Category: Magazine

In 2009, the UWUA with employer partners Utility Lines Construction, Entergy, and National Grid established the Power for America Training Trust Fund (P4A) to provide training support to incumbent workers as well as administer apprenticeship programs. Although often thought to be a Michigan program, due in large part to the Potterville, Michigan Training Center, since…

Veterans and retiring service members develop invaluable leadership and technical skills while they serve their country, but outside of the military they sometimes face challenges translating their military skills into civilian sector careers. The UWUA is working hard to change that for all veterans, and especially those who are interested in utility sector careers. Working…

The UWUA’s Power for America Training Trust (P4A) continues to break new ground in fulfilling its mission, re-energizing careers in existing industries and training an emerging new, unionized workforce for tomorrow’s energy sector. With its outreach to high school students in Michigan and Chicago, P4A is opening new opportunities for those who are curious about…

When a contractor installing solar power in Murrieta, CA hit a SoCalGas line last July, the resulting explosion killed Local 132 member Wade Kilpatrick, injured several others and leveled a house. Kilpatrick died because the contractor failed to call 811 to check for gas lines prior to digging. Safety, reliability, sustainability All of this could…

Nothing is more fundamental to the safe, healthy functioning of our society than water and wastewater infrastructure. Without the ability to deliver clean, reliable water and to safely treat and dispose of wastewater, we would be living in a pre-industrial, almost medieval world. Water-borne diseases that used to be the scourge of the entire world…

Threatening to trash decades of a productive relationship with members of Local 477W in southeastern Ohio, the Highland County Water Company is demanding unfair concessions of workers in this round of contract bargaining. Defending arbitration process Management’s most egregious demand is to eliminate arbitration as the final step for settling employee grievances. This could hurt…

Cleveland Local G-555 won a huge victory recently with Dominion Energy Ohio when they successfully negotiated back into the contract automatic progression for more than 300 members in the Field Metering Services (FMS) Department. The local proved that it is possible to negotiate back into a UWUA contract things that were previously lost when concessions…

Public sector members of Local 542 in Bay City, MI recently ratified a new three-year contract that took almost two years to negotiate. The 95 municipal workers staff city hall, and the Department of Public Works; including streets, sanitation, parks, water distribution and waste water systems. No concessions The new agreement provides annual raises, an…

So far my travels as UWUA president have taken me from very small locals where a handful of our members provide vital services to their own communities, to large locals with thousands of members, as well as others of various sizes, with more to come. I’ve had numerous conversations that have sparked my interest in…