Palo Alto utilities workers seek separate contract amid SEIU 521 dispute over safety

Palo Alto utilities workers seek separate contract amid SEIU dispute
Members of group stop paying union dues, claim chapter is failing to address their concerns
https://www.paloaltoonline.com/city-government/2025/07/24/palo-alto-utilities-workers-seek-separate-contract-amid-seiu-dispute/
by Gennady Sheyner
July 24, 2025 11:00 am

Palo Alto Utilities workers restore gas lines after a truck drove over a curb meter manifold on Kipling Avenue in December 2017. Photo by Veronica Weber.
Concerned about insufficient training and safety protocols, about 100 employees of the Utilities Department are calling for the city’s largest labor union to approve a separate contract for them.

The proposal, which pertains to utility field workers, has created a schism within the Service Employees International Union, Local 521, which represents more than half of the city’s entire workforce, including librarians, administrative assistants, park rangers, electricians and city planners.

The effort is being spearheaded by Peter Quiroz, a gas utility employee who has held leadership positions in the Palo Alto chapter of the SEIU for more than a decade, including stints as a steward and, more recently, as chapter chair. Quiroz said in an interview that the existing SEIU contract doesn’t go far enough in ensuring that the utility workers are properly protected.

“If we don’t have the right tools, we’re put into a predicament of how to get this done safely and properly,” Quiroz said.

The roughly 600 workers represented by the SEIU are all currently covered by a contract that the City Council approved in March, which grants all members cost-of-living wage increases totaling 8.5% over three years. The wage is split over three years, with everyone getting a 3% raise in the first year of the contract, a 2.5% raise in the second and a 3% raise in the third. Some positions will see additional raises based on a survey that considers salaries in other jurisdictions.

But for the roughly 100 employees who are seeking their own contract, the main issue isn’t pay, but safety. Quiroz argued that the SEIU contract is too broad to consider the specific needs of the utility linepersons and locators whose job is especially risky without proper safety measures.

The current SEIU contract includes a section on apprenticeships with provisions for utility employees, and the Utilities Department has an existing program that allows apprentice linepersons, cable splicers and electricians to get reclassified as permanent employees upon successful completion.

Quiroz argued that while the language for the apprenticeship program is in the contract, it’s not described in detail like in other contracts, where there are joint committees responsible for the program with oversight from the union.

“There’s no professional oversight,” Quiroz said of the Palo Alto program.

The city faced scrutiny from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration in 2019, when Utilities Department lineman Donatus Okhomina died on duty while his crew was replacing a transformer near East Meadow Drive. Investigators cited the city for numerous violations, including failure to ensure only qualified workers work on high-voltage systems and failure to check that employees working near high-voltage lines wear flame- resistant apparel.

Last year, the city paid $68,175 in fines to settle the workplace violations.

Alluding to the 2019 incident, Quiroz argued that utility employees face unique hazards on the job.

“When it comes to electric, utility workers die. When it comes to gas, it’s the residents who pass when something goes wrong,” he said.

Quiroz said the SEIU leadership has failed to respond to his group’s demands. In early June, dozens of utility employees sent emails to the SEIU reaffirming their desire for a utility-only contract, according to documents reviewed by this publication. It was only after more than 90% of the employees opted to stop paying their dues that leadership agreed to schedule a meeting, which still had not taken place as of early this week.

Tensions escalated in June as Quiroz repeatedly emailed SEIU leadership to request a meeting to discuss a utilities contract. For weeks, workers were “met with silence,” he said.

“This could be a turning point for SEIU 521,” Quiroz wrote to SEIU leaders in early June. “By collaborating with our group to create a functional and responsive utility contract, you can establish a model for how specialized workforces are served, not just in Palo Alto, but beyond. This isn’t just about us. It’s about evolving with the times and showing leadership within your own ranks.”

Sara Temple, who recently took over as chair of the Palo Alto chapter of SEIU 521, declined to respond to questions about the effort by utility workers to have their own contract.

This isn’t the first time that utility employees are taking a stand to meet the specialized needs of their professions. In 2011, a group of 45 managers and mid-level employees in the Utilities Department splintered off from the broader group of City Hall managers and professionals to form their own union. The employees overcame initial opposition from the city to form their own bargaining unit, which is known as the Utilities Managers and Professional Association of Palo Alto (UMPAPA).

Unlike the management group, the utility workers within the SEIU are not looking to splinter away from the union, said Quiroz, who temporarily stepped away from his chair role earlier this year to lead the new effort. Their goal is to remain in the union but have their own contract. He cited as precedent a recent decision in the city of San Mateo to have separate contracts for the city’s librarians and maintenance workers.

Utilities workers deserve their own set of protocols to ensure safety, he said. Palo Alto’s existing measures fall well short of those in other cities with municipal utilities, including the city of Santa Clara.

The goal of the current effort, he said, is to create “a blueprint for tailored representation, one that centers safety, skill and public excellence.”

“You’ve got to be fully trained to work on gas, electric, water and sewer,” Quiroz said. “If we compare Palo Alto’s MOA (memorandum of agreement) to Santa Clara’s, we’re lacking so much in terms of union oversight over training programs, over the apprenticeship program, over protocols and safety concerns. There is a lack of knowledge of the work that we do.”