I'll agree with you there, it is a management thing, but the ground crews and the management all point the finger at the union rules and complaints fall on deaf ears. I really wish it would work like you mentioned at your place, but it doesn't in my area. At least, not in my experience.
In fact, during one especially nasty night of storms, the crews they sent to my scene were from 60 miles away. And by the time they got to my scene 4 hour later, the crew had already had 2 breaks be cause they were paged at home, had to drive to the shop, get the trucks and equipment ready, drive that 60 miles (first break was before they got into town) and it was their break time again when they got to my scene and didn't do anything for the first 30 minutes they were there. And this was a storm that people were without power for over a week in spots. Hardly effecient work methods. But again, I speak from my own experience...it sounds like you have it better.
Regarding what I did to help them...nothing, I was stranded over a quarter mile away diverting traffic, with every other car demanding to go straight. So I wasn't supervising them, but could clearly see them and what they were doing. It took over 8 hours to cut and remove a tree and re-string the power poles...8 hours of being stuck at that intersection when I could have been put to better use during that storm clean up.
So maybe my opinion is tainted by all the years of watching stuff like I have described. But we all speak from our own experiences, don't we?