The Turlock Irrigation District’s eight new apprentice lineworkers are now out on the job, working to ensure the region’s electrical system is in tip-top shape.
Those eight apprentice lineworkers were the cream of the crop, selected from a pool of more than 400 applicants. But despite their qualifications, the apprentice lineworkers needed further training before they could go out in the field with TID crews.
The eight lineworkers attended a 10-day climbing school in May, where they ascended and descended power polls ten times a day.
“They worked them pretty good, pretty hard into the ground,” said Aaron Baker, TID Line Division Manager. “And all of them passed.”
The workers learned everything from basic knot tying to safety practices and how to identify different types of cable at the climbing school.
This is the first time TID has sent apprentice lineworkers to climbing school before beginning their training with district crews. So far it’s working well, Baker said, as the employees are prepared to immediately contribute to the crews.
“They’re working hard, they’re taking their calls, they’re doing what they’re supposed to do,” Baker said.
The apprentice lineworkers will become fully certified in three-and-a-half years. In addition to their daily work, the apprentices are studying for an ongoing online testing program which will grant their certification.
“It’s good to see those guys are doing a good job out there,” TID Board of Directors Chairman Ron Macedo said.
Even with 8 new hires, TID is still at a critically low staffing level in their electrical line department. Rather than hire as staff retired over the past 5 years, TID’s GM Casey Hashimoto chose to eliminate vacant positions year after year and the board allowed it. Now electrical ratepayers are footing the bill and spending millions of dollars to bring in outside contractors to help supplement the needed staffing levels. Over 4 million dollars has been paid to a company in Texas over the past 15 months rather than hiring local people who reinvest their paychecks into our local community. I cannot understand why TID would rather invest in Texas than in it’s own company and within it’s own community. Alex, why don’t you write about that?
I believe that outside contractors would not require expensive pensions paid for by Turlock tax payers. I would be in favor of eliminating pension fat employees for TID and the City of Turlock. Contract out as much to private industry as possible would save Turlockers millions of $$$
Why doesn’t Alex report on the games that Casey Hashimoto Plays with the TID employees(especially the lineworkers) putting the rate paying customer in the middle, all along while he’s playing the board of directors like a fiddle! I’m sure the Board of Directors have realized some of Casey Hashimoto’s half truths!
Wow!!! TID Rate Payer 2 seems to be incredibly misinformed. First, TID pensions are not funded by tax payers.. TID employees contribute to their pensions every time they receive a paycheck! There is a percentage of their income that is withheld to help fund their future pensions so forgive me if I feel that after an employee serves the district for 25-35 years of their life and contributes to a pension fund they shouldn’t be expected to live on social security and government handouts during their golden years. All full time employees of the district are eligible for pension benefits but the factors that come in to play are different for each position. Secondly, the outside contractors are charging TID over $100 per hour per employee for regular time and almost twice that for overtime so if you think we are saving money this way, you are surely mistaking. These are not people off the street willing to work for minimum wage, these are highly trained union workers that receive a standard wage for the industry. (You think there isn’t a pension factored in there somewhere?) The only difference is that TID is now supporting the overhead of a company that is for profit instead of maintaining it’s own staffing levels to serve the customers of the district at non-profit rates. This is going to catch up to us very soon. The reserve fund is not going to last forever. Bottom line, if TID wants to continue to provide reliable service at affordable rates to their customers for another 125 years, they need to reinvest in themselves by maintaining their staffing levels to provide that service. Remember, these 8 apprentices will not be certified line workers for 3 1/2 years… how many retirements will occur during that time? TID needs to keep hiring because qualified line workers are not as easy to come by as you may think.
Hey Rate payer 2, you like the fact that TID pays 3 times more for a contract crew than a reg TID crew per year. Good cause you’re footing the bill!! Plus they don’t spend there money here in our community buying things like say, milk, plants for their homes, Ford cars, paying their vet bills. All their pay goes back to TEXAS! You might wanna do some research. Careful what you wish for, cause you’re getting it!
This is why these lineworkers are like little girls and why TID has to contract real men. The TID lineworkers stranded customers by staging a power outage strike, some people almost died. TID is working to phase them all out which they should. http://turlockcitynews.com/index.php/news/item/1205-tid-gm-lost-respect-for-lineworkers-union-after-2012-outage
Listen to how they demand more than the rate payers. Linegirls make almost $200,000 a year! https://turlockcitynews.com/index.php/news/item/1226-tid-lineworker-union-dispute-dominates-turlockcitynews-com-forum
Here are a couple more facts for you to think about “linegirls”… The reason behind your so called “power outage strike” will never be known to the public because none of the management or board members were “man enough” to ask. Managemet must have realized there is fault to be found wihin their call-out system and it points right back to them so they avoided it like the plague.
Next, in response to your $200,000 a year wage you say they make. Do you realize that they work nearly 1000 hours of overtime to get close to that? How many people do you know that have to work 1000 hours of overtime every year because there is not enough staff at their workplace to handle the workload demand. Do a little research first, make sure you can support your allegations with facts not fiction.
Personally I dont like the fact that my ratepaying dollars are paying an ASB crew roughly $1000 per hour today because management thouht this bandaid was gonna fix their problems. Man up and do your jobs Casey, Larry, and the Board! Fix your staffing levels…. and quit sending our money out of our community!!!