Regardless of what line of work we’re in, utility workers bring so much value to the communities we serve. When the rest of the world sleeps, we answer emergency calls and head out in our trucks to find where the trouble is. Making sure there are enough highly trained individuals to answer that emergency call in the middle of the night is a responsibility we take seriously at the UWUA.
Every year, more seasoned utility workers retire, forcing us all to think more creatively about how we recruit and train new members, especially as the utility sector continues to evolve. When individuals with 20-, 30-plus years of experience leave the utility industry, we lose their perspectives and insights. Apprenticeships help us make sure more of those skills and knowledge stay within the union. A new cutting-edge apprenticeship program years in the making from the California Water Utility Council and UWUA’s Power for America (P4A) Training Trust sets a high bar example for how we recruit and train future members.
As we all know, apprenticeships provide pathways to good union careers. They ensure experienced workers, specifically UWUA members, pass down all of their hard-earned knowledge and skills to the next generation. Beyond that, apprenticeships exemplify our solidarity. We pass along not only hard skills, but also the values of what it means to be a union member — something the company can’t and won’t touch.
The way we aim to train our members is changing. Those coming up in the industry today won’t be handed a clipboard and told to watch and learn like we were. They will be schooled on things like data analytics, cybersecurity, advanced customer service platforms, and new energy technologies. For example, from day one Cal Water apprentices will benefit from getting to know the union safety representative and understand the structure that exists to resolve problems, not discipline workers.
Keeping our members on the cutting edge in the industry means training our members in the latest technology while also fighting hard to keep our members at the center of our important utility work. Without our members in the truck, answering the call, or keeping an eye on the control panel, the work doesn’t get done.
The Cal Water apprenticeship program — which I hope you’ll read more about in this issue — is replicable for locals across the country. Check it out on pages 8-9. I hope it helps you think about the ways you can incorporate more training and continuous education in your locals.
Beyond the Cal Water apprenticeship program, we’re thinking about other ways to train and educate our members. Jim Harrison, UWUA’s Director of Renewable Energy, is currently working on that. If you’ve had the chance to attend one of our regional conferences this year, you’ve heard more about it. If you haven’t, please stay tuned for more details about how we can help you and your members access more training resources.
Every role across the utility sector matters. Our members demonstrate exceptional work ethic and teamwork to get the job done right and safely. Regardless of whether or not you’re a control room operator maintaining system reliability, a customer service or call center representative helping consumers navigate challenges, a field worker responding to emergencies and restoring service or technical and support staff ensuring operations run smoothly, your work is important and impactful.
What unites us is more than the work we do. It is our commitment to one another. The knowledge we share, the skills we pass on, and the support we provide our fellow members are what make our union strong. Training is an investment in the next generation of utility workers and an investment in a stronger labor movement.
Consumers may not always think very highly about the utility company or think about the people behind the utility services they rely on every day, but they certainly notice when our members show up during a storm, an outage, or a crisis. That’s why we remain committed to recruiting, training, and supporting every UWUA member at every stage of their career.
By investing in our members, we strengthen our locals, improve the reliability of our utility systems, and build a stronger labor movement for generations to come.