More than 45% of BC Hydro employees make $100,000+ per yr.

[Rwede]

Like the time they screwed up and have to pay California a $billion dollars.

Yes, like that time when the NDP government of the day overruled Hydro execs and forced the Powerex deal with California that is now costing us 3/4 of a billion to resolve. Can you imagine the stress of knowing what's right but then having a bunch of NDP politicians overrule you and make a bad deal for BC? Knowing you're being set up to take the fall for a bunch of socialist politicians really must be stressfull!

[Captain Awesome]

Where can I take a driver/helper course ? :)

http://www.eiti.bc.ca/Lineman_pre-apprentice.html

POWERLINE TECHNICIAN (PLT) PRE-APPRENTICESHIP CERTIFICATE
TUITION: $12,000

Holy crap, $12K just to start...

[LongHaul]

The following letter from the CEO of BC Hydro discussing salaries and training required at BC Hydro is educational. IMO the BC Hydro employees on the front lines are worth their pay.

The letter doesn't discuss the seemingly excessive high number of managers at BC Hydro as reported by the news media. Am making a guess but it may be many of these “managers” are essential employees "promoted" to “manager” to remove them from the Union?? This could be to ensure they would be available for front line work in the event of a labour dispute?

The CEO was rather polite on what was pushing up rates. Stayed away from mentioning the questionable costly energy policies dictated to BC Hydro by the Provincial Government since 2002 and the ongoing transfer of “profits” to the Provincial Government's General Account. Probably wise omissions if he likes his job.

A link to an article discussing the impact of the Provincial Government's energy policies on BC Hydro follows:
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/commentary/what-can-be-done-about-bc-hydro-rates

The letter from the CEO of BC Hydro found in the Oct 3rd, 2013 edition of The Province and link follows:

http://blogs.theprovince.com/2013/10/03/charles-reid-b-c-hydro-wages-reflect-market-hard-work/

Recently, we experienced the first storm of the season. As always, B.C. Hydro crews were ready and went into action to get the power back on in areas all around Vancouver Island, the Lower Mainland and elsewhere in the province.

Keeping the power on is what we do every day. B.C. Hydro employees know that electricity is essential to our way of life. It’s the backbone of our economy. It takes a huge effort from B.C. Hydro’s workers to keep our modern electricity system running safely and reliably.

It’s not just our power-line workers who operate in all weather conditions, at every time of the day and night, through every day of the year to deal with outages. It’s also the B.C. Hydro employees who maintain the dams and operate the turbines and run the transmission system and watch over public and worker safety. They all work hard every day with huge dedication, skill and ingenuity to make sure you have the electricity you need to power your home, your appliances, your electronic devices, your schools, hospitals and places of work.

We use more skilled trades and experienced professionals than many other businesses. Our “cable splicers” spend years learning how to meticulously reattach transmission cables by hand, sometimes deep underground in manholes. Our “trouble technicians” are the first responders to the scene of an outage and have to deal with wires down, vehicle accidents and customer emergencies to make an area safe and then restore the power.

We have engineers, project managers, system operators, hydrologists and many other experienced and highly trained people who are needed for a modern electricity system.

B.C. Hydro salaries are based on how much it costs to hire and retain people. And we’re competingfor these employees with hundreds of other companies all over North America.

Take our power-line workers, for example. Power-line workers can make $49 per hour in Alberta and $44 per hour in Saskatchewan, compared to our wage rate of $39 per hour. Right now, we have vacancies for 50 linemen — about 10 per cent of the total power-line workforce we need to cover the province. In some areas of the north, we have one lineman where we should have three or four and it takes more than two hours just to reach the scene of an outage. We’re training as many new line workers as possible but it takes 3½ years to complete an apprenticeship.

The cost of labour accounts for less than one-tenth of our total costs and is not the driving force behind the pressure on rates. In fact, we have reduced our operating costs by $390 million over three years, eliminated 800 non-operational roles while shifting available positions to front-line roles and have frozen salaries for managers for three of the last four years.

The pressure on our rates is coming from the critical need to invest in our infrastructure, which is aging while having more demands placed on it all at the same time. We are in the midst of a major program to rebuild our dams and power lines to ensure we can continue to meet the needs of British Columbians.

B.C. Hydro’s rates are some of the lowest in North America and they will remain among the lowest even with the investments we are making.

Despite the incentive to go elsewhere, many people who stay at B.C. Hydro do so because they are proud to work here and proud to serve British Columbians. Personally, I am very proud of our employees and the work they do to keep the lights on every day.

Charles Reid is president and CEO of B.C. Hydro.

[Tori_K]

http://www.eiti.bc.ca/Lineman_pre-apprentice.html

POWERLINE TECHNICIAN (PLT) PRE-APPRENTICESHIP CERTIFICATE
TUITION: $12,000

Holy crap, $12K just to start...

Peanuts compared to what you make though, apparently.