On September 10, 1998, the MSUWC Executive Board and Labor Relations reached an agreement for the Gas SBU's Service and Distribution Departments. The agreement provides:

a) A guaranteed minimum number of Gas employees "807" for the next 5 years, with stipulation.
b) A joint committee, with equal voice, to develop training criteria, monitor replacements and look into additional job opportunities.
c) Home-site reporting for Customer Service, Gas Mechanics and Gas Lines Workers Special.
d) Posting of 25 new Gas positions.
e) Opportunities for advancement: jobs will be filled at the entry level unless there are unanticipated vacancies.
f) A new Gas Service Worker-B classification for those workers who do not wish to, or cannot perform the more complex appliance and furnace repair.
g) A new Gas Lines Worker Special position (by seniority), Labor Grade 15, to perform cathodic protection work and the establishment of cathodic work as core work of the OM&C.
h) The creation of a Gas Lines Utility Worker and a Customer Service Utility Worker position.
i) T.M.O.'s were moved from Labor Grade 9 to a Labor Grade 10.
j) Elimination of any further implementation of Workforce 2000.
k) Commitment that any employee whose job title was eliminated, will be moved to the next higher classification and no one forced to retrogress.
l) Flexibility in both departments that will provide timely service to customers at competitive cost.
m) Reduces the Company's reliance on subcontractors.

The issue of flexibility in the Gas Departments is certainly not new by any means at Consumers Energy. In October of 1991 the Council Executive Board, faced with demands for flexibility from Gas management and increased contracting (approximately 32% at that time in Gas Distribution), proposed a comprehensive plan to reduce contracting and establish a unionized workforce number guarantee of 4,400 by June of 1994. That would have been an increase of approximately 500 jobs from the 3,900 in October of 1991.

This plan called for flexibility between Lines and Service at the Apprentice Level. Labor Grade 6 and 7. This proposal was ultimately rejected by the Company because of the number guarantee and insufficient flexibility.

In contract negotiations in 1995, Gas management (Paul Preketes) renewed the demand for flexibility. After much heated debate and a commitment from the Executive Board to look into the issue after contract negotiations, it was finally pulled from the table by the Company as a contract demand.

Early in 1996 a Joint Union/Company Gas Committee was formed to again address the Company's demand for flexibility. For over 6 months the Joint Committee met. Some progress was made, however, on August 29, 1996, the Company discontinued any further consideration of that proposed agreement because of the Council's insistence that the flexibility would again only apply to the newly created Gas Utility Worker position and the demand for a guarantee. That agreement would have added 65 jobs to a workforce in Gas of approximately 923 existing employees.

In April of 1997 the Company met and unveiled its Workforce 2000 proposal. That was a (3-5 year) transition plan developed to achieve core work load staffing levels. Under this plan, staking, leak survey, cathodic and construction was not considered core work and would be contracted out. The Gas workforce was about 892 employees at that time.

The Company's goal to obtain the proper workforce was: 1) attrition; 2) promote and train; 3) hire from outside; 4) layoff in areas that the Company felt they had excess labor; and 5) better utilize existing skills. Workforce 2000 resulted in the loss of 74 jobs from July 1997 to July of 1998 in the Gas Departments.

The bottom line is that as a Union, we dropped from 975 Gas jobs in 1993 to 807 Gas jobs in September of 1998.

On September 2, 1998, management came to the Council office to inform the Executive Board that it was going to initiate a more aggressive step of Workforce 2000 the following week. The Company indicated that it intended to reduce the workforce from the present 807 to 490 during the remaining years of Workforce 2000. After much discussion, the parties agreed to clear their respective calendars and meet on September 9-10 and utilize the service of Mediator Ed Hartfield to attempt to reach an agreement.

Mediator Hartfield was available for the 9th but not available again until September 21. The Company said that the 21st was not acceptable and if we could not reach agreement by the 10th that they would implement the next step of Workforce 2000. (On September 10, 1998, we reached agreement.)

We believe that it is important that our members understand the history of this agreement. Consumers has joined many utilities throughout the country in steadily reducing the size of its workforce and instead having work done by low paid and lower skilled, nonunion subcontractors. Over this same time period, the Council has been attempting to reverse this trend.

Unfortunately, until now, we have not been able to reach agreement.

The primary objection that has been raised concerning the Gas Agreement is that members feel that it will remain in effect through May 31, 2003, three years beyond the expiration of the current Working Agreement.

The Gas Agreement, however, with one exception, expires on May 31, 2000. That exception is the workforce guarantee contained in #10, which, by its specific terms, expires on May 31, 2003. Since there is no other expiration date given for this agreement, it will expire with the Master Agreement on May 31, 2000.

The reason why the Council proposed a different expiration date for the workforce guarantee is that we did not want to have this issue open for negotiations at the same time as the master agreement. The Gas workforce guarantee would remain in effect for five years. The Council requested additional years for the workforce guarantee but this was not attainable.

