Seeing The Light -- Seattle City Light Puts Mistakes In The Past As It Strengthens The Diversity Of Its Work Force

Social changes have never come quietly to Seattle City Light.

The courtroom gavel provided the backbeat to the hollers of a utility on the rack as it was stretched, stretched, stretched into accepting women and minorities in nontraditional jobs.

Citizens have paid the tab for two decades of discrimination and harassment suits or complaints.

Among the payoffs:

-- A $100,000 award for unfair dismissal.

-- Another for "extraordinary misconduct" against a black employee.

-- A $315,000 judgment for ignoring a woman's complaints of sexual harassment.

Perhaps most dramatic: The 1986 delay of reprisal for a male lineworker charged with unhooking the safety harness of a female lineworker and attempting to rip her off a 30-foot pole.

And so when Melinda Nichols, the utility's apprenticeship program manager, speaks to other companies about using apprenticeships to diversify the work force, she comes right out with it:

Seattle City Light made every possible mistake.

And then she tells them this:

Eat our dust.

Because for all of its torturous past, and for all its remaining imperfection, Seattle City Light stacks up with the best in the city in reflecting local demographics. Nationally, it's among the leaders, if not the leader, for utilities.

Since 1985, 60 percent of City Light's hires have been women or minorities. Other utilities have not been as aggressive in hiring for diversity, and that's why others in this conservative industry have coasted along quietly - so far, said Nichols.

"You're not going to hear complaints that people can't work together if you have a completely homogeneous work force," she said.

"But you can't do that anymore. I don't mean morally, I don't mean spiritually, but because that's not what the work force of tomorrow is going to look like. It's unrealistic. It's a bad business decision."

Of Seattle City Light's 1,858 workers, 36.6 percent are women; 29.9 percent are minorities. More telling: 70 percent of the 60 people enrolled in four-year apprenticeship programs are women and/or minorities. They'll be filling today's good-paying jobs and tomorrow's middle-management ranks.

Census figures predict that only 15 percent of new workers will be white males in the year 2000. That leaves women and minorities as the biggest pool to replace the first of the retiring baby-boomers.

The best of those workers will go where they see others of their kind holding all manner of jobs, in all levels of power, in a work force that has learned to see more similarities than differences, and one that has used the differences to widen its approach.

No one says that's the reality of Seattle City Light, but it's the expressed goal of Superintendent Roberta Palm Bradley, who came to City Light a year ago from California's Pacific Gas & Electric Co.

"Before I took this job officially," said Bradley, "I walked through some of the service centers and I was amazed by the number of women in nontraditional jobs, and I came from the largest utility in the nation."

It's still uncommon enough to see women working at the top of electrical poles that last year the Los Angeles Water Department videotaped the women here and wanted to fly them to L.A. so people could see women in that job.

The current ceiling is Bradley's floor, says Nichols, who as head of the apprentices is in a critical position to see that Seattle City Light not only recruits women and minorities, but provides a culture comfortable enough to retain them.

It's been a difficult role.

Her knuckles are bloody, she said, from getting stomped on while trying to bridge different sides.

Some hardline feminists who forged many of the early changes at Seattle City Light considered Nichols a sellout for her moderate views, said Scott Forslund, a City Light spokesman.

Remnants of the Old Boys' Network, which first had to accept women and minorities and then was asked to be "sensitive" to apprentices, considered her mollycoddling dangerous.

The feminists take credit for the success of today's apprentices, and so do the old-timers, who believe they forced the utility to be more careful in recruiting.

"There's truth in all of that," said Nichols.

Apprenticeships - for lineworkers, station constructors or cable splicers at Seattle City Light; for carpentry, plumbing or electricians in other fields - have two advantages for people finding a niche in the work force.

-- They pay good wages while workers are in training.

-- Journey-level status is proof of competency regardless of gender or race. To achieve journey-level status is roughly the equivalent in earning power of a four-year college degree.

Apprentices at Seattle City Light traditionally came up the hard way.

There wasn't much nurturing even for overhead lineworkers, considered the stars of the electrical-utility trade because of the increased danger of pole climbing. Often they were former lumberjacks. Recruits practiced pole climbing on their lunch hours and paid their own way to night school to bone up on math and science.

But there was consistency. This is how it is done, this is how it has always been done, this is how we will teach you.

The going got rough

When the work force began to change, the methods of teaching needed to change, and that's when things stopped going smoothly at Seattle City Light.

