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ASSEMBLY LABOR COMMITTEE

The meeting will come to order.

Roll call, please, Gregg.

MR. WILLIAMS (Committee Aide): Assemblyman Gregg.

ASSEMBLYMAN GREGG: Here.

MR. WILLIAMS: Assemblyman Smith.

ASSEMBLYMAN SMITH: Here.

MR. WILLIAMS: Assemblyman Guear.

Assemblyman Cohen.

Vice-Chairman Egan.

ASSEMBLYMAN EGAN: Here.

MR. WILLIAMS: And Chairwoman Friscia.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: Here.

I’d like to welcome our guests today as we discuss a serious

situation that is affecting the working men and women of this state. Despite

lengthy contract negotiations between labor and management, we have been

seeing a serious rise in claims that seem to challenge these very contracts and

threaten the quality of life here in New Jersey.

So I thought, today, we needed to hear from the parties directly

involved in what’s happening here in New Jersey, in the workplace, so we can

determine whether or not we need to draft new legislation that will protect the

rights of both labor and management.

I feel that suspensions and litigations should not be the first

recourse. We need to investigate whether new legislation is necessary in order

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to protect and foster a cooperative spirit here in New Jersey between labor and

management.

On that note, I would like to begin with our testimony. I welcome

all of you today and thank you for coming. I think this is a very important

issue. You work in the private sector, primarily. The public sector in New

Jersey has an expeditious procedure for resolving these issues. But,

unfortunately, the private sector does not have that same access to the Public

Employment Relations Commission. And that’s the reason I wanted to give

people the opportunity to come here today to air what the problems are, with

the hope of finding some way to resolve these disputes in a more amicable way,

without it being costly, and lengthy, and creating a lot of problems where it’s

totally unnecessary.

So with that, I’m going to call-- I’ll take it in order of the way I

received these. We’ll start with Chubby Wardell, from System Council 3 of the

IBEW.

Chubby.

C H U B B Y W A R D E L L: Good morning.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: Welcome to the Committee,

Chubby.

MR. WARDELL: Thank you.

You have-- First of all, I’d like to thank you for having this meeting

and inviting us here.

ASSEMBLYMAN EGAN: Push the button. (referring to PA

microphone)

MR. WARDELL: It’s a red button now.

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ASSEMBLYMAN EGAN: Yes.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: We’re backwards here, red’s on.

MR. WARDELL: Okay, that sounds good.

I appreciate having the opportunity to talk about some of the

problems that we have going on at Jersey Central Power & Light, which is a

FirstEnergy-owned company, from FirstEnergy of Ohio.

I have been involved with the union as the President of System

Council Business Managers since 1987. Prior to that, I was president of a local

union, representing people in the Jersey Shore area of Local 1309 at Jersey

Central Power & Light, at the time. I started there in ’73. I originally was a

lineman for Jersey Central. I started working there in November of 1962. So

all my experience, in all the years I have -- about 41 years -- has been spent with

that company. And I have negotiated every contract, or been on a negotiating

team, since 1973.

Through the years, naturally, with any company and union, there’s

always difficulties and problems, because that’s the nature of our business. And

we’ve been able to resolve them either through general discussion, arbitration,

grievance procedures.

In 2000, we were made known that Jersey Central -- or at that time,

it was called GPU -- had been up for sale, and is being bought by FirstEnergy of

Ohio. It ranks itself as the fifth-largest privately owned utility in the country.

We were-- When they started the merger proceedings, we were

asked to come on board as a union to assist them in getting the merger approved

through the State, and the FCC, and the government, because we had the

nuclear plant at the time. And we agreed, and entered into an agreement that

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would extend our contract for two years. It was supposed to be up in 2001 --

and extend it to 2004. And we would have a no-layoff clause during that time

span, and the company agreed to honor the contract, and all the provisions of

the contract, or any other provisions that we may have, jointly.

When they took over in the winter of -- January of 2001, they came

in rather strong, but they did say they wanted to meet with us, and they told us

some of their philosophies, and how things would be. And then, probably, a

month later, I received a letter from them saying that they were no longer going

to live up to a policy that we shared with the former Jersey Central Power &

Light, which was a progressive disciplinary action on accidents that were

involved with failure to follow instructions or rules.

We had a procedure in place that if you did something wrong, the

discipline would follow a process. And some of the things, like failure to wear

your rubber gloves, was a stronger discipline than not wearing side shields on

your glasses.

So they informed me of that. I told them it was an agreement; they

didn’t care. I sent a letter saying we disagreed, and they started, at that point

in time, disciplining people for having accidents, whether or not the accident

was one that were caused by your own behavior of horseplay, or not wearing the

proper equipment, or doing a wrong procedure.

Their policy at the time, and still is to this day, if you have an

accident, no matter how small, it’s because you were inattentive, and it’s your

responsibility, and you’re disciplined. Now, since I’ve worked here, we’ve had

a form to fill out. If you get injured, but you’re not -- it’s not a major injury,

you just hurt your finger, or you felt a pull, or a small cut on your hand, or

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whatever it may have been, they have a minor accident report slip that you’re

supposed to fill out. Now, this is described to you when you become an

employee there -- that you must do that. It’s for your benefit, because if you do

get a serious injury down the road because of that, it may help you in a comp

case or asking for a claim.

Well, we’ve done that for years, and there’s never been a problem,

because if you had this minor accident report, we would use that document to

help train people. "I did something wrong here. Be careful you don’t do this."

That’s all it was. Well, now, even the minor accident report-- If you fill out a

minor accident report and say, "I slipped on the ice and felt a pull in my leg" --

it doesn’t require doctors looking at it, it doesn’t require medication, you just

said that this happened -- you are met with and disciplined -- suspensions,

written reprimands. And this is an ongoing policy with this company and has

been for well over two years.

We find that disgraceful. We have a-- At the present time, OSHA

is looking into that, because it’s, sort of, like, chilling. It’s causing people that

have injuries not to report them. They don’t want to report the injury because

if they do, they know that they will be suspended, particularly if it’s a result that

you have to go to the doctor. So we have people out there that are actually

afraid to say, "I injured myself on the job."

That, to me -- and their accident rates, certainly, have dropped.

They’re very proud that they came into an OSHA recordable of about anywhere

between 8 and 12 percent, down to about three, now, or two, which is a

significant improvement. But at what cost, I ask? Certainly, people are being

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more attentive, but a lot of the things that, normally, would have been reported

are not being reported now.

Also, when they started with their accidents in the -- probably the

summer of last year, they came to us and told us that they were having a

problem with call-out response and, quite frankly, we concurred. The people

weren’t responding to call-out response. And the call-out response, if you don’t

know, is if--

We have a 24-7, 365-days-a-year emergency coverage. We have

people that work those shifts. They’re called troubleshooters -- respond to

emergencies -- small emergencies -- and, if necessary, they call the headquarters

and request a crew to come out, whether it be a substation crew, a conventional

underground crew, or line crews. And the dispatchers then call the people at

home to tell them that there’s an emergency and please respond.

For years, the system has worked quite well. We had-- In a district

-- for an example -- of 20 linemen, there’s no -- the list is an opportunity. So

using myself as an example-- If I’m first on the list -- there’s an emergency that

the troubleman requires help -- the company calls me, I respond, I’m charged

with a call-out, and I go to the bottom of the list. And now there’s 19 people

ahead of me.

What’s taking place now is that we did meet with the company, and

we tried to resolve the issue. We had recommended that if they want people to

be on-call, then we negotiate a standby policy, similar to what Public Service

has. If they require people to be on standby, they compensate them. I believe

Public Service is eight-hours pay for the weekend, which gets applied if they’re

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called out. Some organizations have payment for carrying a pager so that you’re

on-call.

We suggested some of them, and they didn’t want that. They

wanted the same system that they have in Ohio, which is that you volunteer to

be on-call for the weekend, and you must respond. And if they don’t -- the

volunteer happens to not be there, then they go to the call-out list. And if you

don’t respond from the call-out list, you’re disciplined in Ohio.

That’s not satisfactory, so we offered to go back to a negotiated

And what it requires is, every employee must make 20 percent of the response --

the call-outs. And the place where they work, the district, has to maintain a 40

percent response. It becomes a little bit confusing, but the reason it’s done that

way is that if there are people that can’t make the 20 percent -- as long as your

district is doing 40, the calls are being responded. Because 40 represents

responding at all times, but you, yourself, are only getting 40 percent. I don’t

know if I’m confusing you with that.

But we worked that system with the prior company for about three

years, and then they felt it was no longer needed, and they just went into a

normal pattern and no longer used it. But it was still in the contract for a while.

We suggested we do that. They said, "No, we need you to be on standby for

free."

Then they explained that they were -- since we were unable to come

to an agreement, they were going to implement their own policy. I tried to get

them to tell me what it was. I finally had to send a letter, and they sent me their

policy. And, basically, you’re on-call seven days a week, 24 hours a day. What

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they explained to our members was that, "You must leave us with a telephone

number where you can be reached. And if the primary number is your home,

and you’re going to leave home for any reason, you must leave a telephone

number that we can contact you." So if you’re going to your mother’s house,

your daughter’s, or the store, you have to leave them with that number. And if

they call, you must respond to a call-out.

If you’re going to a football game, then they tell you that you have

to be contacted. So it forced our members to go get pagers, which the company

did offer to provide for free, or cell phones. A lot of people went to go buy cell

phones so they had the number to carry with them, because they were concerned

that they may be disciplined.

Well, in December, after they imposed this rule, finally -- of last

year -- the first week, we had a number of people that didn’t respond and were

disciplined, severely, with suspensions anywhere from one day to a week. And

that’s been ongoing since December of 2002 and continues to this day. We’ve

had-- Before you is some documentation of what I’m talking about. It’s on a

longer paper, there -- actually statements of the grievance that has been filed.

The policy-- If you have an answering machine -- the company

calls you -- they will take that answering machine and leave a message that,

"This is Jersey Central. We’re calling to have you come in -- call-out. Please

call back as soon as you get in." Now, that message may have been left for you

at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, when you were leaving to go on vacation for the

weekend. And when you return on Sunday, you were supposed to call them. If

you do not call them on Sunday, no matter what time, you will be suspended

from a day to a week. That is documented.

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If you are out of state, they want to know where you are out-ofstate.

We have one individual that was in Pennsylvania. He had his cell phone,

responded to the call, and said, "I can come in, but it’s going to take me three

hours to get there." And they said, "Fine, come on in." And it was not a storm

or emergency. And he traveled three hours to get to work, delaying the time the

people were out of lights. There were other people on that call-out list that they

could have utilized, but they waited for him.

The entire system is absurd. We have tried to negotiate a number

of times with the company to get something, but it’s to no avail, because, quite

frankly, their policy is, if we’re not like the unions in Ohio, then they’re not

going to do anything differently here in New Jersey. So we can’t -- we’re at a

deadlock with that. Henceforth, we are in arbitration over that issue.

The papers that I-- The one -- the long one that I gave you is the

documentation that has the responses. And these are taken right off of

grievances that are filed by the members. And, actually, the number on the --

in this column is the grievance number. But one of them is, "Daughter -- young

child took phone call from company and gave her a message to tell her father

to call in. She did not give him the message." He had a five-day suspension.

An individual was deer hunting, five day suspension; not at home when the

company called, no one answered the phone, five day suspension; not at home

at 6:41 and at 6:45 p.m., when the company called, and there was, thus, no

answer of the telephone -- I had a 40 percent call-out response in 2002 -- and

he received a three-day suspension. And it goes on. You can read it for yourself.

I think it would be redundant if I read every one to you. But they are legitimate

things.

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The other package that I have are letters that were sent to Wage and

Hour to ask for the Wage and Hour to listen to what we have to say, because

we definitely feel that being on-call all weekend long is a violation of the Wage

and Hour. We are definitely on a standby system. The company maintains

that we are not, but when you don’t have the freedom to go away and not go

away without a cell phone or a pager that makes you come back to work, then

we’re on standby all the time.

They have attacked, pretty much, every portion of our contract. As

usual, with any contract, it’s all interpretation of how you feel -- and believe in.

And they have challenged almost every issue that we have, and will continue to

do so. And, quite frankly, they’ve told me that, in 2004, when that contract

expires, we are in for a lot of changes, including our health care, our dental, our

pension, our weather clause, the overtime issues, response times. Almost every

article will be challenged in 2004, and I think it’s going to be a very, very serious

negotiation with this company, because, in my opinion, they have no regard for

their employees and their employees’ family life. It’s just amazing.

There’s some further testimony you’ll hear. I’ve asked the union

presidents that I have on my System Council to get more specific with some of

the details that these people are going through. And, quite frankly, you’re going

to hear some really amazing stories that are quite factual. And we are quite

concerned, not only with where we’re going to end up as a union, but where

these people are going to be with the stress that they’re under. We have more

people on stress leave than we’ve had in our history, presently, today.

