I hope everyone enjoyed their 4th of July.
We made it thru the elections. We had a low turnout; out of 4,300 members only 1,200 voted. Thank you to all who voted. It is important that we get more participation in the future. It shows the union solidarity to our companies.
We received a letter from the International where the Linemen Appreciation Day will be going forward always celebrated on July 10th.
CES (Clear Energy Standard) which has to do with our nuclear plants – we received encouraging news last Friday where the PSC staff is recommending to the PSC Commission to adopt the CES which hopefully means the saving of the Fitzpatrick plant. Entergy is in talks with Exelon to purchase the plant. There will be a link on our website where you can show your support for the CES credits.
The Utility Assault Bill has passed which makes it a felony to assault a Utility worker.
BROOKFIELD:
We came to a Tentative Agreement and presented it to the members and they shot it down. I let the Company know and we are going back to talk to the members to see if we can get it passed. It was a good first contract and the Negotiating Committee recommended it.
NGRID:
We have started discussions with Regional Control on schedule changes. It will be rolled out for comments. It is more of an issue in the Eastern Division. They are looking for three people on each shift.
We are having discussions to try and get help for Distribution Consumer Relations work and which should be our work. Company is hiring more analysts. We are looking for one union member in each division. The company just wants a total of one to cover all divisions. We did win a blue sheet arbitration on this work.
We reached two good settlements prior to arbitration on employee discharges. They were brought back to work. One was out of the West and one from Central. Hoping to have them back next week.
I had a phone conversation with Labor. We will be having a phone conversation tomorrow about contract negotiations for 97 and 97c. The 97c contract is up in September and 97 will be up in March 2017. Because of scheduling issues we may need to push back the 97c negotiations. We will be starting to form committees soon.
Theodore J. Skerpon