ESC/IFPTE Local 20 Makes History with Latest PG&E Contract

The Engineers and Scientists of California (ESC/IFPTE Local 20) made history with their recently ratified contract extension with the Pacific Gas and Electric Company by replacing all references in the contract using gender identifying pronouns to gender neutral references. We believe that this could be the first contract by any union in the utility industry across the United States to include only gender neutral terms.  ESC and IFPTE believe it is critical that as Trade Unionists we ensure that the language used in our contracts and other documentation are inclusive of all of our members, whether they identify as male, female, transgender or binary, as well as to help improve gender inequity in our workplaces and society.  

ESC President/IFPTE Executive Vice President/Western Area Vice President, John Mader, applauded the change:  “ESC/IFPTE Local 20 has a long history of opposing discrimination including related to gender. For instance, in 1983 ESC added a section to our labor contract to make the references to gender in the contract to be inclusive of the female gender, but the contract still had hundreds of references to employees using only the male gender. In subsequent contracts that mutual non-discrimination commitment was further expanded to include many categories such as ancestry, veteran status, sexual orientation and gender identity. During this revision of the contract we changed from the traditional gendered generic terms she/he to gender neutral terms that are increasingly used in government and legal writing, and also reflects our commitment to be inclusive of all members of the union.  For that I am thankful.”