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PG&E Partnership Powers Up Utility Worker Careers in Oakland

Published

8 years ago

May 9, 2018

PowerPathway™ debuted in 2008 and came to Oakland in 2012. There are also locations in Fresno, Sacramento, San Francisco, and San Jose.

By Genoa Barrow | California Black Media

In Oakland he was an out of work party promoter and she was a single mother, living in a hotel room with a young son. Both say a job-training program run by Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) gave them the power to change the course of their lives.

Shawn Tate and Shimia Buie are African American graduates of the highly competitive PowerPathway™ Program, which exists to “train the next generation of utility workers.” Tate and Buie participated in Oakland, where PG&E partners with the Cypress Mandela Training Center, which offers a 16-week pre-apprentice construction program that serves as a preliminary to PowerPathway™.

“I knew people that came there and didn’t even know how to read or do math well but when they graduated they knew how to do math, read blueprints and do surveys,” Tate shared.

“You name it; they teach it to you there. Anybody that’s serious about getting their life on track, there are people that’ll help you. I’m a living testament that it can be done,” he continued.

After completing the construction course, some participants are selected for the PowerPathway™ Program, which includes hands-on work in Electric or Gas Operations, pre-employment test preparation, safety certifications and help in resume building and developing interview skills.

Both the 16-week Cypress Mandela program and eight-week PowerPathway™ Program are unpaid. Participants of Cypress Mandela, have to pay for their own uniforms and monthly drug testing. If the student is enrolled in PowerPathway™, their screening, uniform and boots are paid for by PG&E.

Additionally, completion of the PowerPathway™ Program does not guarantee employment with PG&E. It’s a leap of faith students are willing to take, even though most are out of work or experiencing chronic unemployment.

“I really wanted it,” said Tate, who graduated in 2014.

Tate didn’t immediately get hired after graduation, but did land a temporary job with the company as a general construction hydro utility worker with the IBEW 1245 Hiring Hall, also known as a GC Hydro. The job was three hours away from his home in Oakland and his wife was pregnant with twins at the time.

“I’d leave on Sunday and not come back until Friday,” Tate shared.

As a GC Hydro, Tate worked at substations and powerhouses that control power and create energy that is distributed to different grids and then onto customers. He also built dams and bridges and served on a helicopter detail, surveying flumes that brought water to powerhouses. He was later hired onto a general construction crew full time with PG&E.

“You’re a grunt worker, you’re doing all of the digging and shoveling, but I was just happy to even be hired on permanently with the company, so I didn’t mind the hard work,” he said.

Tate later became a gas compliance representative, a job that required less travel and came with a $12 pay increase.

“I wasn’t complaining at $24, but I just had some ambition and I’m one of those guys that talks to people, I pay attention, I ask questions. I’m fine with being blessed and having a job, but I’m also going to strive and if I know there’s more out there, I’m going to definitely try and excel,” Tate said.

Tate took his current position as a rotating supervisor in November 2017. He has 20 employees who report directly to him and a budget of a few million dollars. He also has plans to go into government relations with PG&E. The company, he says, will pay for him to go back to college and finish his degree in communications.

“I’ve had jobs before and made money and I worked for myself for a long time, but my job now, hands down this is one of the top companies to work for. They pay you good, I’ve got my own company truck, company credit cards. It’s unbelievable actually. I make over $150,000 a year, and it has impacted my life tremendously,” Tate said.

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Poll Shows Support for Policies That Help Families Afford Child Care

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

Published

3 days ago

March 2, 2026

Oakland Post

By First Five Years Fund

New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

The national survey was conducted by UpOne Insight on behalf of the First Five Years Fund from January 13–18, 2026.

Key findings include:

• Parents need help: 80% of voters say the ability of working parents to find and afford child care is either in a state of crisis or a major problem.

• This is an affordability issue: 82% believe federal child care funding will help lower costs for working families — including 69% of Republicans, 84% of Independents, and 94% of Democrats.