So we’re looking-- I wish I had a magic thing to tell you that if you

would enact this law, it would help me. I’m not sure what you people could do,

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but I’m sure that you can hear the plight that we’re in. And wherever you can

give us a hand, even if it’s developing some sort of legislation that protects

employees from being constantly harassed for all call-outs, safety, attendance--

And I don’t mean where they’re exceptional, just routine things. We’d

appreciate it.

Do you have any questions for me?

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: You mentioned that the issue on

the call-backs was in arbitration right now.

MR. WARDELL: That’s correct.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: How long did it take to get there,

Chubby?

MR. WARDELL: It took a few months. There is a couple of dates

that we had that the company had postponed. And, most recently, we had dates

scheduled. Unfortunately, I didn’t bring my date book with me or I’d give you

those dates. But we have three arbitrations going on at the same --

simultaneously; and one of them is a 16-hour work rule, that we’re in

disagreement with, that I didn’t get into here.

The first case -- the second day of that hearing -- was going to be

six months from now. We got the arbitrator to get closer dates, and the

company is unable to make those dates. We’ve had a little problem getting

them to keep and make the dates that we have arbitration hearings. But we

have four days scheduled, the last one being in September, I believe.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: So it’s a matter of these dates

being stretched out and no settlement of the issue for a long period of time.

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MR. WARDELL: That’s true, but the arbitration procedure -- one

of the ways you get a date is for the arbitrator, and two attorneys, to sit down

and get a date that they’re free. So, quite frequently, it’s difficult.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: Okay. Well, I appreciate your

testimony today. Unfortunately, you don’t have an answer to the question I’m

seeking an answer to, but maybe it will shed some light on it and give us some

direction. I really appreciate your coming here today.

MR. WARDELL: Thank you very much for the opportunity.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: Now, if you want to call all the

people up that you brought with you, we’ll take them all up at the table at one

time.

ASSEMBLYMAN EGAN: Madam Chair, could I just ask one

question?

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: Sure, I’m sorry.

ASSEMBLYMAN EGAN: Chubby, is this -- any of this scheduled

overtime, or is it all emergency overtime?

MR. WARDELL: Well, emergency has to be defined. It is

emergency overtime, but it could be for a flickering light call, change a meter, a

wire down, something that’s not life-threatening. So it is all related to

emergency calls.

Okay. I guess we could have -- Ed Stroup, I guess, is first on the

list.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: Let’s have them all. Who else is

with you, Chubby?

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MR. WARDELL: I have Ed, Carol, Bones. These aren’t aliases,

they’re real names. (laughter) And Danny Clare. I believe they will give you--

And I’ve asked them to be as brief as possible -- but giving you descriptions of

what’s actually taken place.

Do you want them here?

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: Yes, please.

C A R O L S C O T T: Do you want us to do two at a time?

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: Okay, we can do two at at time.

The other two sit back. Please identify yourselves before you start.

E D W A R D S T R O U P: Hello, my name is Edward Stroup. I’m

President of Local Union 1289. I’d like to thank you for the opportunity to

speak to you today and tell you of our plight.

Chubby did a nice job with a lead in. There’s a couple of points I’d

like to highlight.

He talked about the trouble shifts. The company has created a lot

of these problems themselves. They’re not posting jobs. As jobs naturally

vacate, people bid out, they have not been filling them. Trouble shifts are one

of those jobs. They’re people that are on all the time, ready to go, ready to

respond in the middle of the night, and they commonly do not fill those shifts.

And they have attrited jobs out there, open jobs, that they have not filled in

those and many other positions. That creates and adds to the response time

problems and creates more call-outs.

Additionally, I’d like you to understand how many call-outs there

are, because I think that’s important. There are-- We have some line people

here that can tell you, probably, better than I can, but tremendous numbers of

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call-outs. You can be called multiple times over the weekend. The list spins

frequently. So it’s not that you’re occasionally getting a call-out, it goes around

quite a bit.

I’d like to also speak about the effect this has had on our members,

so you can understand how big a problem this is. This has affected our

members deeply. They have no free time. They cannot come and go of their

own free will. It has gone as far as affecting their families and their family lives.

They can’t plan to go to the beach on the weekend. They can’t go to a Giants

game. Their every movement is restricted, not only on the weekends, also

during the week. This is a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week issue. It never

ends. The people are never free. They have to be able to respond all the time.

We’ve had people with funerals and with memorials for people that

have passed that have said to the company, "I have this planned through my

family. My family is coming, and I need to not be available for this period of

time." And they’ve been told, no.

I would like to relate one story to you. In my local, I have a lady --

I try not to ask -- but I’m going to say she’s just under 60 years old. She has an

elderly mother who is very sick. She works five days a week, Monday through

Friday. On Saturday, her day off, she was at home with her personal phone and

called her sick mother to talk to her mother. She was on the phone with her

mother for about seven or eight minutes. During that period of time, the

company called her for a call-out. Of course, they got a busy signal. They

called her a total of four times in a total time span of five minutes from the first

to the last call. They suspended her the following week for three days.

She ended up having a nervous breakdown over it. She is already

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upset with her problems with her mother. And she had a breakdown over this,

because she no longer has control of her own life and her own mother. She says,

"I can’t even speak to my sick mother, on my day off, from my home phone."

And that ate at her. She ended up having a breakdown and was out of work for,

I’m going to say, approximately a month and a half on stress. Chubby related

how many people we have out on stress.

That’s one story. There are many more. I just want you to

understand how deep and how far this problem goes, and how it’s affected not

only our members, but their families and their daily life. It’s a major problem.

And I don’t have an answer for you, either, of exactly what you can do to help

us, but anything you can do would certainly be appreciated.

It’s gotten to the point where the people are afraid to come to work,

they’re afraid to report accidents, they’re afraid to come to work. The stress

level is extremely high. Many of these people are linemen, and troublemen, and

are up in the air often in bad weather conditions -- dangerous jobs. Their mind

needs to be focused on their job and performing their job safely, not on the

terror campaign that this company has instituted.

And if I can veer, for a moment, from this subject -- FirstEnergy. If

you don’t mind, I’ll be very brief. I also represent members at Oyster Creek

Nuclear Generating Station, who have been forced out on strike by AmerGen

Exelon. It’s an out-of-state corporation that has come in and completely gutted

the heart of the contract -- job protection, job descriptions, and many other

areas.

Anything you can do to help there would be greatly appreciated.

They want to lay off and get rid of our members who are highly trained and

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highly skilled. Used to have a thousand people at that nuclear plant. Over the

period of the last four or five years, it’s been reduced to 450. Of those, 213 are

the hands-on workers who do radiation protection, control room operators, INC

techs, highly technical jobs. They now want to have another reduction of

almost 15 percent of those people and, at the same time, bring in non-union,

out-of-state workers to replace those jobs. There are many problems in their

last, best, and final offer. They are not willing to move off of that and have

forced us to a strike.

