Forms Safety Committee
Utility companies have til end of 2012 to come up with safety plans; UWUA-run “Systems for Safety Training” for 5,300 SoCal employees urged

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Safety Materials Administration (PHMSA), the United States has roughly 2.3 million miles of pipelines that move oil, natural gas and other hazardous liquids. Many of these pipelines are 30, 40, even 50 years old. Relief valves and junction gates are long overdue for inspections and rebuilds, yet, the majority of the gas companies are making record profits. Their CEOs and boards are taking home unimaginable amounts of compensation, while the potential for disaster grows each day.

UWUA understands the gravity of the situation. At the Inter-Union Gas Conference (IUGC) this year, some of the locals met with Carl Wood, regulatory affairs director, and are currently forming a committee, Utility Workers Promoting Safe Pipelines (also check out the Facebook page).

But this is just one example of how UWUA members are taking pipeline safety seriously.

Thanks to the arduous efforts of UWUA Locals 132, 483, 522, locals that represent workers at Southern California Gas (SoCal Gas), California’s Governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 705 into law Oct. 7. It requires each gas corporation to develop a plan, as specified, for the safe and reliable operation of its commission-regulated gas pipeline facility by Dec. 31, 2012.

“I think the passing of bill 705 is a great example of UWUA providing public leadership in the area of consumer safety,” says Wood. “This is not about union self interest, but about public interest. We were able to forge effective alliances with consumer representatives and the industrial safety community. Here we link safety of the public with safety on the job. It’s a real breakthrough that ought to be copied in other states.” “Basic elements of this bill that we think are groundbreaking,” says UWUA President Mike Langford, “is that it makes explicit the requirement that workers will be directly and systematically involved in planning for safety as well as implementing company originated safety programs. It really empowers workers to make their own workplace safe and the public safe.”

William Julian, a Local 132 lobbyist, assisted the bill’s author, Senator Mark Leno, with the language. “Three basic points made consistent by utility workers and Senator Mark Leno,” says Julian, are:

1. that there be an absolute priority for safety in regulation in gas industry;
2. that priority for safety should be reflected in development through ongoing safety culture in the industry; that safety culture should be reflected in a plan that emphasizes identification of hazards and prevention;
3. most important, rate payers/gas customers of the state, should be fairly treated. Utilities should be accountable to the rate payers for the revenues they receive, to make the system safer.

While the three locals first began working on the legislation in 2009, urgency to pass the bill was made paramount following the 2010 tragedy of PG&E’s natural gas pipeline rupturing in San Bruno. Within the 95 minutes it took for PG&E to close the pipeline, eight people died and 38 homes were destroyed. A report officially placing blame on PG&E for the tragedy was only released September 2011, in part because PG&E documentation was insufficient.

PG&E “had already been granted rate relief funds before the incident, but chose not to do anything,” explains Rich Mata, UWUA national training director. “It’s really corporate malpractice.”

Local 132 continued to develop a powerful coalition to push the bill further along, including The Utility of Reform Network (TURN), the LA County Federation of Labor, the IBEW, CWA, Engineers and Scientists, the California Labor Federation AFL-CIO, San Diego County CLC and the Consumer Federation of California.

The ball is now in SoCal’s court to agree to completely safety train all 5,300 of its employees within two years. “I think it’s a positive step in the right direction,” says John Devlin, the UWUA safety director, who already has run a systems of safety ‘train the trainer’ session out at SoCal Gas this past August. Devlin trained 28 Local 132/So- Cal workers over a five-day period, “in the areas of design and engineering, maintenance and inspection, mitigation, warning systems, training and procedures, personal and protective factors. We invited the PUC and two company reps participated.”

This initial step was to “help board members and leadership understandthere are no bad workers. There are bad systems of safety,” says Devlin. “We want to do this with the PUC’s blessing, have a proactive approach. Workers in the field can not only recognize the problem but offer solutions.

We also want management to be in the room with us, to discuss what’s going on, to have cooperative efforts.”

It is not the first time safety training sessions have been conducted at utility companies before, but it will be the first time that such a safety program is created by union workers. Before, under the helm of the Center for Safety, Health & Environmental Education Labor Management Cooperation Committee (LMCC), other utility companies such as DTE Energy, First Energy, Con Ed and Entergy-Nuclear also underwent safety training.

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