IBEW System Council U-3 (New Jersey) Pickets in the Freezing Cold

01/18/05 - Posted from the Daily Record newsroom
Little progress seen in JCP&L, union talks

By Minauti Davè, Daily Record

MORRISTOWN -- Nine JCP&L employees weathered freezing temperatures as they stood outside the utility's Morristown headquarters Monday, saying they will remain on strike for as long as it takes the company to comply with union requests.

Negotiations between the energy company and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers have come to a standstill as of Monday. The two sides will meet again with a mediator on Friday.

"There has been no progress," said Jack Moriarty, spokesman for System Council U-3, which represents five unions of the IBEW. "The union is prepared to return to the bargaining table at any moment, as long as the company is prepared to discuss what precipitated the strike."

The 1,350 JCP&L employees of the IBEW union went on strike Dec. 8. Their contract expired Oct. 30.

The primary issues are health care costs and work rules -- specifically, asking employees to be on call and available 24 hours a day by pager or cell phone, Moriarty said.

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"We call it the 'electronic dog collar,'" Moriarty said. "The company says either carry a beeper or provide a cell number and you should be on call day or night. You're at your cousin's wedding, the phone rings, you have to go to work."

Moriarty called the work rule "absurd" and "un-American."

However, JCP&L has never made such demands on its employees, JCP&L spokesman Ron Morano said Monday.

"We've never asked that every employee be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week," Morano said, adding that they are only required to remain on 24-hour call during emergencies.

"We work in a business where it's necessary during emergencies -- it's a customer service business," Morano said.

Many of the employees picketing the JCP&L office building on Ridgedale Avenue in Morristown insisted that their cell phones and beepers were constantly going off and that the company expected them to come to work when called, regardless of the circumstances.

John DePalma, who works as a cable splicer out of the Morristown office, said his wife was having difficulty with the delivery of their child and he needed to be by her side, but the company would not accept that as an excuse and he was forced to work.

"They put my family through a lot of pain," said DePalma, standing with eight others on the second shift of picketing in Morristown on Monday. "First Energy's policy is: There is no excuse to miss call-outs." First Energy is the parent company of JCP&L in New Jersey.

JCP&L suspended more than 200 employees in early 2003, some of whom failed to answer their home telephone when being called into work, union officials said. The workers get time and a half if they are called into work during off hours.

"When you're a lineman you could be called out three, four, five nights in a row -- when do you sleep?" asked Steven Sanders, a lineman working out of JCP&L's Dover office.

From the way personal problems are treated to the type of health insurance the employees get, DePalma said the company "mistreats" its workers.

"It's very unreasonable the way they treat us," DePalma said. "They treat you like a dog."

The union also disagrees with the company's proposed health insurance plan.

"The health care is geared to you not using it," said DePalma, the sole provider for his wife and four children.

The cost of providing health coverage to union workers has doubled from $7 million in 2000 to $14 million this year, Morano said.

"Their costs have not increased during that time," Morano said. "We have offered creative ways to address the differences in health care. The package we are offering is competitive."

Maurice Hedgepath, a JCP&L meter reader, said the company's health plan is unaffordable.

"The benefit plans they are trying to negotiate for is unrealistic," Hedgepath said. "As it is, we're not making a lot of money."

While employees are on strike, JCP&L has been using managers with experience as line workers to fill in.

"We are responding to emergency work and outage work -- our ability to do certain work is impaired," Morano said, adding the company is short on employees to perform new service work and read meters, although there are enough for emergency and restoration work.

In September, JCP&L reached a tentative agreement with the union, offering 9 percent wage increases over three years and a health care package, among other things, Morano said. However, the union voted down the tentative contract and instead voted to strike.

The union is comprised of linemen, meter readers, customer service staff, mechanics and clerks.

JCP&L provides electricity to 1 million customers in 13 counties in New Jersey, primarily in the northern part of the state.
Minauti Davè can be reached at mdave@gannett.com or (973) 428-6633.