We would like to negotiate and resolve that issue. We don’t believe

it’s good for anybody. The people that are highly trained and highly skilled in

this nuclear plant are no longer running it. They’re outside walking up and

down in front of it. And non-union people have been flooded in there, who do

not know that plant -- which is the oldest nuclear plant in the country -- to run

it. We believe there are safety issues involved.

And I know we’re not here for that. I appreciate you letting me

speak on that for a moment today. But I would appreciate anything that you

could do there to aid us.

Thank you very much for your time, and I’d be happy to answer

any questions you may have.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: Thank you for coming.

Are there any questions?

Assemblyman.

ASSEMBLYMAN GREGG: Perhaps I should have asked this

question to the previous speaker, but it seems everybody’s going to have pretty

similar testimony.

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I’m not sure, Assemblywoman -- Madam Chair, that this is the

forum that this is going to get solved in, because we have very strict labor laws

in our State, and in the country, that have created, in some respects, a wall

between employees and management. And that wall has been good and bad,

sometimes. That’s what occurs. It’s the rules people chose to follow.

But I am interested in asking a question on the procedure. And

correct me if I’m wrong in explaining what I thought was testified to. There was

a policy for bringing people in on their time off, weekends or whatever days

they’re not scheduled. And it was in place, and that system was a system, as

explained -- was a rotating system -- that your name would go up the list as calls

would occur. And then, ultimately, after your day came when you were called,

then you would go to the bottom of the list. And my assumption would be that

if you were at the bottom of the list, you’d feel more comfortable not being

called. You’d probably know that you wouldn’t be called, because you know

that they’d have to go through all the people in front.

The new company comes in and, of course, may have different

ideas, because they’re based in a different world, and negotiating different rules,

and are comfortable with their rules. So they came in and -- and this is where

I want to be clear -- they came in and said they would prefer to change that

system and say, "Instead of just a rolling system, it changes by how often you

come in-- We want to let volunteers do it, first. And then if we don’t get

enough volunteers, then we fall to a list." Is that correct, so far? Through the

Chair, I--

I apologize. I should have gotten the question out earlier.

MR. WARDELL: That’s all right.

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That was one of the items that they said that they would be willing

to have a staff of volunteers, and on no amount of numbers, that would be on

call and carry pagers or cell phones. And they did say-- That was one of their

items.

ASSEMBLYMAN GREGG: And then after that, then it would go

to a -- if they couldn’t get enough volunteers-- I’m just trying to get back to

your testimony.

MR. WARDELL: Then it would go--

ASSEMBLYMAN GREGG: Then it would fall back to a list.

MR. WARDELL: That’s correct.

ASSEMBLYMAN GREGG: Now, would that list be similar to the

list that you had, kind of a rotating list?

MR. WARDELL: Yes.

ASSEMBLYMAN GREGG: Thank you.

The only reason I ask that question is that -- and you can stay up

here -- is, it appears to me that -- I’m not a union negotiator -- but I like that

program better than the one you have now. It certainly would be better for you

to have volunteers, and then fall to a list that you used to have, even though

you may not like the new program. It seems to be far better than the one that

you’re testifying that seems to be. It’s very troubling that you’re on-call 24

hours a day, seven days a week, like you own the business, like many people are

in the State of New Jersey -- and not knowing when you’re going to get called.

And any time a call comes, it could be a consequence for you.

Why would you have not agreed to their program? It certainly

seems to me, as a layman, not a bad system.

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MR. WARDELL: There’s a couple of reasons. One is, the program

that we had before FirstEnergy -- I won’t call it a voluntary call-out system --

but if you were first on the list, and happened to be at a wedding and called out,

it went to the second person on the list. And it could eventually go to the third

and fourth. But there was enough people to respond to the calls. And that’s

been our system forever.

We have, in the state, a couple of utilities that already utilize

standby time, and that’s what that is -- that voluntary-- It’s having an

individual be on-call 24 hours a day. And they can’t leave anything. They have

to be there. If they don’t respond, for whatever reason, or if the workload

becomes too much for those three, six, or whatever the amount is, of individuals

that are being required to do this, the next people in line are subjected to be

called. If they don’t respond, they will be disciplined. So it’s not as simple as

it may appear.

Everyone has an opportunity to work overtime, but if we go with

the volunteer system, then we get into the -- the volunteer is the person that gets

all the overtime. And you have circumstances in your life that you cannot

guarantee the employer that you’d be available 7-24. And although I would like

to work overtime, I already know that I have committee meetings I have to

attend on this night, I have my church on Sunday, and whatever it may be. So

if they call me on those days, I won’t be able to respond, because I have other

equipment -- excuse me, commitments. So I’d like to do that, but I can’t,

because I know I’ve got -- I already know that I’m not going to be able to make

all the calls.

Now, can that be worked through? Possibly.

20

ASSEMBLYMAN GREGG: The only reason I bring it up -- and I

don’t want to belabor the issue, Madam Chair -- is that it seems to be better

than what you have been imposed, and that’s the way the game works because,

ultimately, it is a negotiation of what they wish against what you wish. And

ultimately, when the contract comes up in 2004, that’s when the ball game will

start. I think everybody understands that. So we’re talking about what happens

between now and 2004.

MR. WARDELL: Yes. The problem that I have is that I have a

negotiated document that tells me what I’ve negotiated, and this, what they’re

imposing, is in violation, in our opinion.

ASSEMBLYMAN GREGG: Of course.

MR. WARDELL: And so as a union officer, if we actually

conceded to that without an argument, then our members probably wouldn’t

elect us, because we just gave away a portion of that contract. That’s one of the

dilemmas.

ASSEMBLYMAN GREGG: I can understand that, but I just

wanted to be clear that there were options that you could take that might be

better for employees in a shortened term. You don’t have to legally make a

commitment that you’ve agreed upon. And after 2004, you’ve just agreed upon

it, while you agree to disagree. Lawyers are very good at that. I am not one, but

I know how good they are at it.

MR. WARDELL: Either am I.

ASSEMBLYMAN GREGG: But I just wanted to understand it in

my mind, and now I understand it even better -- that this is, certainly, an

argument between management and employees of who has to work harder.

21

Management would prefer to work less on having to find the person to come in.

They only have to make one phone call.

In your case, you would like to not have to worry about ever

working, so you get both sides. In other words, you can get called if you want

the overtime, and if you don’t, you can pass it on to the next person. It makes

it easier (indiscernible).