• And there continues to be strong support (62%) for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), a federal program that makes it possible for hundreds of thousands of families to afford safe, quality care for their children while parents work or go to school, including a majority of Republicans, 63% of Independents and 72% of Democrats.

• Support for funding child care programs remains strong: 75% believe child care funding should be increased or kept at current levels — including 75% of Republicans, 85% of Independents, and 97% of Democrats.

• 74% say funding for child care is an important and good use of tax dollars, including a majority of Republicans, three-quarters of Independents, and nine in ten Democrats.

FFYF Executive Director Sarah Rittling said, “Voters across the country are sending a clear message: federal child care and early learning programs work. These investments help parents stay in the workforce, strengthen families, and support healthy child development. They have also long had strong bipartisan support in Congress. At a time when affordability is top of mind for families, continued federal funding is essential to ensure child care remains accessible and within reach.”

First Five Years Fund works to protect, prioritize, and build bipartisan support for quality child care and early learning programs at the federal level. Reliable, affordable, and high-quality early learning and child care can be transformative, not only enhancing a child’s prospects for a brighter future but also bolstering working parents and fostering economic stability nationwide.

We work with Congress and the Administration to identify federal solutions that work for families with young children, as well as states and communities. We work with policymakers to identify ways to increase access to affordable, high-quality child care and early learning programs for children. And we collaborate with advocacy groups to help align best practices with the best possible policies. http://www.ffyf.org

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Oakland Post: Week of February 25 – March 3, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – February 25 – March 3, 2026

Published

4 days ago

March 1, 2026

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Trump’s MAGA Allies are Creating Executive Order Plan to Steal the 2026 Midterms

NNPA NEWSWIRE — The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

Published

6 days ago

February 27, 2026

Oakland Post

By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

A group of MAGA pro-Trump activists, who say they are working in coordination with the White House, are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that would claim without evidence that China interfered with the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential to President Joe Biden by over 7 million votes. Since Trump lost to Biden in 2020, he has repeatedly claimed that the election was “stolen” without evidence. The report of a group of “Trump allies” preparing an executive order to give Trump power over elections was first reported by The Washington Post.

The lies around the right-wing campaign that pushed falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen was trafficked through right-wing media, particularly Fox News. Fox News was then sued for defamation for the claims by Dominion Voting Systems. Fox lost the case and had to settle for the largest defamation amount on record of $787.5 million in April 2023.

The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

The story in The Washington Post arrives as Trump increasingly signals that he may take actions that would alter the result of the 2026 midterms. The Republicans are widely expected to lose as their approval ratings plummet as a result of a failing economy under Trump. Over 50 members of Congress have announced they will retire this year and not return in 2027.

The Trump Department of Justice, which now has a large image of Trump on the side of it, “sued five new states Thursday [Feb. 26, 2026] demanding access to their unredacted voter rolls — escalating a campaign that has been rejected by multiple federal courts and faces resistance from Republican-led states as well,” according to Democracy Docket, a group that works to protect voting rights.

Trump claimed back in late 2020, the last year of his first term, that he had the authority to issue an executive order related to mail-in voting for the 2020 elections — which he would then lose. But the Constitution states that control of elections lies with the states. As the GOP works to place hurdles in front of voting, Democrats worked to make voting easier.

In March 2021, President Biden signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to expand voting access as part of the Biden Administration’s effort “to promote and defend the right to vote for all Americans who are legally entitled to participate in elections.”

Trump’s focus is clearly on altering the November 2026 midterm elections. Trump’s polling numbers and the elections and special elections that have taken place around the U.S. over the last year clearly indicate that Republicans are about to be hit by a blue wave of Democratic victories.

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent investigative journalist and the founder of Black Virginia News. She is a political analyst who appears on #RolandMartinUnfiltered and hosts the show LAUREN LIVE on YouTube @LaurenVictoriaBurke. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke