Hope everyone had a chance to enjoy the Holidays.
I attended a leadership safety meeting on Long Island. They are looking for 2018 for Safety initiatives.
We have a lot of outstanding issues to address in 2018 along with engaging our Youth and Women’s committees along with New Member Orientation meetings and Steward Seminars.
I was able to attend the Governor’s State-of-the-State Address in Albany last week.
There will be much change in our industry as renewable power, distributed generation and other options are looked at and we need to be able to adapt to these changes.
We will continue to face attacks on our generation facilities which will affect our transmission and distribution lines of business also.
VP Welsh has requested all Business Managers for the 3rd District meet on January 17th in New Jersey prior to the 3rd District Workshop.
We continue to support the efforts in Puerto Rico and will be sending a third wave the first week of February.
As I mentioned last month the NYS Paid Family Leave Act is now in effect.
EXELON:
We continue to fight an order of protection issue we have with Exelon at the Fitzpatrick plant.
NGRID:
We were unable to come to an agreement regarding the Office Tech classification and the Company pulled its proposal. They did move forward, however, with the abolishment of the Files and Repo Department.
We continue to work towards an agreement on the DOT medical exams.
I do have dates this month to meet with Labor Relations to try and resolve several outstanding issues (January 22nd and 23rd). Also Labor has informed me that a new Director for Upstate Labor will be in place on January 30th.
Call out response remains an issue that we are looking to get resolution on.
NRG:
We were notified that NRG will be suspending its employee stock purchase plan and the company’s annual discretionary 401k contribution.
ST. LAWRENCE GAS:
We are working an issue regarding employee medical contributions.
As we work through all the issues we will face, I ask that as a membership you stay engaged and informed by attending the monthly meetings.