agreements. The AC load program has a few contractors, all working under one uniform master agreement currently. The Pole Test and Treat agreements were all renegotiated in 2012, and are now under a uniform 5-year master agreement.

Helicopter Long Lining LOU

The original long lining LOU which set up training requirements and bonus pay of an additional ½ hour of overtime when performing this work expired on June 1, 2012. While the training documents are in place and the standardized training program is being work on an oversight in carrying the ½ hour bonus pay over the new CBA was missed. On December 17, 2012 a new LOU was signed and put into place to correct that error. Moving forward all Human External Load, long lining work requires the working to be paid that additional ½ hour of overtime.

The core group (IBEW and NECA) will meet on March 12th to discuss specific standardized training for all contractors and members who perform this work.

Grievances

We have seen several grievances over the last couple of months for various issues. We have done a good job in resolving these issues at various steps however the last three months has found us taking some of these grievances farther than we have had to in the past.

We are currently looking at 7 cases of wrongful terminations that could go to arbitration with one contractor alone if they can’t be resolved in Labor Management meetings scheduled for the first week of March. We also have another wrongful termination case headed for Labor Management next month with a second contractor.

2013 TRAINING SCHEDULE & SPECIAL EVENTS

• First Aid & CPR is the 2nd Saturday of every month at our Riverside and Sacramento facility.
• OSHA 10 Training, February 1 & 2, Vacaville
• NEBF retirement training seminar, February 9th, Vacaville
• Linemen Rodeo, February 22 & 23, Kona, HI,
• Lineco, medical insurance seminar, March 9th, Vacaville
• OSHA 10 Training, March 16, Vacaville
• Shop Steward training for Construction and Tree members, April 6th
• Soccer Tournament South — April 13, 2013, Merced
• Soccer Tournament North — May 4, 2013, Fairfield
• IBEW Nor-Cal Clay Shoot May 11, 2013 in Dunnigan. Registration can be found on our website.
• IBEW 9th District Softball Tournament, August 17 & 18, 2013, Orange, CA
• IBEW Golf Tournament , October-TBA, Vacaville
• International Linemen Rodeo, October, TBA- Bonner Springs,

SOCIAL CLUBS

We are vetting the idea of developing IBEW Local 1245 Social Clubs. Some of the ideas being kicked around include:

Fun Train to Reno/Weekend Getí¢”š¬aí¢”š¬Way: The thought would be to go to Reno as a group on the train to make new union friends and reestablish old friendships. March 1, 8, or 15th are prospective dates. For more details, visit these websites: keyholidays.com/ft.html, keyholidays.com/kh_amtrakbro12_web.pdf. (prices include train, hotel, entertainment and more!)

Fun in the Snow/Skiing/Boarding Day Trip: The idea is to charter a bus to a Ski Resort for a day of fun, maybe in March.

Abalone Dive/Camping/Potluck: We are exploring an abalone dive sometime in early summer around a minus tide, possible in Mendocino County at a State Park/Camp ground. Divers and noní¢”š¬divers alike would be invited. The dive would also include a Saturday night group potluck dinner.

Scuba Diving: Out of Santa Barbara (for certified divers): The thought would be to go as groups on a boat dive for a couple of days or a long weekend; near the Channel Islands in the late summer or early fall

Baseball /Football Game Days: The idea is to purchase blocks of tickets with preí¢”š¬game tailgate party in the parking lot.

Clay Shooting Clubs: We would develop Clay Shoot Chapters in different areas. Each chapter would host some type of Saturday or Sunday shoot at a local shooing facility.

Fishing Clubs: We’d develop Chapters in different areas; each chapter would host some type of fishing derby (i.e. salt water Salmon or day on the Bay for Strippers)

Annual Crab Feed: We are putting together the 1st annual Crab feed in the first few months of 2014.

Dispatch

	December 2012	Year to Date
Lineman	89	1693
Apprentice Lineman	10	281
Equipment Man	14	252
Groundman	46	795
Fabricator Tech	26	270
Cable Splicer	2	50
Total	187	3341

 

APPRENTICE REPORT

We currently have 330 outside line apprentices registered in our JATC program and 10 traveling apprentice working in our jurisdiction.

• 99 apprentices are working out of Local 1245
• 206 are working out of Local 47
• 4 are working out of Local 396
• 31 are off of work (6 are on disability – 9 are on leave of absence)
• 39 apprentices have graduated this year to journeyman lineman.
• 73 apprentices have been indentured apprentices 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.

Injured Workers Fund

The balance of the fund as of December 31, 2012 was $512,358.58. We did not pay any claims in the months of November or December.

In closing, it was a good year in 2012. The staff is working very hard to make 2013 a great year!

Ron Cochran is Senior Assistant Business Manager, IBEW Local 1245