FPL will win again without communication

[OLE' SORE KNEES]

You said it !!!

[electriklady]

You know for the money they are making they shouldn't need any nuclear or coal fired plants, electricity should be shootin out their a$$holes, godly figures that they are

[Hurricane Harry]

The best line in the whole story.....................

"and it's these people who have really built the company to what it is"


and you thought it was the workers

[lineman641]

Somebody needs to wake up or else

A hurricane hits the mid-Atlantic, pounding the coastlines of North Carolina and Virginia. Homes and property are destroyed but the biggest problem is the massive power outage that has isolated tens of thousands of residents. The local utilities, already short-staffed, put out an urgent call for manpower to neighboring electric companies. But nobody comes. The lights stay out. There’s no one left to spare.

This disaster scenario is not as unlikely as it sounds. Years of relentless cost cutting by the utility industry have wiped out worker training programs and gutted the ranks of experienced linemen. Since deregulation came to the electric industry more than 10 years ago, utilities have reduced their line staff by 25 or 30 percent. Today, the average lineman is 48 and overworked thanks to the widespread practice of forced overtime.

The good news is anecdotal evidence suggests that the industry is aware of the problem. The bad news is not much is being done to address it.

"Everything is keyed on dollars and cents profit," said IBEW Utility Director Jim Hunter. "Storm outages are longer, and utilities are asking for more and more help from other utilities. The problem is that other companies are in the same boat. And they are still not hiring."

Thanks to bare-bones management under deregulation, worker training programs are all but relics from the past, victims of a highly competitive deregulated environment. The aging work force is dominated by baby boomers nearing retirement. Industry observers are predicting a slow-motion catastrophe over the low number of linemen qualified to shepherd the nation’s power grid into the future.

"We have this impending demographic crisis on our hands here," said Madison, Wisconsin, Local 2304 Business Manager Dave Poklinkoski. "At the same time, the utility industry has not come to grips with the need to hire and train that gap. But some utility companies are increasingly recognizing the problem."

Demographic Time Bomb

By 2010, as many as 60 percent of today’s experienced utility workers will retire. A survey conducted last fall by the Carnegie Mellon University Electricity Industry Center found that utility human resources executives overwhelmingly listed the aging work force as their number one concern. Eighty percent of those surveyed placed the aging work force as their biggest worry, far above the other listed concerns, which included cost of benefits and a skilled work force. The managers represented more than 200,000 workers from utilities across the country.

Those executives have done the math and the numbers do not work out in their favor. Climbing poles and repairing wires in extreme outdoor conditions is hard physical work. By the age of 55 or 60, most journeymen linemen are ready for retirement after a career spent in the elements.

"We are facing a huge depletion of highly trained people," Hunter said. "Some workers who have been in the industry for 30 years are not being replaced, and more than that, are not being given an opportunity to transfer their knowledge to the new work force because there isn’t one."

The industry is running out of time.

"If the industry continues to ignore this problem, all of society will be paying the price," said IBEW International President Edwin D. Hill. "A modern, technologically dependent economy must have a professional work force to maintain its vital infrastructure or it will no longer be the reliable system we have come to take for granted."

A Life on the Lines

The job of utility linemen is varied and complex. It takes five years to train a lineman to a journeyman level, and most in the industry acknowledge that it takes 10 years to become a well-rounded lineman. There is much to learn, said Utility Department International Representative Don Hartley, who came out of the Virginia Power training program. It takes years to gain the skills to construct and maintain the full spectrum of the utility infrastructure.

"There is no short-term learning curve for working safely in an environment that has the ever-present potential for injury or death," Hartley said. Years of one-on-one, hands-on training is necessary to learn the mechanics of dealing with the vast assortment of wire sizes and tensions, understand complex equipment capabilities and develop effective trouble-shooting skills, not to mention getting comfortable with climbing 55-foot poles and 200-foot transmission towers and the art of maneuvering large utility trucks through alleys and congested city streets.

Richmond, Virginia, Local 50 member Dave Barham said when he joined Virginia Power 26 years ago, his service area shared nearly 50 helpers, or "groundmen," that assisted linemen on crews. Now the Virginia Beach service area he works in has been doubled, but there are only seven groundmen. Barham said the utility preaches safety on the job, but the worker shortage itself is a safety issue. "They want us to have a safety culture but don’t want to admit that it’s an older work force and that there’s not enough people on the jobsites," Barham said.

