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   Vol. 69/No. 2           January 18, 2005  
 
 
Utility workers strike Jersey Central Power & Light
 
BY SARA LOBMAN  
MORRISTOWN, New Jersey—The 1,300 workers at Jersey Central Power & Light Co. (JCP&L), New Jersey’s second-largest utility company, have been on strike since December 7. The workers are members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW). They include meter readers, service workers, linemen, and collectors.

Workers on the picket line here in Morristown said that one of the main issues in the strike is the company demand to increase the number of unionists, especially retirees, who will have to pay for health insurance. JCP&L also wants changes in work rules that would force workers to be on-call for 24 hours at a stretch, several times a week. Workers would not get paid for this time unless they were called in, but would be subject to disciplinary action if they were unreachable or unavailable. The company has already tried to impose these work rules, issuing lengthy suspensions for noncompliance.

“Basically they want to take money from us and put it in their pockets,” Micah Almendinger, a meter reader said.

Keith Harris, also a meter reader, with two and a half years at the utility, noted that the company has little regard for safety. Less than a year ago, a lineman was electrocuted on the job due to poor equipment. Meter readers are expected to go out in all kinds of weather, yet their trucks are not equipped for snow.

“I don’t think a utility should make a profit at all,” Dave Hoppy, another meter reader, said. “This is not the 1800s. Utilities are a necessary thing for everyone.”

The previous contract expired in November. In September, the workers had rejected a proposal recommended by the union negotiating committee that included up to a 12 percent jump in health-care costs by 2006.

JCP&L is owned by FirstEnergy of Akron, Ohio. The company is on a similar offensive against workers in other states. In Shippingport, Pennsylvania, a contract for 360 members of the IBEW expired in February. When no agreement was reached, the bosses unilaterally implemented parts of their “last, best offer,” requiring workers to pay 5 percent of the company’s cost for health insurance. “It’s an out-and-out attempt to break the union,” David Raffa, the local president of the IBEW, told the Newark Star Ledger.

Members of the IBEW at Toledo Edison in Ohio also turned down a contract offer because the company was insisting on increasing workers’ health-care contributions.  
 
 
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