Utilities Cite Gains by Minorities, Women in Contracts, Hiring : Affirmative Action: However, the state PUC is criticized for failing to take more aggressive role in overseeing the effort.

California’s major utilities reported Tuesday that they made modest progress in 1992 directing business to--and hiring--more women and minorities despite job losses in their own companies.

But critics and some utility executives agreed that much more could be done as they delivered what has become an annual report card to the Assembly Committee on Utilities and Commerce, meeting in a one-day hearing in Los Angeles.

“We’re still waiting for the Public Utilities Commission to be doing what it’s supposed to be doing in overseeing the utilities’ efforts,” Chairwoman Gwen Moore (D-Los Angeles) said as she scolded a PUC official during his testimony.

As much as $27 billion in contracts to women- and minority-owned companies could be awarded over the next decade--more than double the $12 billion expected under current goals--if the PUC and the utilities were more aggressive, said Robert L. Gnaizda, senior partner at San Francisco-based Public Advocates and general counsel to the Greenlining Coalition of minority and consumer organizations.

Meanwhile, Southern California Edison Co.’s manager of equal opportunity, Frank Quevedo, called on state authorities to double the current goals for utilities in using women- and minority-owned businesses as contractors.

“If left to our own devices, we would not be where we are today,” Queveda said, explaining that the utilities need to “stretch” toward higher goals.

Under a 1988 agreement, California’s major utilities agreed that by this year they would award 20% of the value of all contracts annually to women- and minority-owned firms. Most--15%--would be earmarked for minority-owned business; 5% to those owned by women.

Edison is on track to meet the goals, Quevedo reported, with 16.4% of its 1993 contract dollars so far awarded to minority-owned firms and 7.5% slated for women-owned companies. In 1992, Edison met the goal for women-owned firms but not minority-owned companies. In fact, in 1992, only AT&T; and San Diego Gas & Electric Co. met the 15% goal.

Southern California Gas Co. reported an increase from 10% in its minority-business contracts in 1992 to 11.46% so far in 1993; and from almost 8% in contracts to women-owned firms in 1992 to more than 9% in 1993.

But Gnaizda, who analyzed the numbers by ethnic group, faulted the gas utility’s slide in contracts awarded to African-American companies. That share went from 2.5% of all gas company contracts in 1991 to 1.7% in 1992.

Also at the hearing, the head of one much-criticized utility, the Metropolitan Water District, promised to mend his agency’s ways. John (Woody) Wodraska, the MWD’s new general manager, acknowledged that problems at the district were more than a matter of numbers.

“It’s also the culture within the organization,” Wodraska said. “We are not satisfied that we are the exemplary employer that we need to be.”

As one example, an MWD official noted that 77% of terminations of new workers on probation in their first six months on the job were women and minorities.

The MWD will attempt to better explain its expectations to new workers, as well as trying to create movement in the slow-turnover district by considering early retirement programs.

Meanwhile, the PUC is inviting public comment on its future plan to encourage minority hiring and purchasing. And Assemblywoman Moore expects to require more frequent and consistent reporting by the utilities, with the next committee hearing to be held in January.

Falling Short

Civil rights activists say most of the state’s seven biggest investor-owned utilities are not moving as quickly as they could toward meeting their Public Utilities Commission-ordered obligation to award 15% of business contracts to minority-owned firms

by the end of the year. The critics called for tighter supervision of the utilities’ progress reports, which have been inflated by accounting gimmicks and the use of so-called front companies controlled by Anglo men.

Percentage of 1992 contracts awarded to:

Total Anglo Minority African- Utility minorities* women women Americans Latinos AT&T; 19.4% 8.9% 9.8% 1.1% 13.1% San Diego Gas & Electric 15.2 8.9 2.0 4.3 9.3 GTE 14.3 5.8 2.2 2.5 9.1 Southern California Edison 12.5 7.8 2.9 3.6 6.2 Pacific Bell 11.5 7.7 3.8 3.7 6.1 Pacific Gas & Electric 11.1 9.9 1.9 3.7 2.9 Southern California Gas 9.9 9.1 1.1 1.7 5.5

Asian- Utility Americans AT&T; 5.2% San Diego Gas & Electric 1.6 GTE 2.7 Southern California Edison 2.4 Pacific Bell 1.6 Pacific Gas & Electric 4.0 Southern California Gas 2.7

*Total minorities is the total for African-Americans, Latinos and Asian-Americans, male and female, and does not include Anglo women

Note: Researchers did not include contracts awarded to Native Americans because of doubts about the accuracy of utility-supplied figures.

Source: Greenlining Coalition