Chugach Consumers

4/25/02
CODE RED ALERT CONTINUES FOR
CHUGACH ELECTRIC CUSTOMERS!!

IBEW UNION CONTRACT EXTENSION STILL A THREAT TO CHUGACH ELECTRIC EFFICIENCY PROMISE

BOARD SPLIT, DECISION HANGS ON ONE OR TWO VOTES

URGENT URGENT THAT YOU CALL TODAY! THE VOTE IS WEDNESDAY 4/17 AT 4PM.

PAT JASPER 243-5678 jasper@chugach.net
DAVID COTTRELL 278-8878 x213 dcottrell@mcc-cpa.com
JEFF LIPSCOMB 346-5500 jwlengineering@alaska.com

CHUGACH MANAGER BJORNSTAD CLAIMED NOT TO KNOW THAT NEIGHBORING UTILITY WAS SUCCESSFUL NEGOTIATING BLOAT OUT OF IBEW UNION CONTRACTS!

LONG OVERDUE THAT THE CHUGACH BOARD DEMANDS IT GET UNBIASED INFORMATION TO MAKE THESE IMPORTANT DECISIONS

REPORT OF 4/15 CHUGACH BOARD OPERATIONS COMMITTEE MEETING

All seven Chugach directors participated although it was an Operations Committee meeting (with only five of the directors being voting members of the committee).

RAY KREIG COMMENT – CHUGACH STILL REFUSING TO RELEASE INFORMATION

Kreig addressed the board and repeated concern over the IBEW contract extension still being on the agenda for Wednesday 4/17 meeting and Chugach Consumers letter of 3/16/02 remaining unanswered.

http://www.chugachconsumers.org/Lib/CEA_02-03-16.htm

That letter asked that the board not extend the contracts without meeting in open sessions and communicating information to the membership about the savings to be had from negotiating the contract and from full implementation of open fair bidding. Without this information there is no way the membership can intelligently comment on this major cost item.

Also he noted that his 3/25/02 letter requesting legal guidance for ex-directors regarding information learned in executive sessions has not been answered.

He emphasized that the membership will be very gravely harmed if the board passes this contract extension on 4/17 before the referenced information is released from secrecy sufficiently in advance of the board’s decision. What is the rush?

There was no response to these points from either the board or the staff.

RAY KREIG COMMENT – MATANUSKA ELECTRIC SUCCESS FROM NEGOTIATING IBEW UNION CONTRACT

Kreig noted the results of Matanuska Electric Association’s latest IBEW contract negotiations concluded in February 2001. MEA obtaining the following valuable concessions:

  • RIGHT TO CONTRACT OUT UNDER FREE OPEN AND COMPETITIVE BIDDING – MEA obtained a veto proof right to do this. Previously they could only go to a lowest non-IBEW bidder if the IBEW allowed it (which they never did).

  • SCHEDULED OVERTIME REDUCED FROM DOUBLE TIME TO THE MORE NORMAL TIME AND A HALF – As long as the work is scheduled, MEA now has to only pay 1½ scale for overtime less then ten hours a day and eight on Saturday. THIS WOULD BE AN ENORMOUSLY VALUABLE CHANGE IN THE CHUGACH CONTRACT AND DELIVER $MILLIONS IN SAVINGS TO CHUGACH (AND MATANUSKA, HOMER) RATEPAYERS. Huge amounts of scheduled double time have to be paid at Beluga under our existing Generation contract.

  • ELIMINATION OF ALL PAST PRACTICES LIMITATIONS BEFORE 2/28/01 – This wipes out previous "grandfathering" of precedent that complicates grievances and contract arbitrations making them expensive and disruptive to resolve.

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    Later in the meeting Director David Cottrell asked General Manager Bjornstad if he could verify what Kreig said about MEA’s negotiation successes. Bjornstad replied that he hadn’t looked at the contracts recently and didn’t know.

    [Now this is a stunning lack of knowledge from the GM of the state’s biggest electric utility. Here he is urging his board to roll over and accept this IBEW contract extension without negotiations and the adjoining utility has obtained valuable IBEW Union concessions the very past year that would yield $millions and $millions of savings to consumers from Talkeetna to Homer if we got them in the Chugach IBEW contracts! It was obvious that, once again, Bjornstad has not given his board critical information absolutely needed and necessary to make a proper decision on this matter. As previously noted, all appearances are he has not presented to the board any of the previous studies which identified savings goals to be sought in a contract negotiation nor has he updated these goals.]

    BOB BELL COMMENT – LARGE CHUGACH CUSTOMERS KNOW NOTHING OF THIS CONTRACT EXTENSION

    Former Anchorage Assemblyman Bob Bell said that he made calls to several large Chugach Electric customers just before the meeting. None of them were aware this contract extension was being considered. And if they don’t know – for sure the average consumer is without knowledge. He urged Chugach to get out some publicity, articles, advertisements to inform the public about this. He said the Municipality of Anchorage doesn’t negotiate contracts until they are much closer to expiration.

    OPS COMMITTEE ACTIONS

    The good news is there was no motion to recommend approval of the contract extension for the full board so that was a victory for common sense. But other comments leave the impression that this matter is far from dead and it could spring to life and be a done deal at the Wednesday meeting. When the motion to move the contract extension out to the full board floundered, Chugach attorney Johnson unsuccessfully intervened to try and keep it alive.

    Director Jeff Lipscomb tried to read a motion setting up a "negotiation committee" of the General Manager, Director of Human Relations and a boardmember but he was stopped by Chugach attorney Carol Johnson. Several arguments over going into closed session, even to only deal with setting up this committee, occurred with directors Chris Birch, President Bruce Davison generally opposing closed sessions and directors Pat Jasper, Pat Kennedy, Red Boucher eager to go behind closed doors.

    It is not obvious what this committee was intended to do so we don’t know if it is good or bad.

    Director Pat Kennedy said that if the vote to "roll over" the contract goes thru [on Wednesday, 4/17] "We won’t need this committee". Her actions displayed confidence that this contract extension would go through at the Wednesday meeting.

    Director Cottrell asked, "What if a director or the board ignores advice of counsel?"

    Certainly an interesting question! Chugach Consumers thinks it’s high time the board ignored a lot of what they are being told by staff. They need to start thinking for themselves AND DEMAND THAT THEY GET UNBIASED INFORMATION. Cottrell’s question was not answered.

    CONCLUSION

    From observing this meeting, it is obvious that this outrageous and abusive contract extension could well pass and remains a very serious threat to consumer’s wallets. It is paramount that you call these directors TODAY:

    PAT JASPER 243-5678 jasper@chugach.net
    DAVID COTTRELL 278-8878 x213 dcottrell@mcc-cpa.com
    JEFF LIPSCOMB 346-5500 jwlengineering@alaska.com

    Otherwise, get ready to pay - pay - pay, all the way to June 2006!

     

     

     

     

     

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