A program offered by Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 619 can provide its members access to working at the Grand Gulf Nuclear Station in Port Gibson and practically any other job site to which they wish to go.

The union’s rigger certification program is designed to meet Occupational Health and Safety Administration requirements for working in areas where employees are required to lift and move and secure pipe and other materials at work sites. It’s a program local business manager Tommy Newell said has received the blessing of officials at Grand Gulf. He said the local currently has 25 members working at the plant, and can increase to 150 during outages. Union membership totals 750 in 62 Mississippi counties.

“This program meets the OSHA requirements and federal regulations,” he said as local members prepared a two-story steel frame behind the union’s offices Saturday for members getting their recertification. “You need this to be able to work in a nuclear plant, and we do the certification right here,” he said. “We send guys to Michigan to get certified, they come back as trainers and teachers, and we train our membership,” he added.

He said 20 members were getting their recertification during two sessions on Saturday and Sunday. The local was also holding foremen certification.

“Contractors like to send our guys through (the foreman) program,” he said. “When they hire them, they want them to have a foreman card that shows they’re a leader and they can get out there and do the job for them.”

To get rigger certification, Newell said, members must attend 40 hours of classroom instruction, take a computerized test monitored and graded by a third party, and do what’s called a “practical,” a hands-on test that requires them to remove a pipe, flip it, turn it around, set it back down and reconnect it. They also have to relocate and reconnect a simulated pump.

“When they are certified, they get a card,” he said. “That card is good on any construction site.”

He said workers recertify every five years.

Newell added members are also able to get NANTeL certification, which prepares them to work in a nuclear plant.

Ed Garrison, assistant to the vice president at Grand Gulf, said the recertification program is part of the nuclear plant’s supplemental maintenance training assessment program to ensure workers are properly trained and qualified to work during the plant’s outage periods. He said having the local train the workers instead of training them at the plant saves Grand Gulf $750,000.

Previously, he said, the plant officials had to do 24 hours of training and evaluation of workers. When the worker’s hourly rate and time are figured into the equation, he said, “it’s a pretty significant amount of money, based on the amount of people. Not just union craft, but other contractors and some of our other vendors and subcontractors.”

“There’s 800 people we have to process through,” Elizabeth Meadows, Grand Gulf training operations manager said. “If we have to monitor this (certification), we’re losing focus on probably something else.”

Garrison said plant official evaluate the training program every three years to ensure the training meets industry and OSHS standards.

When workers receive their certification, he added, “it’s transportable within the whole industry. They can go work at another nuclear plant; they can walk in and start without any training.”

“That allows workers to move to other plants working outages,” Meadows said. “So instead of working an outage for 30 days and then not doing anything for the rest of the year, they can keep working.”