Reporting by Hank Gross at Mid Hudson News.
The Hudson Valley's largest utility has put its hiring commitment in writing. On Tuesday, October 13, Central Hudson Gas & Electric and the Hudson Valley Building and Construction Trades Council signed a Labor Usage Policy that puts local union workers on the utility's major construction projects, Mid Hudson News reported.
They signed it at the Laborers Local 17 Training Center in Newburgh, the building where the region's next class of construction laborers learns the trade.
What the Policy Says
The terms are short and specific. Two dollar thresholds do the work.
Any Central Hudson project over $1.5 million that does not carry a prevailing wage requirement will be built under a project labor agreement. Any project over $375,000 that does include prevailing wage will be performed by union workers.
A project labor agreement is a single contract, signed before a job starts, that sets wages, benefits, hours and work rules for every contractor and subcontractor on the site. It typically includes a no strike commitment from the crafts and a commitment from contractors to draw workers through the local union halls. For the utility, that means a trained and predictable workforce on every major build. For the worker, it means union scale pay, benefits and a line on the next job.
Prevailing wage is the rate New York sets, county by county and trade by trade, for covered construction work. Taken together, the two thresholds mean that on most of Central Hudson's major construction, the people doing the work will be union members from the Hudson Valley.
Who Does the Work
A building trades council brings the craft unions in a region under one roof, from the laborers and operating engineers who dig and set foundations to the electricians and pipefitters who finish the job. The Hudson Valley council negotiated this policy for all of them.
Todd Diorio, president of the council, put it in terms of what his members do every day. "Our members build the infrastructure that keeps the Hudson Valley running," he said. Diorio said the policy means union members will do that work for years to come, and he called Central Hudson "a real partner to the building trades." The company's commitment, he said, is now in writing.
Stephanie Raymond, president of Central Hudson, said the agreement "marks an important milestone for Central Hudson and our labor partners." She said it "recognizes that successful infrastructure projects depend on skilled workers."
The Work Ahead
Central Hudson serves about 300,000 electric customers and about 79,000 natural gas customers across a 2,600 square mile territory in eight Mid-Hudson Valley counties, according to its parent company, CH Energy Group.
A system that size is rebuilt and upgraded every year. The utility's 2025 to 2029 capital forecast, published by the Joint Utilities of New York, lists about $915 million in electric additions and about $421 million in gas additions over the five years, with transmission forecast separately. Substations, poles and wire, gas mains and service lines all come down to crew hours. Under the new policy, the hours on the biggest of those jobs go to local union members.
The utility's footprint reaches past its own job sites. Central Hudson contributes more than $60 million a year to schools and local governments in its territory, according to Empire Report New York.
What It Means for Workers
For a young person in Newburgh, Poughkeepsie or Kingston who is thinking about the trades, an agreement like this is a signal about where the work will be. Union apprentices are paid from the first day. They learn on the job and in the classroom, and their pay steps up as their hours and skills add up. A steady pipeline of utility work close to home means they can build that career without leaving the valley.
For contractors, the rules are set up front. Everyone bids on the same terms, and the labor comes out of training centers like the one in Newburgh where the policy was signed.
For the region, it keeps paychecks local. When a utility commits its largest projects to the people who live in its service territory, those wages get spent in the same towns the lines run through.
How to Get In
The building trades in the Hudson Valley recruit apprentices through their local unions and joint training programs, which run on their own application calendars. The New York State Department of Labor explains how registered apprenticeship works and how to apply, and ApprenticeshipWorks NY keeps a directory of union locals, including Laborers Local 17, with contacts for each.
Central Hudson has served the Mid-Hudson Valley since 1926. Its biggest jobs now carry a written promise that local union crews will build them.
Sources
- Hank Gross, "Hudson Valley Building Trades and Central Hudson sign labor usage agreement," Mid Hudson News, October 14, 2026. Link
- "Hudson Valley Building Trades and Central Hudson Sign Labor Usage Policy to Keep Local Union Workers on the Job," Empire Report New York, October 13, 2026. Link
- CH Energy Group, "Our Business." Link
- New York State Department of Labor, Registered Apprenticeship. Link
- ApprenticeshipWorks NY, Laborers Local 17. Link
- Joint Utilities of New York, Central Hudson 2025 to 2029 Capital Forecast. Link