Despite the evidence of a shortage, the computer modeling increasingly in use as a management tool indicates just the opposite. "Man-hour reports keep telling our supervisors we have too many people on the job for the work that we do," Barham said.

The work is also getting more technical, with utility companies increasing employing computers to track workers in the field and monitor job assignments, Hunter said. "But no matter how advanced technology is, when a line is lying down in the road, it takes a body and a bucket truck to put that line back up," he said. "There is no technology that we have that can do that."

Virginia Power is relying more and more on calling in workers for repairs, but to keep the number of those calls down, they are using the first response crews to make temporary fixes instead of using call-outs for proper repairs by repair crews.

‘Band-Aid Fixes’

It is only in extreme cases that regulators have entered the fray on staffing levels in the electricity industry. Two years ago, the New Jersey Public Service Commission chided FirstEnergy, parent company of Jersey Central Power and Light (JCP&L), for what it considered unacceptably long response times for power outages. The utility was ordered to hire 300 workers. But the unusual mandate has not solved the staff shortage problem at JCP&L. Five New Jersey IBEW locals representing 1,350 JCP&L workers went on strike last December after rejecting a contract offer requiring workers to remain on call 24 hours a day—essentially forced overtime.

"These are just Band-Aid fixes," Hunter said. "Eventually that person is not going to continue to work 1,000 hours of overtime a year. They are just trying to prolong the inevitable. We are not going to have enough trained, qualified people to do the work."

Not only are the utilities failing to reconstitute dismantled training programs and neglecting to replace those who have retired, some—like Pepco in Washington, D.C., and Maryland and Connectiv in Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia—continue to offer their workers early retirements. As the utility work force dwindles, companies are using more and more nonunion contractors, further depleting the ranks of highly trained IBEW members.

The lack of knowledge transfer and loss of institutional understanding are a particular concern of IBEW members who have spent years honing their skills in a challenging and dangerous field. The specialized niche of utility construction has been severely cut due to the lack of new investment in transmission and distribution. Deregulation and its attendant uncertainties have eliminated any inclination on the part of utilities to spend money on capital improvements and even more importantly, even less on the maintenance necessary for sustaining reliable infrastructure.

"Every time that person with 30 years of experience walks out the door, the problem gets worse," Hunter said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[lineman641]

RANK AND FILE UNITY WINS GOOD CONTRACTS
It is imperative that the IBEW members working on FPL property take the necessary steps at this time to insure a good contract for 2004. FPL management relies on the membership to be weak, divided, misinformed and unwilling to take on a major fight to support and win Union demands.
The eleven locals of System Council U-4 must become unified. It is the System Councils responsibility to inform our membership through better communication. It is our responsibility as members of the IBEW to exercise our democratic rights and get involved in these contract campaign efforts. We must communicate our issues, not only to our delegates and negotiating committee, but also to each other and to our brothers and sisters in different locals. This contract must be more than a wish list with no back up from this membership. We must make it an action campaign. Action will build members unity and demonstrate our determination to management.
Our Union leadership must make a plan, determine priorities and rank the issues. Get the membership involved and be sure to include everyone, high and low seniority, plant and distribution, we must vote as a brotherhood. In the past, management has turned us against each other. We must become organized! Only through unity and determination will we achieve our goals.
This all sounds good, but the truth is, to be effective a contract campaign has to be backed up with a creditable strike threat. As a Union we must prepare all members. As individuals, we must consolidate our bills, hold off on unnecessary expenditures and become lean for this fight. Unless we back our business manager with the ability to strike, we will continue to receive sub standard contracts, giving up more each time.
Our membership deserves to be educated on the facts with details on better health care and a guaranteed health insurance, life insurance and pension benefits at retirement for each member, regardless of seniority.
This is a dramatic difference from the past, where we made proposals through our delegates and waited for the sales pitch from our negotiators, who brought back a weak contract, trying to sell it to this membership by telling us this is the best you are going to get. Until you get involved, it will always be "the best you are going to get".
So remember, only through unity and determination will we achieve our goals. It does not happen automatically or by accident. Attend your Union meetings; let the officers know how you feel. In this day and age you must get off your ass and fight for all you get. If you believe this company is going to give you anything then we have already lost the battle even before the fight begins.
Signed, A Concerned Brother
________________________________________

[mx-5]

great write up 641..utilities today are not concerned about the aging work force,their customers sitting in the dark for extended times or the safety of their employees...all that cost money.. they care about profits RIGHT NOW,TODAY..not what may happen to all the above tomorrow...that will be the next guys problem..the execs now will take their 50-60 million dollar golden parachute jump and never look back......that is the reality of corporate America.......right now..