So, I mean, I understand the two issues, and I guess, in 2004,

someone will figure out exactly where it falls. Again, I’m not so sure if anything,

in this Committee or the Legislature -- can do to change that, because it does

appear that 2004--

MR. WARDELL: I think, more than the issue-- The company

imposing a procedure that we don’t care for is that -- that after imposing it, the

discipline is such a severe and heartless discipline that it makes negotiating a

little bit more difficult. I mean, you’ll hear some testimony about some of the

things that have taken place, and, quite frankly, I believe you’ll be quite amazed

that they take that type of action.

ASSEMBLYMAN GREGG: Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for coming back.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: Thank you, Chubby.

MR. WARDELL: You’re welcome.

MR. STROUP: Just very quickly, I’d like to respond to your

question. There are approximately -- well, there are 2,080 work hours in a year.

We have members that have worked, for the last three years, between 1,500 and

2,000 hours of overtime. So that shows you how much they’re working, and

they have still been disciplined for missing a single call-out. They’ve doubled

22

their hours of work every year over the last three years and are still disciplined

for missing a single call-out.

Also, in response to your question, I’d like to say that in our

contract -- you heard it referenced before -- the 20-40. Twenty is an individual,

40 is a district group. That’s in our contract. The company itself, some time

ago, felt that they no longer needed that, that the call-out response was good

enough that they set that aside. They had the ability to reinstitute that at any

time. That’s in our contract, but they did not do that. They were not willing

to do that. Instead, they implemented this horrendous policy that’s severely

affected our members. So there are major problems with it.

And I’d like to thank you for the opportunity to talk to you today.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: Thank you.

G A R Y D O B R I N S K Y: Good morning.

I’m Gary Dobrinsky. I’m President of IBEW Local 1298, out of

Morristown, New Jersey. And I want to thank the Committee for having us here

today.

The first thing I would like to call you to is a script language for

management personnel that I brought with me. It’s just horrendous that an

employee has to go through this every time they’re called out.

Number two, if the employee rejects the call-out, you need to tell

him, "I’m giving you a direct order to come to work. Do you understand? And

if you’re not, you may be subject to disciplinary action." Well, that’s the case,

and that’s why we’re here to testify.

I have one individual who is terminated right now. Started out with

this policy on a 28 percent call-out response. He had 28 percent coming in on

23

December 6, when they started this policy. When he was terminated, he had 66

percent call-out response. So that’s just-- And this employee was trying to do

everything he could to look into -- look out for their policy. He bought himself

a cell phone that he never had.

The first time, he was disciplined for five days. He had the new cell

phone, he put it on his night stand. That’s the number -- as you heard Chubby

testify earlier -- that he gave to the company, because that was going to be his

primary number now. He gave that number to his company. He had the cell

phone on his night stand, and the cell phone went dead -- not having a cell

phone for very long. He came in that morning -- said, "You didn’t call us back.

You’re getting five days suspension."

The next time, he was in New York state, and his cell phone didn’t

ring, because he was out of cell phone territory. Well, here we go -- on the

Sunday -- on the way home, it comes back -- you know, you get the little beep.

He listens to the message, and it says, "This is Jersey Central on Saturday -- you

had a call." Here it is, Sunday night. Well, he knows that call has been taken --

already been covered. There’s no major storm that went through, so he knows

the call was just covered. He comes in Monday, he gets a 10-day suspension.

The final time, they said now, "Okay, you’re wife answered the

phone." She gave him the message the next day. The same thing, they were in

New York state. He didn’t get the message himself. His wife got the message.

She said, "I’m not going to bother him. We’re up here. I’m just not going to

bother him." The same thing, Monday he comes in, he’s terminated. So that’s

just some of the stuff we’re going through here.

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Weddings, birthdays; anybody, they can’t -- they’re not able to just

enjoy themselves. They’re afraid to answer the phone. They answer the phone

on a wedding, they’re direct ordered to come in.

That’s basically it. I needed to tell you that story. I have one

terminated employee.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: Thank you very much for coming

this morning.

MR. DOBRINSKY: Thank you.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: Any questions?

ASSEMBLYMAN SMITH: Yes, I have one question.

Is it permissible for one employee to cover for the other? Let’s say,

for example, you had a wedding, or birthday, or going out of town, honeymoon,

can you get a buddy that you work with to cover?

MR. DOBRINSKY: No, right now the company is saying that you

have to respond. It’s your duty to respond. You cannot pass that off. It used

to be. Sure, we just used to go right to the next person. It was a call-out

procedure. You got called out. You said, "No, I can’t come in. I’ve got my

children here. I can’t get a babysitter," whatever. Maybe you took some

medication. A big thing is, maybe you just worked 60 hours of overtime

because you were on continuous overtime. This call-out response has nothing

to do with the overtime that you’ve been working already. You just finally want

to get a weekend to yourself and relax. Nope, you must come in. So there’s no

passing it on right now.

Anybody else? (no response)

Thank you.

25

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: Thank you.

Carol, do you want to come up?

Hi, Dan, how are you?

D A N I E L W. C L A R E: Hi, good morning.

Dan Clare, President of Local 1303, IBEW. I’d just like to thank

you for having us here today.

In our local, which is a part of everybody else’s, we’re there seven

days, 24 hours a day. Our people are forced--

Assemblyman Gregg, you asked a question about -- hey, why didn’t

you do this other thing? We did. We went out to our people, and we asked

how we can improve. And the company was trying to improve the call-outs. It’s

in our best interest to serve the public.

We’re professional workers. We went out and, voluntarily, went

to our people, and they actually improved for a full month in most places. We

said, "Hey, guys, take calls, come on in." And it did improve. For them to--

When you say volunteers, volunteers mean the six junior guys that

are in whatever district. We have many districts. If they don’t get volunteers,

then the six junior guys are the volunteers. And once you’re-- The way it was

explained to me -- the way it works out there -- is once you’re that volunteer and

you have that pager -- everything you hear us telling you right now would be --

Dan Clare missed a call-out. By the way, I’m a lineman, so I live with this

every day. Dan Clare missed a call-out -- I’m suspended. Three times with

these people, I lose my job. I’m gone.

As far as our contract goes is, what it was, was we had -- it’s

opportunities. It’s negotiated, it’s in writing, it’s a legal document -- that the

26

company agreed to when they acquired us. They agreed that they would abide

by our contract in order to come into New Jersey and have a great power

company. And that opportunity list -- what it would do is, if I wasn’t available,

they’d go to the next guy. The older members -- and we have many, many older

members that have been out there working for the public for many, many years

in storms, in the worst conditions. They’re 58 years old, 60 years old. We had

an age list. That way, the company didn’t need to call them. They’d be off to

the side, and you could go to the younger guys like myself.

