Three-Month New Jersey
Utility Strike Ends

Three weeks before Christmas, 1,350 IBEW members from five locals walked off their jobs at Jersey Central Power and Light Company, fed up with what they considered unreasonable work rule demands and unfair and expensive health care proposals. For more than three months, the linemen, technicians, mechanics and clerks pulled strike duty. Occasional negotiations held little hope of a settlement; the sides were too far apart on their key issues.

Then came intervention by state Labor Commissioner Thomas Carver, who placed representatives from the union and the company in a room and told them not to leave until they hammered out a settlement. Workers were back on the job three days later, a day after overwhelmingly approving the contract offer on March 15.

Willis "Chubby" Wardell, president of IBEW System Council U-3, which consists of Locals 327, 1289, 1298, 1303 and 1309 in New Jersey said, "The company really didn’t want to move but we were able to convince them that it was in their best interest to settle the strike." "It was the best deal we could get out of this company," he added. The 3 ½-year agreement negotiated earned wage increases and resolved work rule issues like how and when the company can call workers in to respond to emergencies.

"Given what the company had originally proposed and their ongoing demands during the negotiations, this contract is a vast improvement," said system council spokesman Jack Moriarty. "And, while the membership struggled through these last 14 weeks, in the end they achieved what many other unions could not. Their strength and resolve permitted the leadership to stand firm against a huge corporation and accomplish a positive result. It was a team effort all the way."

The system council won outright on the issue of retiree health care, said Third District International Representative Richard Redmond. Retirees will retain the same benefits and make the same contribution they did while they were working. On the issue of standby, a company plan for essentially 24-hour on-call duty, management compromised, limiting the requirement to a certain number of times each year and for only three departments, as opposed to the entire work force. The third major area of disagreement was on crew complements, Redmond said. The locals held firm in their insistence that the number of workers assigned to certain tasks could not safely be cut by a half or a third, as the company proposed.

On the issue of pay, workers earned a 3 percent wage hike, a signing bonus and additional increases for some classifications.

"I think the attitude is we took on a very tough company and we went into the ring with them," Redmond said. "Although there were no knockouts scored, we certainly won a decision."

Third District Vice President Donald C. Siegel said other utilities were watching the strike and its resolution for cues on how to deal with their bargaining units. "All workers, especially in the utility industry, owe them a debt of gratitude," Siegel said of the 1,350 members. "Economically they may never get back their 14 weeks of lost pay. But in the long run, they preserved a heck of a lot for other people at the bargaining table. There was a lot more to be lost." Siegel said longstanding relationships with state officials and members of Congress were key to the resolution of the strike. "The governor didn’t take any side but he made it clear he was looking for a settlement," he said.

JCP&L is owned by Ohio-based FirstEnergy, which purchased the utility in 2001. In March, the company agreed to a $1.1 billion settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency over Clean Air Act violations. It is the second-largest civil penalty a utility has ever paid.