The workers at Calpine’s Delta Power Plant in Pittsburg voted to join IBEW 1245.
On Thursday August 15, 2024, the workers at Calpine’s Delta Power Generation Plant overwhelmingly voted to join IBEW Local 1245, with 77% voting Yes for union representation. The 19-member “wall-to-wall” bargaining unit consists of thirteen operator technicians, two I.C.E. (Instrumentation, Controls and Electrical) technicians; two mechanics; one materials technician and one chemical technician.
The Calpine Delta Energy Center in Pittsburg, California is a natural gas-fired, combined-cycle power plant with a net interest baseload capacity of 835 megawatts. It provides electricity to the California power market, and in 2014, Calpine entered into a resource adequacy agreement with Pacific Gas and Electric, therefore sharing a community of interest with the workers we already represent.
This workforce has been dealing with several issues on the job, including pay disparity amongst the workers; working upwards of 15 days without rest periods; and multiple instances of the company manipulating their days off to avoid paying overtime. These workers formed a strong voluntary organizing committee from the beginning, and made sure to keep the group engaged and informed while enduring the company’s robust anti-union campaign. Our 1245 organizing team held a series of meetings with the workers to prepare them for the union-busting efforts to come, making sure to get ahead of the company’s anti-union messaging (something we learned from previous unsuccessful attempts to organize at another Calpine plant).
This election victory did not come easy for these workers, as the employer used just about every trick from the anti-union playbook. Calpine’s union-busting campaign and captive audience meetings began immediately after we filed for a union election on July 10, 2024. The company made every effort to delay the vote, spreading false promises and misinformation about the union difference — but their attempts were largely rebuffed by the workers. When 1245 filed the petition for union election with the National Labor Relations Board, we went in with fifteen authorization cards, and despite the company’s aggressive efforts to bust the union, at the time of the election count, we only lost two supporters.
On the day of the election, we were joined by seven of the workers who stuck around for the vote count and experienced the emotion and excitement as the board agent reads out every single ballot. Seeing their presence gave us the confidence that this would be a win for the union vote.
Celebrating with a photo after the vote count
I am proud of these workers for doing the great work of standing up to the employer’s misinformation, and sending a loud and clear message that they want to see change. This is a landmark union win for the workers at Calpine, as workers at many of the other plants across California are watching to see if going union will be the route they might also want to consider.
We are working with our senior leadership to transition this group into the bargaining process in the coming weeks and help them build their negotiations committee. Congratulations to our new brothers and sisters at the Calpine Delta Energy Center in Pittsburg, CA.
–Rene Cruz Martinez, IBEW 1245 Assistant Business Manager/Organizer