At the power company I used to work for, we were required to wear a hard hat, FR shirt, all natural fiber clothes, steel toes, safety glasses, and rubber overshoes when switching in a substation using sticks. For operating any gang switches, 25kV rubber gloves were required also. The sticks are tested every couple of years. If they passed then they should provide insulation of at least 100kV per foot.
When switching on pole mounted equipment, i.e. reclosers, fused cutouts, etc., from the ground using zipsticks, we didn't have to have the rubber overshooes or rubber gloves as the stick should provide plenty of insulation.
Wes