Many of the trainees were washed out. Many others were hurt.

It costs $30,000 to $80,000 to train electrical worker apprentices, with lineworker being the highest. It wasn't cost-effective to bring in hordes and wash them out. And that's where Nichols' role became important.

More emphasis was put on recruiting and screening.

"Don't take the first person you find. Take the person who actually wants to do the kind of work you want them to do," said Nichols.

For instance, because the lineworker job takes exceptional strength and toughness, City Light began to recruit athletes, including male and female rugby players. They must pass rigid physical tests to get into the current program, which teaches climbing and has regular strength training.

"I feel like it's a well-kept secret that if you recruit in good faith, you'll get remarkable candidates," said Nichols, who adds she's heard every excuse imaginable why companies can't hire good women and minorities, but City Light has no shortage.

But to reach this point, which Nichols emphasizes still is not perfect, City Light had to travel some bumpy and costly roads.

The utility's demographics began to change in the affirmative-action push of the 1970s. But too much was show, too little real progress.

In 1974 the utility hired 10 women for an electrical trades program, which soon was dismantled. When the women protested, all but two were fired, according to Heidi Durham, today a power dispatcher. The women took the issue to court and won. They were supported by their white male co-workers.

Durham, a member of the Committee for Equal Rights at City Light (CERCL), recognizes that City Light is a national leader in hiring, but feels the utility should be much further along after 20 years of struggle.

A 1985 study showed female lineworkers were twice as likely to suffer injury as white males; minorities were a third more likely.

A quarter of the injuries involved workers performing a task that exceeded his or her strength. A number of workers reported that they were performing tasks before they felt adequately prepared.

There was - and is - added pressure on women and minorities to prove themselves, said Durham, who walks with a cane since breaking her back in a fall from a pole in 1977.

Her first comment when she regained consciousness after her accident was to apologize for holding up work. That's proof, she believes, that her focus was on not failing, instead of on safety.

"You can't work under that kind of pressure," said Durham. "It's extremely dangerous."

"You're trying to prove yourself to people who in no way are going to respect you," said Teri Bach, who in 1980 was the first woman to actually graduate from the program. She broke her neck and now works as a cable splicer.

When Nichols speaks to companies about diversifying, she tells them to speak to the work force and to the supervisors first. Make sure everybody knows the legal and ethical responsibilities.

It's important because there's tremendous human toll in being ice breakers, not to mention court costs.

"It should be the institution's responsibility to break that ice," Nichols said. "But, unfortunately, we use people to do it and they come back battered and bruised."

Nichols' position as apprentice manager is a result of worker demands to provide apprentices with a more supportive environment.

A solitary struggle

Bill Challender, a longtime crew chief, says Nichols offers the perspective of having struggled through it alone. She was the only woman in her trade school when she started a carpentry apprenticeship in 1972.

Apprentices know more before they go out on the job now, said Challender, and that's been a benefit to the whole utility.

The apprentices are tested at each step of the way and given second chances. One criticism of Nichols, in fact, is that she has trouble letting go of apprentices who decide the job is not for them.

That added support makes the job safer, said Bob Cannon, 38, a fourth-year cable splicer apprentice.

"Everybody's life on the crew depends on the person they're working with," said Cannon. "If they know you're going to be around, they tend to make sure you learn."

Today's apprentices are queried about improvements they feel are needed and they get a say in who trains them, which sends a strong message to people unwilling to change.

Veterans have had to learn that there may be more than one way to do the job and more than one way to learn it.

"Women brought in a less macho view," said Nettie Dokes, 33, one of three female apprentices to recently graduate as journey-level lineworkers. "There are new ideas surfacing all the time that are less harmful for your body. I don't have to muscle this because I can use my brain."

The work force has evolved to the point where new apprentices are more likely to see themselves as electrical workers first, women and/or minorities second.

In fact, some hate to be singled out as different.

"An apprentice is an apprentice is an apprentice," said Dokes, who jokes that are all treated "equally bad."

"I really try to separate myself and not jump to the conclusion that it's because I'm a woman," said Glenna Phinney, 30, who is starting her third year as a constructor apprentice.

The battles are not over. The city Human Rights Department is still working on discrimination and harassment complaints filed against City Light. There are still people at meetings who ask, "Why can't it go back to being the way it was?"

But to many of the rank and file, diversity has long ceased to be an issue. The message of why it's important is clear enough that people know to say the politically correct thing, said Cannon, whether they believe it or not.