The Council will be appointing a Coordinator for the Central Eastern portion of the state. Those who are interested should send a request to be considered to your Local Union President and the Council Office to include your name, classification, years of experience, whether you have worked with the program as an associate instructor, how many apprentices you have helped get their hours of experience on the job, etc. This position will be filled for approximately 3 years and will involve travel to other locations to assist in training, coordinating jobs to decrease subcontracting and provide training experience to make good line workers. Send or fax the information stated above or any other information you would like considered to your Local Union President and the Council Office at 110 W. Lenawee, Lansing, MI 48933 on or before February 8, 1999.

THE YEAR IN REVIEW

Meter Reading Residence Agreement - We reached an agreement on Meter Reading Residency because of an arbitration case. We were also able to get the Meter Readers and any other employee who were not hired at the lower meter reading rate, the right to transfer to another headquarters without being forced to take the new hire rate but be paid the old rate of pay. This was always a sore spot with the Union and something that the Company insisted was a deal breaker in the agreement to save 300 Meter Reading Jobs from being contracted in 1996. There was a complaint from a member of Local 105 to the National Union which George Manoogian was addressing for President Wightman. This settlement will resolve that issue and his request to have Meter Readers transfer at the rate of pay they are currently receiving. This agreement was signed on 10-28-98.

National Safety Council Labor Division - Since the last board meeting, President Ruffner developed an Internet Interactive Training Program which was presented in Providence, RI and can be reached through the Labor Division Reference Guide Web Page, which he created for the Labor Division at http://members.aol.com/rav0077/nsc.html The Interactive Training Program which he also developed and presented can be reached at the following: http://members.aol.com/rav0077/gruff.html - just read and click on the underlined sections of the site to learn basic and some advanced Internet navigation techniques. President Ruffner serves on the Executive Committee of the National Safety Council Labor Division and chairs two committees for the Division - the Promotion of Education and Training in Safety and Health and the Utilities Committee. The Utilities Committee has a focus upon deregulation, downsizing and adverse impact upon Public and Worker Safety. John Devlin, National Director of Safety, also attends and participates in these meetings.

State Council Executive Vice President James Reilly attended meetings of the American Society for Testing and Material (ASTM) which deals with assorted testing. We feel that John Devlin should also attend these meetings as they are stacked with management people and only a couple of people from the IBEW. Reilly expressed this need and will share information with John Devlin. At a recent meeting, man and material lift bucket trucks were discussed and Dave Wallace of OSHA was in attendance. He was questioned on the use of man and material lifts and using that equipment to have a Service Worker or Journeyman Line Worker to change out a transformer alone. He informed those in attendance, including Jim Reilly and Art Murray (IBEW), that he has not yet seen this equipment demonstrated to change out a transformer which could be performed safely and without violations with one or two men. This is just one area where utilities want to downsize at the expense of safety. We also understand from comments made at the Utilities Committee meeting last weekend that utilities are loading these vehicles with more than one transformer, beyond what they are designed for and it creates overweight problems for the vehicle.

ECONOMIC ALLIANCE OF MICHIGAN - An Alliance of Business and Labor in Michigan

President Ruffner serves on the Board of Directors of the Economic Alliance of Michigan and has been representing Labor and the Michigan State AFL-CIO to give testimony before the Certificate of Need Commission in Michigan.

The Certificate of Need Commission was created a number of years ago to contain health care costs by creating a system of approval (Certificate of Need or CON) to prevent costly and unnecessary duplication of medical services in Michigan. President Ruffner has given testimony before the Certificate of Need Commission in various hearings dealing with Lithotripsy Standards, Magnetic Resonating and Imaging Standards MRI, and for Surgical Services Standards. The Economic Alliance (Business and Labor) has not only been successful in maintaining such standards as a result of President Ruffner's testimony and the testimony of others, but has also proven that Certificate of Need works for all parties, hospitals, patients and medical care providers to address specific needs for rural access and assure quality health care while still controlling costs.

Organizing - The Council has been involved with Local 150, President Tom Stevenson, and Secretary-Treasurer Fred Ruell, along with Bernie Garcia who has headed up the organizing in that local. We were successful with the help of Bernie Garcia and our attorney George Kruszewski in getting the right to carve out the technical employees. The representation election was lost by only two votes on November 5, 1998. We hope that those people will again consider joining the family of Unions and have a voice in their future.

