A year after the 2011 storms that shut down Connecticut, unions representing Connecticut Light & Power workers say the number of linemen is down, not up — and they’re mounting a protest Monday to bring attention to the decline.
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, locals 420 and 457, say the protest and rally at noon Monday at the state Capitol in Hartford will include other unions and affected people.
The event is planned as the two union locals are working under an expired contract. Their last bargaining agreement expired June 1. Talks are continuing.
John Fernandes and Frank Cirillo, business managers of IBEW Locals 457 and 420, respectively, say they have a combined 397 line workers, down from 416 last fall. Other jobs in the unions are also down, they said.
The company has offered to hire an additional 30 workers, Cirillo and Fernandes said, and that’s not enough in their view — especially since the company wants to rearrange shifts. The unions would like to see a staffing increase of 20 percent for linemen, Fernandes said.
Company spokeswoman Caroline Pretyman said, “Our staffing levels are in line with leading utilities and we staff for the amount of work we have. When major storms hit, we call on other utilities and experienced crews to help us restore power, as is standard utility practice.”
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6 Responses to CL&P Linemen Protesting Staff Levels As Contract Talks Continue
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The union can’t take care of the guys they have so they want to add more? Simple reason. More union dues for frank and Jon. They need to spend more time fighting our health insurance doubling our next contract than hiring more guys. The company expects us to work for 2$ less an hour in our next contract. They just gave shivery 33 million for the merger and Tom may got 40 million dollars in stock! Than they cry broke. We keep the lights on not them . Rain sleet snow 2am its the lineman out there working on 23k volts not tom may or shivery
Why don’t you try being a union brother and not bash the union!! You must enjoy getting forced oncall every weekend. I for one am not interested in giving up my life to a company that can care less about its workers. See you at the next mother meeting!!
I added $1 to my electric bill last year (and urged others to do the same) to support operation hire a lineman – because there are NOT enough lineman to service the area that each has to cover. CL&P put it towards operation fuel. Last years’ storms were a wake-up call, CL&P, why are you still sleeping?
Another example of corporate greed! These empty suits don’t want collective bargaining,nor a decent wage or health package for the working person!
That 30 million plus that CL&P handed out last year to try to make up for the years of neglect to maintenance and staffing of the work force probably would have been well spent hiring workers that live and pay taxes in the state of Conn. Instead they hire another executive from out of state to run things, Must be the present management is to dumb to run the Co.
Many people would wonder why if the company offer all this great benefits and pay there is the need for a strike. There just to be a time where we had benefits and a decent size work force, now there is no longer either. Compensation is divided into two direct pay and indirect pay no body is complaining about our direct pay even though is getting affected as well. The most critical issue beside our staffing levels is the insurance, if you compare what we have right now with the rest of the industry is acceptable,but if you analyze the new benefit package that NU is offering not only is outrageous, but no one can explain the 100% raise in premium in the next four year plus all the co pays are going up significantly as well. The medical inflation rate has shown to increased 8% a year for which add to a total of 32% at the end of the four year contract. Me personally no like other people that emphasize on how much money the executive are getting pay don’t really upset me, I understand that there have to be different levels of pay grade in order to be able to recruit good candidadetes, but when the company is willing to pay such as high salaries is indirectly saying,I got money. Even more they are saying I have the money but I only goin to spread the wealth among a few selected individuals and don’t care about the rest. The position that the company has adopt not only affect most of NU employees, but also the costumer because by them not willing to negotiate decent benefits they are automatically shutting any opportunity of recruiting quality help remember, even though, we are in a downturn economy doesn’t mean that people are waiting to get in the company as a lineman or cable splicer, not only takes time to develop an individual, but those qualify enjoy the benefits of a good insurance plan. Are you aware that union local outside NU don’t have to pay much for medical and those are the same pool of future employees that NU is trying to recruit. What is that they really offer as an insentive for people to come on board.”NOTHING” NU have been manipulating the system across the board;ask yourself how come after the last two storm our numbers of employee has gone down, how is that even possible. I though the effort made by NU during both storm were deemed unacceptable to the point that the previous president is not longer in the company. Last you would think that our leadership such as
Governor Malloy and federal regulators would enforce what is really needed to be done at NU. Finally if you look the financial record of NU it’s never been in the red and always have manage to profit from its revenue stream either gas or electric, even the stocks they have been in a steady incline. where are our benefits we want those back.