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IBEW Takes to the Airwaves on Utility Restructuring

January/February 1999 IBEW Journal

Many IBEW utility local unions and members have effectively used the 15-minute video entitled "Excerpts from Power Switch," which has served as an effective advocacy piece that has allowed the IBEW to stimulate discussion and healthy debate, internally and externally, on the issue of electric utility deregulation.

That video, however, was only the first part of a project conceived by the IBEW's Committee on Electric Power Industry Restructuring. The committee, composed of business managers from utility locals in each vice presidential district, accepted to commission a longer version of the program designed to be aired on public television stations. Given the credibility and stature of public television as an effective medium for airing serious issues, the committee felt that producing a balanced, journalistic look at the issue would help stimulate needed examination of and debate on the issue.

The Working Group, a television production company in Oakland, California, who produced the 15-minute video, embarked on production of a 30-minute version of Power Switch. The final product was deemed to meet the test of a fair portrayal of the issue in order to meet public television standards. The program explores many of the questions surrounding electric utility deregulation and informs people about the issues of which they need to be aware as the debate unfolds in the United States and Canada.

The Working Group was a logical choice to produce the program, as they are a labor-oriented production company that produces and distributes We Do the Work and Livelyhood, two award-winning public television series about working people and their issues.

Power Switch, the program features perspectives on electric utility restructuring from real people from locations throughout the United States: an attorney from the Natural Resources Defense Council; a Public Service commissioner; a vice president of Pacific Gas and Electric Company; consumers in Peterborough, New Hampshire; a retiree in San Francisco, California, a city councilman; a vice president of Madison Gas and Electric; a farmer in Wisconsin and a spokesman for the California Manufacturers Association.

The IBEW has enlisted an impressive list of presenters, including unions, consumer groups, environmental groups and utility associations, for marketing purposes.

The National Education Television Association (NETA) has broadcast the show from its satellite in July and in December for local public television stations to download for airing at a later date. IBEW local unions in targeted states are talking to program managers, encouraging them to schedule Power Switch in their fall and winter line-up so that it can be shown in key states as both national and local debates on the issue take place in 1999. The states where the IBEW has placed the highest priority in airing the program are: Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin. Reports indicate that the show has been aired in California, Idaho and Washington. The program manager for Oregon Public Broadcasting has scheduled the program for a date in early 1999. The show is not available through the IBEW, as it has been licensed to NETA for a year.  

Massachusetts and California:

More Ballot Victories

Having worked hard to craft utility deregulation legislation that protected workers in the industry to the fullest extent possible, IBEW locals in California and Massachusetts rallied last November to defeat ballot initiatives that would have gutted the laws passed earlier in both states.

In Massachusetts, 73 percent of the voters agreed the electric utility deregulation law, that had been passed November 19, 1997, should remain intact by supporting the IBEW's position on Question 4 on the ballot. If the referendum had passed, the law would have been repealed. While in California, more than 73 percent of the voters rejected Proposition 9, a measure that was intended to overturn parts of California's 1996 electricity deregulation law, cut retail rates by 20 percent and prevent utilities from recovering costs for nuclear power.

Four Massachusetts IBEW Locals - 326,Lawrence; 455, Springfield; 486, Worcester and 1465, Fall River - worked diligently delivering over 5,000 pieces of literature door-to-door, sending targeted direct mail and conducting visibility events. They also targeted key precincts throughout the state in a get-out-the-vote drive.

The New Massachusetts Electricity Law, which was the subject of the referendum, was developed over three years with input and support from consumers advocates, small businesses and large employers, energy providers and experts, labor and environmental groups. The law provides protections for utility workers in the Bay State. It requires state regulators to set benchmarks for employee staffing and training to assure the quality of customer service is maintained. Energy providers are required to disclose the percentage of electricity sold that is produced by union plant workers. And, as utility monopolies break up and plants are sold as part of that break-up, employees will be offered positions with the new owners. Any employees displaced after July 1, 1997, by restructuring, receive extended unemployment benefits, employment assistance and health benefits.

In California, IBEW locals throughout the state coordinated efforts with local AFL-CIO Central Labor Councils to provide volunteers for precinct walking and phone banking, helping to make sure that the message to voters included a pitch against Proposition 9. Other efforts included providing campaign leaflets, bumper stickers and yard signs to fellow union members.

Opposition to Proposition 9 was spurred by the belief that it would cripple the utilities ability to provide safe and reliable service, would repeal worker protections created in 1996 by the passage of AB 1890 and also put pressure on electric rates by forcing the closure of nuclear generating plants.

Such resounding defeats discourage future challenges to deregulation laws passed in other states and encourage legislators to craft and adopt solid, sensible proposals from the outset.

Utility Must Give Union Information

The U. S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has enforced an National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Order requiring Public Service Electric and Gas Company (PSE&G) to give IBEW Local 1576, (amalgamated into Local 94, Cranbury, New Jersey in 1994) information requested in a questionnaire which they developed. The information sought focused on PSE&G's hiring and retention of employees of nonunion subcontractors. The Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) found that the information requested was relevant to aid the local union in representing its members. The ALJ also found that much of the information related to the union's concern about the creation of a "parallel workforce" and the potential for union membership being eroded by PSE&G violations of the collective bargaining agreement in its hiring and retention of nonunion workers. This decision enables local unions to keep an eye on companies who hire nonunion workers for union jobs.

Local 94 represents several groups of employees at PSE&G's nuclear generating stations in New Jersey. The company has periodically supplemented its radiation protection technician staff during power outages with employees from two subcontractors. The collective bargaining agreement permits the arrangement as long as it does not result in lay-off, curtailment or downsizing employees represented by the local.

Local 94 alleged that PSE&G has created a parallel workforce of nonunion workers, thereby violating the collective bargaining agreement. The questionnaire, developed by the local, was to be used to determine the relationships between technicians, their subcontracting firms and the utilities. The decision by the Third Circuit found that the IBEW carried its burden of demonstrating the relevance of the information to its duty to represent bargaining unit employees. The company must provide the information from the questionnaire.

 Global Expansion

Sparks Historic Trans-Atlantic Agreement

Saying that it sees exciting opportunities in U.S. deregulation, London-based national Power PLC, Britain's largest electricity generator, is starting construction of a 1,100 Mw combined-cycle gas turbine plant at Midlothian, Texas. Since Texas has few connections to other grids, it is one of the best electricity markets in the United States, says CEO Keith Henry. The Midlothian plant will be more efficient than older units in Texas, adding to the competition to provide electricity service.

National Power, which has already acquired interests in 1,545 Mw of U.S. capacity at six plants through its Houston subsidiary, American National Power, Inc., is also planning projects in New England and elsewhere.

Since foreign firms entering are entering the U.S. power market, and U.S. firms have also been active in other nations, especially Great Britain, the IBEW has signed a groundbreaking agreement with the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union and Unison Energy, the two largest British unions of electrical workers. The agreement is formal recognition of cooperation between the two unions. The unions, recognizing that there is a world-wide convergence in the electric power supply industry, which influences workers and collective bargaining, the unions will share information about global power developments. This will further protect the interests of electricity workers in the new global economic environment.

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