Record year for hours worked
By Ron Cochran
The pace continues for another record year of man-hours worked. We continue to have a tremendous amount of line work, accompanied by expanded inspection and compliance work. The AMI project on PG&E property is coming to a close while the Atmospheric Corrosion program work is ramping up.
The National Weather Service is predicting a mild winter this year, and with the construction budget nearly spent on most utility properties for 2013, we are expecting a fair number of layoffs for line workers that are typical during this season. We should be starting back up in March, 2014.
There will be several changes coming for the 2014 construction season. Probably the biggest challenge for our members will be a new policy that PG&E will roll out on Jan. 1, 2014. PG&E will require background checks for all workers on their property, including construction workers. We continue talks with PG&E over the implementation and guidelines of this new policy. This new policy will have little effect on most of the membership, but could impact a few.
We are in midterm of most of our construction agreements with only a couple of small contracts that will need to be renegotiated in 2014; 2015 and 2017 will be huge years for contract negotiations.
Unit Meetings/Stewards Training
In 2014, we plan to continue the normal monthly construction unit meeting schedule in Vacaville on the evening of second Wednesday of each month. We also have ambitious ideas for holding satellite meetings on the odd months in parallel with the normal meetings in areas where there is a lot of construction work being performed and where it’s too far to commute to the Vacaville meeting. Fresno and Eureka are some likely examples of meeting locations.
We held and all-hands shop stewards training in Vacaville on Nov. 16. It turned out to be an excellent program with some great speakers. Local 1245 Business Manager Tom Dalzell spoke and really rounded out the program with his years of experience working for the local. Dalzell talked about negotiations, grievance handling and the “state of union” at Local 1245. We also had great speakers from the International Office and our own staff.
Construction/Tree Staff
Richard Ingle will be returning to the Outside Line group the second week of December to resume the work he was doing as a Field Rep with his primary duties of performing job site visits and being a presence in the field.
2014 will be a big year for staff training in the construction department. All the construction and tree trimmer staff are currently starting an online “Effective Communications” course from Cornell University. These trainings yield good results, but at a cost. The construction staff is on the road most of the time and will be working nights and weekends to complete the curriculum. There will be more training opportunities throughout the year for the staff to participate in. The new healthcare law is also a big area, we will seek more training to get all the staff members up to speed.
Grievances
Paychecks continue to be an issue when someone is let go or quits. These seem like weekly issues that consume time to resolve.
Labor Management was held in Vacaville on Nov. 13 to discuss a grievance that was filed over High Time Bonus when working on steel poles over 75 feet. The resolution to this grievance was based on the intent of the language in the agreement which has been in the agreement for over 25 years which was originally listed as Hazard Pay/High Time Bonus in the earlier agreements and was aimed at climbing wood poles in excess of 75’. The resolution based on the information discussed at the Labor Management was to clarify the climbing of wood poles.
Siemens has a couple of outstanding issues pertaining to reimbursements. The company has proposed a settlement and we are waiting to hear back from the grievant.
Outside Line Apprentice Interviews
The application process for Outside Line Apprentice program is usually open during the month of April. Over the course of the last two years there has been a little bit of a backlog in reviewing the large numbers of applicants and getting the applicants to interview. The first week of December we will try to close out the remainder of the approximately 900 applications who applied to this program. There will be a lot of time dedicated to the interview process from IBEW Locals 1245, 47, 396 and several NECA contractors.
Compliance
We are currently running compliance on several projects to ensure prevailing wage rates are being paid.
- A pole test and treat contractor for work being performed on SMUD property. This work is all covered under a prevailing wage posting and the compliance work we did on this project recovered over $10,000 that was reimbursed to the workers that the employer was trying to get out of paying
- System 3 performing work at Hetch Hetchy as part of fire restoration work rebuilding the distribution system.
- Two line clearance Tree Trimming companies performing work in our jurisdiction.
Organizing
In the month of November we signed the following contractors to the California Outside Line Construction Agreement:
- Kerne America, Inc.
- Cache Valley Electric
- Pacific Gold Marketing
- Granite Construction (One-time PLA)
Injured Workers Fund
The Trustees of the plan increased the death benefit from $25,000 to $50,000. They also clarified the language on beneficiaries. This information was mailed out to all members working under the Outside Line agreement in November. This plan covers members who are injured or die due to a work-related injury or illness while working under the California Outside Line Construction agreement and who also meet the other hour and contribution requirements of the plan.
Apprentice Report
We currently have 358 outside line apprentices registered in our JATC program:
- 93 apprentices are working out of Local 1245
- 187 are working out of Local 47
- 28 – working out of Local 396
- 50 are unemployed (24 are actually eligible to work; 26 can’t work—10 on disability, 9 on leave, and 7 are suspended).
- 30 apprentices have graduated to journeyman lineman.
- 92 outside line apprentices have been indentured this year.
We have 1 traffic signal maintenance apprentice registered and he is working for Siemens in 1245’s jurisdiction. We have graduated a total of 18 traffic signal apprentices.
2013 Training Schedule and Special Events
- First Aid & CPR is the 2nd Saturday of every month at our Riverside and Sacramento facility
- OSHA 10 ET&D class is scheduled for Dec. 13 & 14 in Vacaville. The Cal-Nevada JATC will be conducting the training.
Ron Cochran is Senior Assistant Business Manager, IBEW 1245.