The ET&D Partnership and Its 10-Hour Course

The ET&D Partnership 10-Hour is the electric transmission and distribution industry’s own safety course: created under OSHA Strategic Partnership #325, taught to the hazards of line work specifically, and delivered with its own completion cards. It is not the general OSHA 10 Outreach card, and the difference matters when a job posting or a JATC letter asks for one by name.

*Learn the Trades is a free study resource. We are not a licensing body, an authorized training provider, or an exam administrator. Reading this page does not award any card, license, or certification. Always verify requirements with the issuing authority linked in the sources.*

Why it matters on the job

Line construction employers hire against this course. Because the partnership’s members include the industry’s major contractors alongside the IBEW, the ET&D 10-Hour functions as the sector’s shared safety baseline: new hires and apprentices take it early, and its content (unlike a generic construction card) is about the work you will actually do.

The partnership behind the card

OSHA Strategic Partnership #325 is a formal agreement between OSHA and the electric transmission and distribution construction industry: contractors (including Quanta Services companies, MYR Group companies and Pike, among the partnership’s 15 partners), the IBEW, the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA) and the Edison Electric Institute (EEI). The partnership exists to drive down the industry’s serious injuries and fatalities by developing shared best practices, analyzing incident data, and building common training. Its current renewal was signed October 11, 2023 and runs through December 31, 2028.

The 10-Hour course is one of the partnership’s flagship products: partnership records (its 2012 annual report, for example) document the classes delivered and completion cards issued through partner employers and affiliated JATC training centers (AJATCs).

Two different cards from two different programs: the ET&D 10-Hour speaks line work; OSHA 10 Outreach speaks general awareness

A concrete exemplar

An apprentice entering an outside line JATC will typically sit the ET&D 10-Hour during early training: ten hours of instruction built around the hazards the partnership’s incident data says kill lineworkers, taught by an authorized instructor at a partner employer or training center, with a completion card issued at the end. The same apprentice may also hold an OSHA 10 construction card from a pre-apprenticeship program; the two records live side by side and answer different questions.

Where it bites

• Job postings blur the names. “OSHA 10” in a line-construction posting sometimes means the ET&D course and sometimes means Outreach. When it matters (JATC applications, contractor onboarding), ask which program the employer requires rather than guessing.
• Cards are records of training, nothing more. Neither card makes you competent, and neither certifies you to perform energized work. Qualification under 1910.269 remains a separate, employer-established status.
• Partnership content evolves. The partnership renews on multi-year cycles and updates its best practices as incident data accumulates. Treat course content details as current-at-delivery and verify against the partnership’s OSHA page when precision matters.

Exam relevance

The ET&D 10-Hour is instruction with a completion card, not a proctored examination, so there is nothing to “pass” in the licensing sense. Where it appears as a requirement (contractor onboarding, apprenticeship paperwork), the record of completion is what is being checked, and the issuing training organization is the authority on what its card covers.