MARSHALL HICKS MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

The Utility Workers Council and National Union honored Marge Hicks and the memory of deceased UWUA President Marshall Hicks with the presentation of the first two scholarships of the Marshall M. Hicks Memorial Scholarship Program. Information about the Marshall Scholarship Program, the photos of Marge Hicks and the first recipients are on the Council Web Page at http://www.msuwc.org/hicks.html

Continued Aggressive Arbitration Schedule - We arbitrated a case for a Meter Reader who was fired because she couldn't do the meter reading job after being laid off from the Janitor group. With the wage and employment guarantee, she should have been given a job that she could do. In arbitration, the Council quoted the commitment of former CEO, Mike Morris, who stated that if someone couldn't do a job they would be given a job they could do. Mike is now CEO of Northeast Utilities and the Union agreed to hold the record open, for three weeks, for testimony of Mike Morris by conference call. The Company called back two weeks later and said that they rested their case. Mike obviously confirmed his commitment and the Arbitrator put her back to work with full back pay which amounted to about a year of back pay. The Company created an Advanced Unskilled Worker job that she could perform.

Deregulation - Sr. National Representative, Region IV, George Manoogian, testified before the Public Utilities Committee regarding proposed legislation to codify the Public Service Commissions Deregulation Implementation. In the first draft of the legislation there was an allowance for stranded cost recovery for worker retention, retraining, and early retirement, but there was no requirement that the utilities retrain or retain workers. The legislation allows the utilities to receive stranded cost recovery for retraining workers for a job of comparable pay and benefits, but only if they choose to do so. This essentially allows the utilities to choose whether they want to retrain and retain, or hire a contractor and not recover stranded costs. George Manoogian, Mike Langford, and Gary Ruffner have lobbied for language to force the utilities to do so. The testimony given and the Utility Workers position on the Commission plan are on the Protect MichiganWebSite: http://members.aol.com/protmich/frame.html There are also not adequate protections for residential and small business customers to insure equal access to low price energy.

Protect Michigan, (the AFL-CIO, MSUWC, Local 223, Building Trades, IBEW, and Sharon Parks from the Michigan League for Human Services) met with the Speaker of the House who has assured us that deregulation will go nowhere in lame duck if there is not adequate consumer and worker protections. Deregulation has been implemented in Michigan by the Public Service Commission, but needs to be codified by the Legislature to avoid the challenges in court.

In Michigan we have been successful in keeping divestiture of generation out of any Commission plans and in any Legislation.

Utility Deregulation in Lame Duck Session

The Council, Senior Region Representative George Manoogian and Local 223 President Mike Langford were able to get successor commitments through the year 2007 from both Consumers Energy and Detroit Edison. The significance of the year 2007 is that is the final year of the transition period for Utility Deregulation and stranded cost recovery. The commitment was to support legislation with worker protection language agreed to by the parties. Protect Michigan supported passage of legislation with worker protection language, and also supported senior citizen, low income, residential and small business protection.

We worked on these issues to try and get support from other groups and were successful for the most part. However, we understand that there was strong opposition from the Chamber of Commerce and disagreement with the Governor, which prevented a sufficient number of votes for passage of the Senate Bill SB1340 (S-4). What was passed through the Senate was a substitute bill which gave the Public Service Commission full authority and control over deregulation and any plan they chose to create and/or administer. This was not acceptable to us and while we were mobilizing our people to support the bill, we had to quickly change our position to fight it. That is one of the problems with legislation which can change day-by-day and hour-by-hour.

The Utilities indicated that they could live with the Commission having such authority but we could not be sure that adequate worker and consumer protections would be maintained by a commission which could make changes at will. We will, however, try to work with the Commission as we have in the past so that all utilities will be required to maintain safety and reliability with a skilled and dedicated workforce.

Deregulation, Heating Security and Gas Service Work - In Michigan, as in other states, utilities are being attacked in the area of being able to provide appliance service through Heating Security Programs with their employees. In Michigan there was proposed legislation which would have forced utilities to create subsidiaries to perform this work and prohibit them from using service workers to perform anything other than emergency gas leak response.

In September, President Ruffner gave testimony before the House Public Utilities Committee in opposition to this legislation so that our workers would continue to be able to provide a vital service to the communities in which we serve. Contrary to the testimony of heating dealers, he testified that this was not work that utilities have never performed, but that utilities used to have appliance showrooms, and performed appliance service and installation for many appliances in years past. Utilities also perform this vital and reliable service in rural and other areas and don't cherry pick the service areas as contractors do. Senior citizens have testified against similar legislation in 1987, saying that they relied upon the name recognition of utility vehicles and employees as people that they could recognize and trust when they respond at all hours of the day and night to no heat and gas leak calls.

President Ruffner also testified that there have been unscrupulous contractors whose employees have exploited customers by fraudulently telling them that they needed new furnaces when they did not, and making unnecessary repairs on their appliances. Ruffner cited an alert that was put out by the State of Michigan Consumer and Industry Services Department that warned against these unscrupulous contractors. In the alert, an incident is noted where a contractor charged an elderly woman $30,000 for a new furnace and then went back to charge her $7,000 more. They were then arrested and imprisoned.

