{"id":299634,"date":"2026-10-04T14:20:23","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T14:20:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/299634\/"},"modified":"2026-10-04T14:20:23","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T14:20:23","slug":"duquesne-light-workers-on-strike-in-pennsylvania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/299634\/","title":{"rendered":"Duquesne Light workers on strike in Pennsylvania"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Duquesne Light workers strike for better pay and safety in Pennsylvania<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wtae.com\/news-team\/1fedcf9b-4fc5-4327-8b7c-2b41148b88b5\" aria-label=\"Marcie Cipriani profile page\" class=\"css-15eikfp\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1fedcf9b-4fc5-4327-8b7c-2b41148b88b5_1477672134.jpg\" width=\"48\" height=\"48\" alt=\"Marcie Cipriani\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/a>PENN HILLS, Pa. \u2014<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"0\">Nearly 1,000 Duquesne Light workers, including linemen, were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wtae.com\/article\/duquesne-light-company-union-strike-ibew-local-29\/73969050\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">on strike<\/a> for a second day on Friday, demanding fair wages and better safety protocols as negotiations with the utility company continue.<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"1\">Officials with Duquesne Light said their contingency plan is in place, and nonunion crews have been filling shifts during the strike. According to the company, these crews have handled 11 outages and restored service to 1,752 customers since taking over.<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"2\">Michael Goodwin, who represents 259 overhead line workers as well as apprentices and other IBEW Local 29 members, said the striking workers are the lowest-paid linemen in Pennsylvania and face significant risks on the job.  <\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"3\">\u201cThey put their lives at risk every single day for the public to give them reliable, safe electricity. They do a very dangerous job. It&#8217;s not like any other utility almost in the country or the state. We&#8217;re hot stick linemen here. There&#8217;s usually not outages when we work on the line,\u201d Goodwin said.<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"4\">Looking for more news in your area | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@WTAE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Subscribe to the WTAE YouTube Channel<\/a><\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"5\">Goodwin also highlighted safety concerns, saying the workers want a seat at the table to address these issues.  <\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"6\">\u201cWe lose probably about one lineman every week throughout the entire United States and Canada. Very dangerous job. The safety concerns that we&#8217;re facing here is we have inaccurate maps. We have inexperienced supervisors,\u201d he said.  <\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"7\">Duquesne Light officials disputed the safety concerns, saying, \u201cThrough a sustained focus on workplace safety, the company has received a 75% improvement in key safety metrics, and we remain eager to discuss any specific safety proposals the union wishes to advance.\u201d  <\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"8\">While negotiations are ongoing, it remains unclear whether the two sides are closer to reaching a deal or how long the strike will continue.<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wtae.com\/article\/get-pittsburgh-s-action-news-4-on-the-go-wtae\/44045498\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Download the WTAE app<\/a> to stay connected with breaking news. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wtae.com\/subscribe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Sign up for our email newsletters<\/a> to get breaking news in your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Duquesne Light workers strike for better pay and safety in Pennsylvania PENN HILLS, Pa. \u2014 Nearly 1,000 Duquesne&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[123500,16610,3985,120186,67633,78590,123503,2092,17285,123502,13380,28,30,29,7363,123501,2957,16428,23584,123504,10254],"class_list":["post-299634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-dangerous-job","tag-dlc","tag-duquesne-light","tag-duquesne-light-worker","tag-ibew","tag-lineman","tag-michael-goodwin","tag-more-news","tag-negotiation","tag-nonunion-crew","tag-outage","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-safety","tag-significant-risk","tag-strike","tag-utility","tag-utility-company","tag-well-safety-protocol","tag-wtae"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}