[power temp]

this company is breaking labor law's if you broke the law you'd be suspended untill the out come. let it eat . power temp

[LIGHTSOUT]

I want to thank line man 641 for the last two posts. You are providing a huge amount of truth based on the facts. Facts that we are all living with everyday while we work for this company that only knows how to misrepresent and manipulate the facts. The truth be known these executives elite are over payed and the time is coming for them to be reduced down to a more deserving level of compensation. The economy is the worst since the depression but they would like to continue to be compensated as if we are in the good days of rapid growth. This was growth that was created by artificial (fraudulent) means. It is logical then to conclude that even then they were being overcompensated because the growth that they benefited from was a false one. So now they want a 30% rate increase in order to keep the money coming except they again do not deserve one more penny.

Democracy is waking up. This is not good for the corporate oligarchy. It will get uglier before it gets better be prepared.

Lightsout

Semper fidelis

[OLE' SORE KNEES]

FPL would buy a new jet with rate increase
As FPL pushes for a rate increase, controversy swirls over the planned purchase of a $31 million jet and an investigation into regulators' relations with utilities they oversee.
Public Service Commissioner Nancy Argenziano, who has criticized her agency for being too close to the utilities it regulates, fired her top aide Sunday after he admitted to giving the private messaging code for his BlackBerry to a Florida Power & Light executive.

Larry Harris, 40, who has been at the PSC since 2001, volunteered to resign and seek a job elsewhere in the PSC after Argenziano read a Miami Herald story online late Saturday revealing that at least three PSC aides had given the messaging codes to an FPL executive. Harris worked as a senior attorney at the PSC before joining Argenziano's staff in 2007. He said he has no guarantee that he will find a new PSC job.

The Herald/Times has reported that the messaging codes -- called Personal Identification Numbers, or PINS -- had been given to FPL attorney Natalie Smith, potentially allowing the utility to communicate directly with commissioners outside public view and without leaving a paper trail.

The state's top law enforcement agency is investigating the Public Service Commission on grounds that commissioners and staff members may have had improper relationships with the utilities they regulate.

Two of the five PSC commissioners and its executive director said Tuesday that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement has launched an investigation based on a complaint, and is preparing to interview all five commissioners and some among their staff.

Leon County State Attorney Willie Meggs is assisting in the investigation, sources said.
Public Service Commission Commissioner Lisa Edgar, the subject of a recently filed ethics complaint, got through one of two Senate reconfirmation hearings scheduled for this week -- but only after a lengthy series of questions from Tampa Bay Sen. Mike Fasano, who called her votes to raise customer utility rates above staff recommendations ''mind-boggling'' and ``not consumer friendly.''

The vote by Sen. Jim King's energy and utilities committee was 7-1, with only Fasano opposed. Tuesday, the Senate ethics and elections committee votes on the second term for Edgar, recommended for another term by Gov. Charlie Crist.
The PSC considers issues including the rates customers pay to the state's electric, water and telecommunications utilities companies.
As state police investigate the Public Service Commission for possible ethics violations, an inspector general found Wednesday that the agency's lobbyist used ``poor judgment'' and may have violated rules by attending a party at the home of a Florida Power & Light executive during a pending rate case.

Although the PSC inspector general could not prove whether lobbyist Ryder Rudd broke PSC rules on gifts and communication by attending the Kentucky Derby party, a state senator and a PSC commissioner immediately called for his ouster.

``The inexcusable conduct of this employee undermines the public trust and confidence in the regulatory process and impugns the integrity of this commission,'' Commissioner Nathan Skop wrote in a statement. ``This is a clear cut ethics problem and perception issue.''
•
State investigating utility regulators over possible conflicts
State investigating utility regulators over possible conflicts

The state's top law enforcement agency is investigating the Public Service Commission on possible grounds that commissioners and staff had improper relationships with the utilities they regulate.

Two PSC commissioners and its executive director said Tuesday that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement has launched an investigation based on a complaint, and is preparing to conduct interviews of all five commissioners and some of their staff.

Leon County State Attorney Willie Meggs is assisting in the investigation, sources said.
BY MARY ELLEN KLAS
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau

TALLAHASSEE -- Florida Power & Light, embroiled in a controversial hearing to raise electric rates, says part of the 30 percent increase would pay for a new $31 million corporate jet to replace a 10-year-old jet in its three-aircraft fleet.

