Another month has raced by; everyone continues to work very hard. The April 12 Merced soccer tournament turned out very well; the weather, food and games all were just as ordered: perfect! The second soccer tournament, scheduled for Fairfield on April 26, was rained out—although the rain had passed the City of Fairfield would not permit us to use the wet field.
The sporting clay shoots went extremely well in both locations on April 5. The shoot has grown 100% this year. We held the shoot in two locations, with 280 shooters participating. The raffles were out of this world; well over 60 shotguns were raffled between the two locations. We are still reconciling the cost to put the shoot on, but we think we will have over $12,500 to donate to local Boys and Girls clubs.
The planning starts early in April also for the softball tournament, fishing tournament and linemen rodeos that happen in late summer and in the fall. All these events are fun and help build unionism.
The members decided overwhelmingly to extend the Outside Line contract, passing it by 93%. The members will enjoy a 6.5% increase in total compensation over 2015 and 2016. The new contract is good through May 31, 2017.
The Outside Line crew continues to sow safety seeds for the future. Richard Ingle is going jobsite to jobsite and Mike Cottrell is manning the office next to dispatch. The grievance log is very low, members are working. There are lots of line crews working seven days a week. It’s just “all good” right now for lineworkers.
We have five master service agreements with numerous contractors signed to them performing all kinds of inspection work for PG&E and other utilities. We have been meeting with the larger contractors talking about the future. These talks have been very fruitful, thus far. There has been no opposition to the idea of a five-year contract going forward. This would put these agreements in force until May 31, 2020. This would also provide more stability for all—members, contractors and the customers—going forward. We think sometime in May we will have more to report and possible a tentative agreement to rollout to the affected membership.
Outside Line Safety Red Book
Plans are under way to put the Red Book Sub Committee back together to open it up for review. The last time this safety book was revised was in 2012, but there are some who feel with the increased amount of civil work being performed in both jurisdictions that more focus needs to be put on safety for civil work, which the book may not go far enough to address. There will be more to come on this in the near future.
Atmospheric Corrosion Inspection Work
Starting in mid-April there has been a huge effort spent on acquiring and training new workers for this work, which is only expected to go through the end of May for this specific project. We have had several contractors inquire about signing an agreement to perform this work with only two contractors currently actually doing it. What takes place behind the scenes signing up around 300 new members and dealing with what seems to be constant changes with the way the work is being distributed has taken up a lot of time of the general office, which must process these new members.
There have been what seem to be constant issues dealing with this work group, which stems from various issues. But the one issue that is recurring is the subsistence issue. Per the agreement, an employee is entitled to $50 a day and actual reasonable lodging, provided they live more than 50 miles from the reporting place. Many workers live just under the 50 mile radius and some just over it. The workers who live less than 50 miles want the subsistence and the ones that live over it want a flat rate that was discussed at the time of hire, which included money for lodging. The problem here is, it isn’t contractual and most of these workers travel home every night to be with their families and still want the money. The contractors are asking for the lodging receipts, as they should per the agreement. We are dealing with these issues and many others.
Organizing
In the month of April we signed the following four contractors:
California Outside Line Construction Agreement
- J.A. Wouters, Inc
- Crux Subsurface
Traffic Signal & Street Light Service Agreement
- Bear Electrical
- St Francis Electric
Dispatch
Out of Work Books as of April 23, 2014
2014 Training Schedule and Special Events
The Cal-Nev JATC is offering new training as well as the training they have always offered; however, the way to sign up for any of their training has changed. The JATC is now offering online registration for all classes. This includes First Aid/CPR, OSHA 10, Crane, Transformer Review classes. You must register for the class in advance; walk in participants will no longer be accepted. To view scheduled classes and sign up, visit www.calnevjatc.org.
Click Web services > then click class schedule. You will be required to create an account which you can do by clicking the log in tab > then create an account.
- First Aid & CPR is the 2nd Saturday of every month at our Riverside and Sacramento facility.