Read our editorial “The Significance of Strikes” here.
About 1,000 utility workers organized under the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 29 in Pittsburgh, PA, ratified a contract defeating company attacks after an 11-day strike against Duquesne Light Company (DLC).
The five-year contract was ratified on October 11 after 73% of voting workers approved it. The contract reverses company attempts to reduce staffing levels and force new departments out of the bargaining unit, and forms a joint union-company safety committee with guarantees to bargain with the union over implementation of any artificial intelligence or automation that could lead to layoffs.
A union officer told monopoly media that many of the “No” votes were cast because the tentative agreement did not extend pensions to the roughly 650 workers who are excluded from it, preserving a two-tier contract in retirement. The capitalists have been drawing down workers’ pension plans for years, lowering lifetime wages.
Local 29 membership voted 592-14 to authorize the strike in September. Union leadership called the strike midnight the day their contract expired, citing in letters to membership and in statements to The Worker that the company was bargaining in bad faith.
The company was “negotiating” only through a union-busting law firm, according to strikers, who said the company would not sit down with the union until the workers hit the picket lines, and that DLC was trying to bust the union.
Workers picketed at nine DLC locations across Pittsburgh and surrounding towns. At the main picket location in Pittsburgh, workers rushed into the street to shout at scab linemen as they drove to and from the company’s yard.
Union staffers on the picket line told The Worker the company is not hiring enough staff, increasing labor tempos at an already dangerous job, harming workers and also customers through increased response times to outages.
A 22-year veteran worker said DLC was implementing new, untested monitoring technology, worsening conditions while hampering repairs. The automation gives incorrect mapping to workers and replaces union jobs.
Linemen work one of the most dangerous jobs in the US, with about 40 killed on the job per year between 2011 and 2015, and an injury rate over twice the average, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) study. Linemen face hazards from electricity, falls, and traffic while working along roadways, according to the BLS and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
The strike was the longest against DLC since a three-month strike in 1968.
DLC is the electrical utility for most of Allegheny and Beaver Counties around Pittsburgh, PA. It is private monopoly capital with its rates regulated by the state.
DLC hiked its prices in 2026 by 3%, with monopoly media citing hotter summers and data center expansion raising the supplier price for utility companies. Prices have increased by 56% since 2021, according to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study, with the utility monopoly citing the need to increase returns for investors. Its corporate filings report $1.3 billion in revenue last year, up from $1.2 billion the year before.
Image: IBEW Local 29 workers rally on October 7. Credit: The Worker.
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