President Ruffner testified that our utility employees are paid by the hour and not paid incentives for how many parts they can replace or how many furnaces they can sell. He also argued that the legislation was essentially an attempt to regulate in an era of competition and deregulation. As a result of our testimony, the legislation never came out of committee.

Inaccurately Marked Underground Lines

We would like to have letters from city and township officials and fire departments who are dissatisfied with the cost shifting and problems that increase their cost because of the subcontracting of this work. Utilities need to use better trained workers to do this work. We hope that focusing on these problems will cause utilities to commit to mark their own lines with their own employees. I have met with Fire Chiefs in one city who are going to put together a three year study to calculate their cost increases as a result of fire department runs on these types of incidents. Once the study is done, we will show it to other cities to focus on this issue before people are killed or injured. We are also trying to put focus on this through the National Safety Council Labor Division so our Union brothers and sisters can share their experiences with similar problems.

Marysville Gas Liquids Plant

We have intervened in the transfer of Marysville to the holding company CMS Energy. We have gotten an agreement that we will perform the work for the duration of the Working Agreement - May 31, 2000. However, we want a recognition agreement from CMS Energy (the holding company) stating that they recognize us as the bargaining unit for those workers. Our members are working there under a maintenance and operating agreement between CMS Energy, the holding company, and Consumers Energy, who once owned the plant. So far the Company has refused, but through our intervention we are trying to strengthen the Public Service Commission's authority for approval of these transactions. The attorney we hired to do this work was a Commissioner with the Public Service Commission when the Marysville Plant was built. We are hopeful that strengthening the Commissions authority will make it more difficult for utilities to transfer assets without protecting workers.

Safety and the Politics Involved

Electric Transmission and Distribution had a safety conference which was well received by those who were able to attend according to the survey results. However, President Ruffner was criticized in the survey for making some political comments about adverse impact on Safety initiatives if Michigan had a Republican controlled House of Representatives, Senate and Governor as a result of the upcoming elections. It is no secret that in the past, Republicans have had an adverse impact on safety initiatives, cutting inspections needed to enforce safety regulations and keep the work environment safe.

An excerpt taken from the November 1998 Michigan State AFL-CIO news:

"The Republican administration has cut MIOSHA inspections and opposed workplace safety initiatives. We have seen a resultant increase in the number of workplace injuries and deaths. Frank Kelley sought to fight this deplorable situation by filing manslaughter charges against a company where deaths occurred, arguing that the company's conduct was not just negligent but criminal. The possibility of going to jail for allowing injury to workers has sent a powerful message to businesses in the state. Would a Republican attorney general have filed criminal charges and sent this message? Would John Smietanka? You can bet the answer is no."

President Ruffner was right on point with his comments of concern for safety initiatives with a Republican controlled legislature and expressed the need for a balance of power. It is those who are critical of these comments who are out of touch and truly do not have a very strong commitment to safety. No apologies will be forthcoming, and the only inappropriate comments would be those that do not attack Republican anti-worker initiatives.

Paul Luna, a Journeyman Line Worker, was patrolling a line with a coworker and was climbing a sand dune to locate the downed line. As he was climbing the steep dune he came upon a dead pine tree and, while climbing around it, he contacted the energized primary voltage conductor, he fell and became wrapped in it while rolling down the dune. This tragic death resulted in changes in the patrolling procedure and those patrolling will be getting voltage sensing devices to wear to prevent a similar accident while patrolling.

Juan Reyes, a Meter Worker, was performing storm restoration work at 2 AM when he lost control of his vehicle was thrown from it and pinned under it. He died because he was not able to breathe while police officers unsuccessfully tried to get him out. If the first responders would have had equipment to free him he would have survived because he was asphyxiated and did not have any severe injuries. This was so frustrating and disturbing for the officers who got there first, they needed psychological treatment afterward because they helplessly watched him die while attempting to free him.

Tommy Tomasik, a Line Worker in Charge, received an electric shock while working in close proximity to an energized conductor, received a severe burn in his back when he backed into an energized primary conductor. He was critically injured, and passed away approximately three weeks after he received the injury. We will encourage and reinforce the right of anyone on the job to stop the job if they see a potential for injury, so the job can be performed safely. The Council was successful in getting that right from the Company and it is contained in the introduction page of each accident prevention manual signed by the President of the Company.

The Council has memorialized the memory of these workers and all other workers killed on the job since 1946, when the Council was formed. The total number of workers killed on the job since then is 46. The plaque travels to safety meetings and safety kickoffs as a sobering testimonial to why we fight for a safe work environment, and sad reminder of why we mourn for the dead and fight for the living. The National Safety Council Labor Division now reads into the record a list of fatalities on the job at each meeting as a result of our request to remember those killed on the job.