Colorado § 40-42-107 - Labor standards - apprenticeship - supervision.

§ 40-42-107. Labor standards - apprenticeship - supervision.

(1) The authority shall ensure that, in any construction, expansion, renovation, rebuilding, reconditioning, or maintenance of facilities undertaken in Colorado pursuant to this article 42, all labor is performed either by the employees of an electric utility, by qualified contractors, or by both, and that, except as otherwise provided in subsection (3) of this section, an electric utility does not use a contractor unless:

(a) The contractor is chosen from a list of qualified contractors prepared and updated, at least annually, by the department of labor and employment; and

(b) The contractor's employees have access to an apprenticeship program registered with the United States department of labor's office of apprenticeship or by a state apprenticeship agency recognized by that office and meeting the additional criteria specified in subsection (2) of this section; except that this apprenticeship requirement does not apply to:

(I) The design, planning, or engineering of the facilities;

(II) Management functions to operate the facilities; or

(III) Any work performed in response to a warranty claim.

(2) To qualify pursuant to subsection (1) of this section, an apprenticeship program must certify to the entity commissioning the work that:

(a) Its curriculum includes requirements for completion of:

(I) At least seven thousand hours of on-the-job training to achieve journeymen lineman status, with at least six hundred fifty of those hours spent working on energized power lines at voltages of at least six hundred volts; and

(II) A class in electric transmission and distribution offered by the federal occupational safety and health administration and comprising content substantially equivalent to that of the "OSHA 10" class offered during calendar year 2021; and

(b) Supervision of apprentices meets the following standards:

(I) Apprentices must work under the supervision of a journeyman lineman at all times;

(II) The ratio of apprentices to journeyman linemen does not exceed four to one when working on a transmission line or other equipment that is not energized; and

(III) The ratio of apprentices to journeyman linemen does not exceed two to one when working on a transmission line or other equipment that is energized.

(3) The request for proposal for any contract work on facilities subject to this section must be submitted to the list of qualified contractors described in subsection (1)(a) of this section for at least sixty days. If none of the contractors on the list submits a qualifying bid within sixty days, then the entity procuring the work may solicit bids from contractors who are not on the list but otherwise qualify under the terms of the request for proposal so long as those terms include compliance with all applicable laws and regulations related to safety.

(4) Any project for the construction, expansion, or maintenance of facilities undertaken in Colorado pursuant to this article 42 that is an energy sector public works project, as defined in section 24-92-303 (5), must comply with the applicable requirements of the "Colorado Energy Sector Public Works Project Craft Labor Requirements Act", part 3 of article 92 of title 24.

Source: L. 2023: IP(1)(b) amended, (SB 23-051), ch. 37, p. 153, § 39, effective March 23; IP(1) amended, (SB 23-016), ch. 165, p. 748, § 24, effective August 7; (4) added, (SB 23-292), ch. 247, p. 1366, § 11, effective January 1, 2024.