Stealing copper

[KingRat]

Did I see Orin Reed's name in there? LMFAO Care to jump in on this post K-Rat?

Hey loodvig, glad to see you haven;t forgotabout me but what does this have to do with me? Orrin reed has been in the club for the last, maybe 20 years, you would think he knows better unless of course your not held accountable. He now works on your system in tewksbury as a g.f. no less, for harlan is it? I dont know much about Thiro, other than they seem to have a pretty big presence in the area, mostly transmission work not distribution- they seem to know what their doing.We had a couple guys get caught stealing copper maybe 4 or 5 years ago on grid and the owners fired them.I dont think its the companies fault, come on were not kids anymore.Guess where they went- straight to your local ibew hall and got their membership cards and are working on your system now. Topgroove has it right, they should be doing background checks, but the hall doesnt care, it isnt like their a non-profit organization, they are in business to make MONEY, and how do they do that, get more members- but you guys all know that. Most men will speak highly of the company they work for untill they get terminated and you can tell who they are by the way they talk- isnt that the truth?

[old lineman]

Thiro has been around for eons. They have done some great work over the years but to pin rule contraventions solely on the worker is bunk.
That's why they HAVE to have supervision. The supervisors must know all of the rules and regulations or else they're in the wrong position. Knowing them is one side of the coin making the workers follow them is the other.
A supervisor who can't get his subordinates to follow the rules isn't worth the power to blow him to you know where. Even worse is a supervisor who encourages workers to contravine or force his workers to contravine.
When workers don't work safely the super should pay a big price, otherwise the worker will.
Once the supers know that they'll really get nailed for workers violating or injured under their charge they'll do the right thing.
Call a spade a spade.
The Old Lineman

[igloo64]

Companies are only as good as the hands. Thiefs in my book should lose limbs. The only good thief is a dead one!

[Stinger]

I belive the last three copper thieves that have been caught in the malden /lynn MA area stealing NG wire was their own employees. Pretty ratty outfit, maybe they should check their empoyees before they hire them. What is your problem with contractors?

[loodvig]

[QUOTE=Stinger]I belive the last three copper thieves that have been caught in the malden /lynn MA area stealing NG wire was their own employees.

I'm not surprised at that statement at all!

[Stinger]

The more we contractors work for NG, the more your quote becomes reality everyday. They aint happt till everyone is not happy. I'v told this to a couple of FCC's i work with, they got a big chuckle out it and agree.

[grillman]

I thought this thread was about copper theft.

Over the last three or four months we have had some real ballsy thieves here in western missouri. My company has had substaions broken into repeatedly, on a couple of occasions the dumbasses have cut the grounds off of the high side of the power transformer. 161KV.
However they tried to get to ballsy one day on a regulator platform. They attempted to cutthe grounds off while on 12 raise. THere were burnmarks on the middle regulator. To cover there own tracks on of the culprits sat his parents house on fire and checked into the hospital claiming he had been burned in a grease fire. Upon test the burns were not conclusive with a grease burn though and the victim admitted what they had done. The kicker is he was 17. He and his accomplice had hit one of our subs while corporate security was in the sub nonetheless.
We also caught people breaking through our fence in our yard to rob the scrap bins and when we called the police they said they were to busy to help. Its good to know our tax dollars are hard at work.
On another day a foreman and I drove to a jobsite where we had dropped off 2 reels of 1/0 URD. What we found when we got there were a bunch of 20 foot pieces with all the concentric peeled out of it. Tell me that wouldnt take some time!

[Roush6]

We had a problem recently with copper theft as well. I work for Marblehead Municipal up in Mass. The guy went over a barbed-wire fence into one of our substations. Cut up a reel and a half of 500MCM Okonite for a substation project we have on the table...around 2000'. Also took a reel of 4/0 package cable. He never cut the fence, just cut up the wire. Dude also left the biggest turd I've ever seen next to our switchgear. Cop's busted him 2 weeks ago.

Loodvig, you might know my buddy Bob G. He was a T-man out of Andover for a while, jut got bumped up into a super's position in Tewksbury.

[NJlineman55]

Hey buddy at least he left you guys something in return for all that copper!! too funny!!

[NJlineman55]

utility I use to work for they would catch a guy at least once a year trying to steal copper. One group of guys pulled into an open gate next to the copper hopper with a u-haul truck and just started loading up the truck during broad daylight. They must have been smoking the wacky shit or something to be so ballsy. Needless to say they were arrested. If lineman are stealing copper from their workplace then they are seriously a bunch of idiots. I mean you are going to jeapordize your well paying job and your reputation for some copper money. Call me crazy but it just doesn't seem worth it.