FPL executives hastened to explain that the bill for the new jet would be offset by trading in the old one for $18 million, leaving customers responsible for $13 million of the tab.

A handful of FPL executives are allowed to use the corporate jet for personal use, company officials said. Among them is CEO Armando Olivera, who told regulators that he used the plane for the Tallahassee hearing and often uses the company helicopter to travel between his hometown of Miami and his company's headquarters in Juno Beach.

When asked if he used the company helicopter to get to work, he said, ``not all the time, but generally.''

The testimony came in the second week of the rate case that has been accompanied by a swirl of accusations that the Public Service Commission has become too close to the utilities it regulates.

The PSC is under investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Leon County state attorney for possible improper communication between top FPL executives and the PSC, which approves its rates. Despite complaints that they are too cozy with regulators, FPL has defied an order by the PSC to reveal the top salaries of company executives, and one PSC commissioner has called for the firing of a PSC lobbyist who attended a party at the home of an FPL executive.

PHONE CODES

As the hearings wrapped up Saturday, The Herald/Times also learned that three aides to Florida utility regulators repeatedly gave private BlackBerry messaging codes to an FPL executive, potentially allowing the utility to communicate directly with them outside of public view and without leaving a paper trail.

The newspaper obtained e-mails sent between February 2008 and February 2009 that show FPL attorney Natalie Smith repeatedly requested and received the Personal Identification Numbers, or PINs, of the state-provided BlackBerry phones of PSC staff members, as well as the PIN to Commissioner Lisa Edgar's BlackBerry phone.

State law prohibits PSC commissioners from discussing a pending rate case with utility officials, but it specifically excludes PSC staff from the ban. A 1991 grand jury report recommended that the statute be changed to close that loophole, but it was never amended. PSC rules forbid staffers and commissioners from discussing certain types of commission business out of the public eye with those who appear before the regulatory panel. Under state law, a commissioner who engages in such discussions -- called ``ex parte communications'' -- and who fails to report them could face a $5,000 fine and even removal. Edgar said she may have received PIN messages but does not recall receiving any from FPL. ``I do know this: I don't understand the whole PIN thing,'' she said. ``I don't PIN, it's just not something I do.''

FPL said in a statement that Smith never communicated via PIN with Edgar or any other commissioner, and the company defended Smith's use of them.

``Communication with staff members is a normal and appropriate part of the regulatory process in which all parties to any proceeding or issue regularly engage,'' said Mark Bubriski, FPL spokesman. ``All of Ms. Smith's communications have been appropriate, and any suggestion that Ms. Smith engaged in improper communication at any time is patently false.''
FPL would buy a new jet with rate increase
As FPL pushes for a rate increase, controversy swirls over the planned purchase of a $31 million jet and an investigation into regulators' relations with utilities they oversee.
Related Content

* Naked politics: Is PSC subverting public records laws by sharing message codes?

Similar stories:
•
PSC aide fired over codes
PSC aide fired over codes

[OLE' SORE KNEES]

Public Service Commissioner Nancy Argenziano, who has criticized her agency for being too close to the utilities it regulates, fired her top aide Sunday after he admitted to giving the private messaging code for his BlackBerry to a Florida Power & Light executive.

Larry Harris, 40, who has been at the PSC since 2001, volunteered to resign and seek a job elsewhere in the PSC after Argenziano read a Miami Herald story online late Saturday revealing that at least three PSC aides had given the messaging codes to an FPL executive. Harris worked as a senior attorney at the PSC before joining Argenziano's staff in 2007. He said he has no guarantee that he will find a new PSC job.

The Herald/Times has reported that the messaging codes -- called Personal Identification Numbers, or PINS -- had been given to FPL attorney Natalie Smith, potentially allowing the utility to communicate directly with commissioners outside public view and without leaving a paper trail.
•
Florida's Public Service Commission probed amid FPL rate bid
Florida's Public Service Commission probed amid FPL rate bid

The state's top law enforcement agency is investigating the Public Service Commission on grounds that commissioners and staff members may have had improper relationships with the utilities they regulate.

Two of the five PSC commissioners and its executive director said Tuesday that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement has launched an investigation based on a complaint, and is preparing to interview all five commissioners and some among their staff.

