Union Trail Electric workers issue 30-day strike notice
A union for about 40 OTEC workers, including journeyman linemen, set a 30-day strike clock on a utility that serves nearly 60,000 residents across four counties.
A union representing about 40 Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative employees, including journeyman linemen, issued a 30-day strike notice on June 22, raising the stakes at the Baker City-based utility as it bargained over wages and on-call rules.
The notice does not shut down service, but it puts a deadline on talks at a cooperative that serves about 32,000 meters and nearly 60,000 residents in Baker, Grant, Harney and Union counties. Those customers depend on OTEC crews for outage restoration, line maintenance, new hookups and construction work that keeps farms, businesses and homes connected to power.
The dispute lands at a sensitive moment for a system that spans more than 3,000 miles of overhead and underground lines and operates from headquarters in Baker City with district offices in La Grande, John Day and Burns. OTEC is a private, non-profit electric cooperative owned by its member-owners. Its mission is to provide safe, reliable electricity and services that support the economy and quality of life across its service area.
The labor tension has been building since the contract expired on April 1. OTEC’s most recent tariff revision was in February and took effect April 1 as well, adding another recent rate-and-cost decision to a period already marked by bargaining pressure.
Journeyman linemen are among the employees most directly tied to storm response and emergency repairs, and any staffing strain can affect how quickly outages are restored, how easily work orders move through the system and how soon field crews can finish projects already underway.
On June 16, a wildfire near Cabbage Hill caused a district-wide outage that affected more than 12,600 cooperative members before service was restored the same day.
The strike notice also comes as OTEC looks at major growth. On May 21, Idaho Power and OTEC announced an agreement for OTEC to take over Idaho Power’s Oregon distribution system if the deal wins approval, a move that would add about 20,000 Oregon customers and could close in early 2027.
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