And what their policy has done is, basically, forced people who

don’t want to work to come in, and there’s people that do -- who would work,

but that’s all gone. So on the flip side, you have all these suspensions going on.

The thing I would ask you to do is -- we’re going before Wage and

Hour, where we’re hoping that our attorney is going to present-- Our attorney,

Ed Cohen, couldn’t be here today. He would have liked to have come. And he

could have presented this probably a lot better than, like, I can.

But Wage and Hour is looking at our case. And if there isn’t

anything, legislatively, that you can do, maybe, if you know somebody over

there, you can make a phone call. But our attorney has said that if they can do

a stop and desist--

Anyway, on the call-outs -- just like everybody else said, there’s

people that have been called out. It’s a seven day a week, 24 hours a day--

One-thirty in the morning, my phone rang. I didn’t hear it. The next -- three

days later, I was in the office. They were looking to suspend me. I make just

about all my call-outs, because I know -- I try to keep the pressure off the other

guys.

27

Everybody’s a nervous wreck over it. With all the things that go on

in the company-- Being a lineman, you go out there -- it’s not like-- I’m not

going to say it’s the hardest job, but you’re up there, you’re moving phases,

you’re in a dangerous situation almost every day. And what scares me the most

is, we used to come to work, and we’d talk about what we were going to do, and

we’d do our job. Now guys are so concerned that they’re going to lose their job,

or their going to be suspended, they’re up there in the air working in storms and

normal day work, or whatever, and it’s becoming dangerous. It’s killing our

members. I think-- I’m not going to quote any numbers, but we have an older

workforce.

That’s pretty much it for the forced overtime. If you know anybody

in Wage and Hour -- if you can’t do anything else for us, please--

The other thing is the chilling of our employees. I’ll just hit on it

real quick, because Chubby, I think, did a very good job. Chilling, as it’s been

explained to me, is when you’re -- the minors that they spoke about-- I’ll just

say a couple incidents. A guy goes out, and he cranks down a strap -- a 5,000

pound strap that holds poles that weigh 2,000 pounds a piece. A 138-pound

guy goes and cranks this strap down. The strap breaks, a mechanical defect --

breaks. He reports it, because it breaks. You’re putting a lot of tension on that

strap, the strap lets go, of course you go flying. So the guy puts in a minor. He

says, "I was doing this, and the strap broke."

Well, he was disciplined for it. He was given a written. He didn’t

have his feet in the right place. And what that does -- especially in something

like that. You’ve got to picture this. Three or four 2,000 pound poles going

down the highway strapped down with those straps -- mechanical defect --

28

okay? That guy should, really, be treated as a hero because of his injury. He

reported it. Some family in New Jersey didn’t lose their lives. But yet, he gets

disciplined, because he didn’t have his feet the right way. What I’ve been told,

Another guy -- dragging wire through the woods. We’re linemen.

We have to put wire in trenches, we climb poles, we do all kinds of stuff.

Thirty-eight years in the company -- I don’t know his exact age -- 38 years of

being a lineman. He’s dragging wire through the woods alongside a trench in the

snow. He steps, because a bulldozer had gone by -- the snow covered the track

-- he’s pulling the wire, he steps into the track, falls off balance, falls backwards,

gets a sore back, he puts in a minor -- doesn’t even go to the doctor -- puts in a

minor -- three days off, three days suspension. And if that doesn’t tell the guy

working next to him, "Hey, you put in a minor, guess what’s going to happen."

The guy with the pole trailer -- in my opinion, he saved people’s lives. We

actually had a catastrophic event, not because of a strap, but because of a pole

breaking. A car was just literally torn apart over it.

So these minors that Chubby said are a way for the company to

gauge -- "Hey, is the workforce working safely? Are there mechanical defects?

Are there near misses?" And if I’m afraid to report that, or I’m afraid to --

because I hurt my back I’m going to get three days off, and the letter’s going to

say, "This is going to lead to further discipline or termination." It’s ridiculous.

For years, and years, and years the company told us, "Hey, anything happens,

we want to know about it. We want to know about it, because if we get a lot

of these, we may be having a fatality, or something might be a mess out there."

Well, you know what? You put in a minor, three days off, discipline.

29

I can only tell you it’s a very dangerous job to begin with. We work

professionally. We try to use all of our safety gear. When you go and you have

a little accident, and they turn around and do that to you, what does it do to

your workforce? And I can tell you, as a union president--

A guy with 37 years was talking to me. He said, "You know, I cut

my finger. I can’t bend my finger." I said, "Hey, why didn’t you turn that in?"

He goes, "Danny, I’ve got five years I’ve got to make it here. I can’t afford to

lose my job yet." And the guy didn’t report it -- nerve damage, or whatever kind

of damage. He’s out there working with his finger like this now. There’s many

cases.

So what I would ask on this chilling part is, there is a bill that

protects workmens’ comp issues. But if you can’t make it to that level, if I’m

afraid to report anything, or I make sure I go to my own doctor-- If there’s

anything you can do to-- I mean, I’m sure there’s protections there, but--

That’s my issue.

I guess I don’t want to talk your ears off, because I’ve been known

to do that. (laughter)

And I just have to say, too, what Ed Stroup had said about Oyster

Creek. I know it’s an unrelated issue. It scares me, because we’ve got a nuclear

plant out there in New Jersey that’s operating, right now, that killed a bunch of

openly admitted that they didn’t listen to those union people who knew the

business, knew how to run the plant, and they turned around and did the

opposite of what those people, who knew how to run that business, were telling

30

them, and killed 6,000 fish. They said it was horrible. The fish were trying to

jump out of the water, it was boiling.

manager openly admitted he didn’t listen to those trained employees, and they

did what they wanted anyway.

I look at it-- I go down to that picket line, and I look in there, and

I say, "Oh, my god. We’ve got a nuclear operating station that’s not being run

properly. And if something goes wrong, guess what? We’re all-- What are we

worrying about -- chilling?" That’s a bigger issue.

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to run on.

Thank you very much for your time.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: Thank you for coming, Danny.

I appreciate your testimony.

MR. CLARE: Any questions? (no response)

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: Carol.

MS. SCOTT: Hi, I’m Carol Scott, and I’m President of 1309.

What I would like to say, in general, first of all, is, we’re really not

here to crybaby. Our employees, our union members, are, fundamentally, in a

very, very desperate rage over this company and their antics. The call-out, the

discipline for getting hurt on the job -- those are two very major issues. And it’s

really-- It fundamentally comes down to the fact that there’s no reasonableness

on the job anymore.