Some question has been raised concerning whether those individuals covered under the workforce guarantee would be allowed to work once the contract expires on May 31, 2000, even if the Union decided to strike. They clearly would not be allowed to do so. All provisions of the working agreement expire on May 31, 2000, which under Article XX, includes this Gas Agreement. This understanding was confirmed in writing on September 25, by the Manager of Labor Relations, Greg Sando, as stated below:

"You have informed me that there may be a misunderstanding by some as to the affect on the Working Agreement of the minimum staffing guarantee contained in Paragraph 10 of the Gas Agreement executed by the Company and the Union on September 10, 1998. This will confirm our mutual understanding that the Gas Agreement does not extend the term of the June 1, 1995 to June 1, 2000 Working Agreement for gas employees."

We did not feel that anyone would object to having the workforce guarantee continue in effect beyond May 31, 2000. At a Presidents Meeting on September 28, 1998 the Executive Board stated that if a majority of our Presidents wanted us to do so, we would propose to the Company that the expiration date of the workforce guarantee be changed to May 31, 2000. However, when that question was proposed, no one in attendance was in favor of doing that.

Another concern was that there isn't any guarantee at all. This refers to the stipulation in the 807 number (that the 807 number may be reduced in proportion to any reduction in the gas business performed by the Company.) Mediator Ed Hartfield addressed this concern of the Presidents by answering in the following manner: "I can tell you with the Saturn contract, with the job security agreement that Ford and the U.A.W. passed, with the job security agreement that Xerox and Amalgamated passed, and with every job security agreement in the industry, I know of no job security agreement anywhere that prevents a corporation from downsizing in the event economic losses are incurred. Even in the job security provisions that have been entered into in the auto industry are not protected should there be a recession. As someone who participated in the process, there is no question that the parties entered into a guarantee in good faith."

When the Mediator was asked if he could give the Presidents a guarantee that the Company wasn't bluffing and if the Council had called their bluff, would they have caved, he replied, "No, but my advice, based on what I was feeling and my best assessment was that it was a serious threat. And, it would have been irresponsible and not prudent on the part of the Council to call their bluff."

National President Wightman also addressed the Presidents via speaker conference call. Some of President Wightman's remarks were as follows: ".... to give you my impression of what's going on around the country, is that this is what we're urging our Local Unions to get involved in. I think many of you have heard me say before that we are really having problems with a lot of these companies dealing with flexibility and changes in work rules. In other words, we understand clearly that we're in a different era than we were five years ago. Unfortunately, we're in a place where we've got to be more competitive. My biggest problem is not in Locals negotiating agreements, it's them just saying no to the agreements because they're afraid to get in on the give and take of this, because of what might be viewed as concessions. As we get into this era, we're going to be having to look at flexibility from a whole bunch of different areas. But my major concern is when the companies come to us and say hey look, we need more flexibility from our line workers, we need more flexibility from our meter readers or gas workers. I'm more concerned with Locals tripping over themselves to give their companies the flexibility without asking what's in it for me. This is where I looked at this agreement

, and one of the major things we're trying to do around the country, is we're trying to get some job security in some of our contracts. I'm not going to go in and pick this apart, whether it's good, bad, or indifferent. It does seem to reach the standards we're looking at - job security and increasing the workforce. This is the type of approach that other Unions aground the country have to start adopting. We're seeing it everywhere. You might not like it, we might not like our linemen doing underground work, and underground people doing linemen work. But in reality, if we don't give some flexibility, but for flexibility the quid pro quo is job security. We're not going to give them flexibility so that they can lay off people. But what we are willing to do, where appropriate, is to give flexibility as long as there's job security."

National President Wightman clearly is in a position to understand the utility industry in America today, more so than any of us. It is evident from his comments that times are changing, companies are downsizing and to exchange workrule flexibility for job security is proper. As a matter of fact, he is more concerned with Union leadership that just says no to agreements because they might be viewed as concessions, than he is with Locals who get involved. It would have been very easy and a "no-brainer" for this Executive Board to just say no to any gas flexibility as some would suggest and as has been done in the past. However, at some point, someone must address the loss of jobs and the future of our Union.

Surveys

It has again come to the attention of the Council Executive Board that several employee surveys are surfacing in the field. There are surveys the Union has agreed to participate in because they are beneficial to labor and there are those surveys which are detrimental to labor. Before filling out a survey, please contact your Local Union President to see if it is a Council approved survey.

Electric Transmission Workforce

Michigan Proposals - KNOW THEM

Proposal A: A Proposal to change the word "handicapped" to "disabled" in the State Constitution.

Proposal B: Initiated Legislation to legalize the prescription of a lethal dose of medication to terminally ill, competent, informed adults in order to commit suicide.

Proposal C: A Proposal to authorize bonds for environmental and natural resources protection programs.

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.