Leon County State Attorney Willie Meggs is assisting in the investigation, sources said.
•
Florida Public Service Commission chief grilled
Florida Public Service Commission chief grilled

Public Service Commission Commissioner Lisa Edgar, the subject of a recently filed ethics complaint, got through one of two Senate reconfirmation hearings scheduled for this week -- but only after a lengthy series of questions from Tampa Bay Sen. Mike Fasano, who called her votes to raise customer utility rates above staff recommendations ''mind-boggling'' and ``not consumer friendly.''

The vote by Sen. Jim King's energy and utilities committee was 7-1, with only Fasano opposed. Tuesday, the Senate ethics and elections committee votes on the second term for Edgar, recommended for another term by Gov. Charlie Crist.

The PSC considers issues including the rates customers pay to the state's electric, water and telecommunications utilities companies.
•
Public Service Commission lobbyist flagged for 'poor judgment'
Public Service Commission lobbyist flagged for 'poor judgment'

As state police investigate the Public Service Commission for possible ethics violations, an inspector general found Wednesday that the agency's lobbyist used ``poor judgment'' and may have violated rules by attending a party at the home of a Florida Power & Light executive during a pending rate case.

Although the PSC inspector general could not prove whether lobbyist Ryder Rudd broke PSC rules on gifts and communication by attending the Kentucky Derby party, a state senator and a PSC commissioner immediately called for his ouster.

``The inexcusable conduct of this employee undermines the public trust and confidence in the regulatory process and impugns the integrity of this commission,'' Commissioner Nathan Skop wrote in a statement. ``This is a clear cut ethics problem and perception issue.''
•
State investigating utility regulators over possible conflicts
State investigating utility regulators over possible conflicts

The state's top law enforcement agency is investigating the Public Service Commission on possible grounds that commissioners and staff had improper relationships with the utilities they regulate.

Two PSC commissioners and its executive director said Tuesday that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement has launched an investigation based on a complaint, and is preparing to conduct interviews of all five commissioners and some of their staff.
Leon County State Attorney Willie Meggs is assisting in the investigation, sources said.
BY MARY ELLEN KLAS
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau
BlackBerry devices support direct PIN-to-PIN messaging, which lets the user bypass an e-mail system. The Herald/Times asked the PSC for copies of PIN and BlackBerry messages of the five members of the PSC and their staff, but the newspaper was told no records are kept.

``PIN-to-PIN or SMS text messages are not logged,'' wrote Ann Cole, PSC clerk. ``There is not a retention schedule, as they are never saved.''

PUBLIC CONCERN

The failure to retain the message may be a violation of Florida's public records law, said Tom Julin, a Miami attorney who specializes in media law.

``If it resides as a record at some time, and if it is not preserved, that certainly would be a violation,'' he said. State law requires public agencies to have a system to record all documents created, ``regardless of physical form.''

The e-mails show that FPL attorney Smith obtained the PIN numbers for: Edgar; Edgar's aide, Roberta Bass; the aide to PSC Chairman Matthew Carter, William Garner; PSC communications director Cynthia Muir; and PSC lobbyist Ryder Rudd. Smith is a staff attorney representing FPL in the rate case pending before the PSC. Rudd was removed from all FPL business last month after commissioners learned he had attended a party at an FPL executive's home.

In an e-mail dated Feb. 19, 2008, Bass sent an e-mail message from her state-provided BlackBerry phone to Smith that had no subject line or text, only a copy of Edgar's BlackBerry PIN number. Bass could not be reached for comment.

Carter said he did not use PIN messaging and was unaware that his staff had used it to communicate with utility officials.

``I certainly hope my staff would not be doing that,'' he said. ``It does not look good.''

On three occasions, Garner -- Carter's aide -- sent e-mails to Smith to exchange PIN numbers and also invited her on Feb. 23, 2009, to join his BlackBerry messenger contact list, another messaging service that bypasses the state e-mail system. Garner could not be reached for comment.

Carter said Saturday that the ``sideshows'' over the staff and FDLE probe were ``making it difficult for staff to do their jobs.''

He sent out a rare public statement Wednesday declaring that he had ``independence and freedom from external bias. '' He denied that he was too tight with regulated utilities -- FPL, in particular -- and pointed out that, ``in nearly every high-profile issue that FPL has brought before this commission, I have voted to deny or severely limit the company's request.''

If the PSC approves FPL's $1.3 billion rate increase request in October, the commission could exclude the cost of the new airplane and the $40 million that FPL spends on 42 executive salary packages, though the impact would be minimal on the overall amount.

Mary Ellen Klas can be reached at meklas@MiamiHerald.com.
http://www.miamiherald.com/569/story/1220169.html