And I’ll give you an example of the discipline for a minor injury.

And, actually, this woman wasn’t even hurt. She was going to lunch. There was

an internal stairway just three steps up. She had a pocketbook in one hand, her

31

lunch in the other. She walked up the steps, she had her hand on the railing,

and she tripped. And she just put in a minor because that’s what we do. That’s

what OSHA says to do. It shows trends and stuff like that. She was given a

written reprimand, the point being that she did not pick her foot up high

enough.

That is on record. That is the beginning. When we talk about

unreasonableness, we’re all very, very mature people. We all live our lives.

Maybe we throw our little tantrums once in a while, but we’re all professional,

and we’re all reasonable, and we have all invested our hearts in this company

for the last 20 or 30 years. So we’re not silly when we come here and talk about

these issues.

My call-out issues are probably minor compared to some of the

other guys, but, again, the unreasonableness-- I had a lineman who works

midnight to eight. He gave them his cell phone. This was December 6. This

is when they instituted the policy. He came home in the morning, he plugged

his cell phone in to recharge it. It had snowed. He went out to his driveway.

He came in, the company had called. He had documentation from Verizon

saying that because his cell phone was weak, it would take the message, but it

wouldn’t ring. He was given an indefinite suspension on December 9 --

something like that. He had two children -- right before Christmas. This was

the company coming out of the gate saying, "We’re serious about this policy."

This was to show everybody how big their muscles are. "I’m going to put you

off the property."

And we had about 30 people in the very beginning of this

implementation of this policy who were indefinitely suspended. They walked

32

off the job not knowing if they even had a job -- because another guy I had at

the same time gave them his cell phone number. Nobody wants to put their

careers at risk, here. He set his cell phone up by his bed. He fell asleep on the

couch, he missed a call-out at 11:00 at night, and he was indefinately suspended

the next week, also.

And I’d like to clear up something that you were talking about

earlier when you talked about this volunteer thing. We were in negotiations

with the company. We hit a loggerhead. Okay? They wanted us to carry

beepers. We said, "Fine, we’ll carry beepers. We want to be paid for them,"

because we also do have a pager policy in our company. I also represent the

customer service center. And we have 10 people on call every weekend. We’ve

had this since 1997. And those people are paid a nominal fee to carry the

beeper and be prepared to come in when that beeper goes off.

The company doesn’t want to pay us to be on standby. We hit a

loggerhead. We offered the old policy at 20-40. They didn’t want to do that.

We said, "Fine then, come up with your own policy, because we’re not being

able to agree on anything." And they came in the gate with this policy that’s

unreasonable. Okay? That’s the evolution of this.

We’ve all negotiated contracts. We’re here to do what’s right for

the company and to do what’s right for the members in a reasonable sense.

Okay? But this company cares about two things, and two things only. They

care about control, and they care about money. And this company reminds me

of the old school down south, when the mills were in operation, and the mills

would build their towns. And you lived in their house, and you bought groceries

out of their grocery store. Okay?

33

I’m going to take a left turn, because I have another issue that is

tremendously passionate to me that doesn’t have anything to do with call-out,

but it has to do, again, I think, with the fundamentals of the philosophy of this

company. And that is, we all, as you all know, have benefits when we work for

a company. We have absentee benefits, we have, if we’re lucky, prescription

care, we have health care, we have all of that.

only recognized our contract and honored it, like we honored our end of this

bargain in 1999, or whenever it was, but they have now put us -- the benefits

that we’ve negotiated -- we now have to jump through hoops to get them.

Okay? They have-- We have a prescription plan, of course, and we also have

a mail-in prescription plan, which is, if you’re on a maintenance-type drug that

you take all the time, you can get a 90-day prescription from your doctor, send

it in, and you get your prescription by mail. Okay?

Well, now they’re interfering with that. Now they’re contacting the

doctors, and they’re saying, "Well, do you really have to have this prescription?

Do you have to have it all the time?" We now have people who are sending

these prescriptions in, and now they’re not even getting them. Now the people

have to go back to their doctor two or three times. "I need this, they blocked

this prescription, blah, blah, blah." Okay?

And more importantly than that is, they’ve hired this company

called the Reed Group. The Reed Group -- if I have a heart attack and I’m out,

I have negotiated benefits. I have sick leave, I have a disability plan, whatever.

Okay? And my doctor says, "Carol, you’re going to be out for six weeks."

Okay. Now the company is almost requiring me -- because we haven’t taken

34

this far down the road enough -- almost requiring me -- they’re asking me to sign

a letter that releases my medical records to this Reed Group so that this Reed

Group -- who is nothing but a wizard, in my opinion, behind some curtain --

can sit there and manage my health. And they’re going to get a hold of my

doctor and say, "Can you put her back to work, maybe, in four weeks or five

weeks?" And as far as I’m concerned, that’s just a little bit too much invasion

into my personal life.

If we can’t trust the doctors that we choose-- I didn’t choose the

Reed Group as my primary care physician. So if we can’t trust our doctors, then

take them out of whatever medical plan we have, whether it’s Blue Cross,

Prudential, Etna. Kick them out if they’re not good enough to manage their

own patients’ care. That, I think, you guys can do something about. You can.

We have a letter, now, that’s being put to our members. And like

I said, we haven’t gone down this road far enough, but you can see the writing

on the wall. It says, "You should sign this. And if not, your benefits could be

stopped." So if I’m out on six weeks, and let’s say I’m on short-term disability,

and I refuse to sign this because I don’t want the Reed Group in my business,

I don’t want the Reed Group harassing my doctor-- And they’re going to say

what? " You’re not going to get your benefits." It’s not anybody’s business

except my doctor’s. And if he’s not good, or she’s not good enough to manage

my health, like I said, kick them out of whatever insurance company we have

in their plan.

The other thing is -- and this will just give you an idea of the

company we’re up against. Okay? They want us at work all the time. It

doesn’t matter. I have the nightmare cases of call-out where -- and this is

35

generic for all of our locals. Whenever our people go anywhere, whether it’s

their mother’s 50th anniversary, or their father’s 80th birthday, or their

anniversary, every family is going now, wherever they’re going, in two cars,

because if they’re going over to your house for your father’s birthday and you

get beeped, you’ve got to come in. So do you drag your whole family back

away from this gathering, or do you just leave, yourself?

We’ve had people who had New York tickets. They take two cars

into the city so that if their beeper goes off, or their cell phone goes off, they can

come back, they can leave the play, they can leave Easter dinner, they can do

that while their whole family stays there. Now, that is a fact of life on our

property.

