PITTSBURGH — Cheers and honks could be heard throughout Pittsburgh’s Chateau neighborhood Thursday as nearly 1,000 picketing Duquesne Light [DLC] employees and IBEW leaders challenged the company to return to the negotiating table.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE >>> Nearly 1K Duquesne Light Company union workers go on strike
“The amount of support we’ve got from our members last night and since then shows the testament of where their mind space is,” IBEW Local 29 Business Manager Josh Ewing said. “They’re fed up with how things have gone at Duquesne Light, and they’re ready for change.”
No contract was reached by midnight Thursday after months of negotiations, causing the workers covered by the union, including linemen and customer service agents, to walk off the job.
Union members said negotiations were expected to pick back up Friday, as rain moved into the region to potentially cause DLC’s 618,000 customers problems. The first day of the strike saw sunny skies and calm winds, and power issues were quickly fixed by the dozens of contractors DLC brought in on a temporary basis.
Ewing said the sticking points to the negotiations included safety problems first noticed during last April’s wind storm, as well as technology “upgrades” Ewing said actually slowed workers’ ability to reconnect customers during outages.
“Before we had this technology, our folks would go around and work on what they saw as most important and stay in the same location. When you have a system telling you what to do, they’ll go from one end of the service territory to the next, and you’re wasting time driving,” Ewing said.
He added that a new phone system kept linemen on hold for more than an hour as they sought permission to switch lines back on.
However, the strike has not garnered universal support. Many customers online said it would lead to higher prices after the two sides settle.
According to US Department of Energy filings, DLC’s rates have risen from 16 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) to more than 25 cents per kWh since the beginning of the decade.
That has taken an average monthly bill from less than $100 to more than $150 in just six years.
As a privately held company, DLC does not publicize its profits. The company generated $1.3 billion in revenue last year, up from $1.2 billion the previous year, corporate filings showed.
DLC addressed those customer concerns in a statement released before the strike began.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE >>> Duquesne Light employees gather ahead of strike as customers voice concerns
“Our goal remains to reach an agreement that recognizes the contributions of our employees while also being mindful of our customers’ very real and urgent concerns about energy costs and affordability,” a spokeswoman wrote.
Ewing said the union’s demands would offset some costs. He claimed DLC has increased its non-union workforce by three times in recent years, including relying heavily on contractors that he said were more expensive than union linemen.
“We are asking for wages that are under those outside contractors’ wages,” he said. “We’re trying to save the company money by hiring more internal staff to do the same work at a cheaper rate.”
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