Chicago-based Peoples Gas is partnering with the Gas Workers Union, Local 18007 to help part-time seasonal workers learn new skills and earn promotions into full-time jobs.
Previously, a project worker had to be promoted to operations apprentice before becoming a utility worker. Now, thanks to the intensive 12-week Project Worker to Utility Worker program—in which retired members of Local 18007 teach seasonal employees in project worker positions—these part-time employees can transition directly into full-time utility workers.
“The training program is ensuring we have the skilled workers needed to provide safe and reliable service to our customers during Chicago’s freezing winters and year-round,” Peoples Gas President Torrence Hinton said. “It is also launching lifelong careers. People are entering full-time, good-paying jobs that have stability and opportunities for a lot of growth.”
As part of Careers in Energy Week last October, Peoples Gas held a ceremony for the 22 individuals who completed the inaugural program. The utility plans to establish additional cohorts in 2023.
According to David Schwartz, a Peoples Gas spokesman, Peoples Gas and the union had been looking for a new hiring path to supplement the existing worker pipeline and together were considering creating an avenue for project workers to move directly into utility worker roles. When several experienced field employees retired earlier in the year, it made sense to move forward and implement the program.
“Partnering with our union and its retired members was key to the program’s success,” Schwartz told American Gas. “The retired workers have deep knowledge acquired over many decades. By partnering with those retirees and having them serve as instructors in the program, we ensure their knowledge becomes institutional knowledge … something retained in our organization and accessible to our incoming utility workers and generations of Peoples Gas workers to come.”
The program includes both classroom instruction and hands-on practice. As they begin their new jobs, workers are primarily ensuring new customers have their heat turned on for winter.