Our families are stressed. Our employees are stressed due to the

unreasonableness of everything that’s going on with this company. And I’ll read

you a policy. This is FirstEnergy’s employee attendence policy. And it is telling.

We don’t have this yet, but it’s telling. It’s eligibility as the policy applies to all

employees. They may impose this on us. They’re creeping it in the door in my

center.

"Each employee should do whatever is necessary to ensure good

attendence, which should include maintaining good health standards and taking

preventative measures to guard against illness, not letting minor ailments or

inconveniences result in an absence from the job, making every effort to live and

work safely, taking care of personal affairs or obligations at times outside of

working hours, and seeking counseling to get help with personal problems.

"While perfect attendence is a desirable goal and reflects employees’

attitudes about their work and career objectives, there are absences that are

36

unavoidable. In many of these cases, the company will continue an employee’s

pay during the absence. For example: the sick benefit protects employees against

the loss of income if sickness or injury occurs. Recognizing that perfect

attendence is not always possible, it is the employee’s responsibility to do the

following" blah, blah, blah. And what they’re telling us -- it says, "participate

in company case management program, be available for reasonable

examinations and inquiries by the representative." And it says, again, to the

supervisor: "When necessary, refer employee to the company medical case

management program for non-routine," blah, blah.

An employee’s record of attendence is an individual record, a record

the employee makes. What constitutes unsatisfactory attendence is determined

on a case-by-case basis. For example: if an employee is absent only one day

during a year, but this one absence was avoidable, this employee’s attendence

record was less than satisfactory. This is like if you don’t live safe, like if you

happen to be painting your house, and you fall off your ladder. Well, you were

careless. You live carelessly, and we’ll get you on that, too.

So thank you very much for the opportunity to talk to you. And

I do think that there is something that the State can do for us. I think it’s a

privacy issue. And I just think that when we have companies -- and by no

means do I think this is the only company that thinks this way-- We need to

have our lives ours. Business is business, personal is personal. How many times

have you heard that? When you get laid off, they tell you, "Don’t take it

personally." Okay? Well, don’t take my life. My life’s not here for the

company at its will.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: Thank you for coming, Carol.

37

Any questions or comments? (no response)

Darwin.

D A R W I N S A S S A M A N: Yes, I’m Darwin Sassaman, known as

Bones. I’m part of System Council. I’m President of Local 327. I represent

FirstEnergy, and also being full-time business manager. I do not work there; I’m

on a leave of absence. But I do represent other utilities and companies: REA

Sussex up in Sussex, New Jersey; also powerplants at Gilbert Station, in

Hunterdon County; and Sayerville, down in South Jersey.

And I’ve dealt with -- and I know the question came up -- Chubby

mentioned before about contracts and changes. And I went through the sale --

being president when GPU sold their powerplants to Reliant Energy out of

Houston, Texas, dealing with people from Houston, Texas. Certainly, there’s

always questions and concerns of contracts and negotiations. And our contract

wasn’t up until 2001 with Reliant Energy. But, in turn, the respect was there for

a bargaining agreement. And if we looked to change something, or they had a

need, I was willing to sit down and talk to them, the same as this System

Council is with FirstEnergy, to within reason -- and what we can do without

affecting or impacting our families or our members that voted on a contract.

I’ve got to say, with Reliant Energy, it’s just two different

companies. They’re out of Houston, Texas. There’s a few changes, but the

people are happy to come to work. If you’ve seen the name change on the front

-- yeah, it changed as you come down the hill to Gilbert Station or drive into

Sayerville, but, basically, you work the same way you worked before. And they

had some things change from Reliant Energy, but like you said, we did it in the

right way.

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But this FirstEnergy company-- They’re vicious. I’ve never dealt

with them. And I know I’m the last person to be up from System Council, so

I don’t want to bore you with a lot of things, but I have to say, my people are

bleeding. They’re bleeding not only with the call-out policy, but when that was

instituted -- and I’ve got one dear to my heart, that’s to everyone-- And the

trend went out across the workforce.

The night that they implemented this policy -- it was going into

effect December 6 -- I had a young lineman up in the Newton district. He got

a phone call 7:00 that night. His wife answered the phone and said, "Dean’s

home, but he can’t come in. We’ve got a family crisis going on. He can’t come

in." They said, "There’s no excuse. We want to talk to him." He came to the

phone. The family crisis was that he has a 14-year-old son with a brain tumor

that just had chemotherapy that day. It’s terrible. He was throwing up

violently, and he said, "I can’t come in. I don’t care what you do. I’m sorry,

I can’t come in." They said, "We’ll be talking to you Monday." He was

worried. Quite frankly, you know what condition that put the family in the rest

of the weekend. He showed up at work on Monday. The shop steward called

me. I was down at a the power plant. I said, "Well, hope and pray that,

maybe, they’ll take your excuse."

But that’s what we ask for. At least consider, if you’re going to be

this stringent, there is exceptions. And the immediate supervisor said, "Well, if

your son was that sick, and he had his first day of chemotherapy, maybe we can

do something." Low and behold, 3:00 that afternoon, the higher-up

management came up, and he was given a five-day suspension -- suspended for

not being able to come to work on Friday night with a child terminally ill with

39

cancer. I know that upset so many people who -- neighborhoods, everything

else, the co-workers that -- how it can go down. But it’s just one thing after

another.

With the call-out response, I know some of you are sitting there

thinking we had a better way, or why didn’t we go their way. But the people,

ever since 1996 -- I was involved -- we had a verp (phonetic spelling) when GPU

was getting ready to -- I mean Jersey Central merged into GPU with

(indiscernible) and Pennelec, and we lost hundreds of people. My local, alone

-- 76 linemen left. And, you know, you didn’t mind getting called a couple

times a weekend, or something, but when you had 30 or 35 people on a call-out

sheet -- mandating this you must come in -- we’ve got districts down to 18, 20

people. So your opportunity is more and more. That’s why we’re in arbitration.

And I hope the arbitrator can see this isn’t only being burdened on coming in on

call-outs, but look at the 50, 60 hours of overtime I worked already before they

called me Saturday morning. I have people suspended with 50 and 60 percent

call-outs. Nine hundred hours of overtime, you certainly must work for the

company. You stay late, they plan you for Saturdays and Sundays. But if

you’re just out deer hunting -- the one incident that Chubby mentioned on--

Donnie went up to New York state to his brother’s place and wasn’t available.

And because of the system, that was his day on call -- he got a five-day

suspension.

The other thing, with the comp pieces-- I certainly feel that it’s

intimidating, that certainly people work in this state. And if you work and try

to be safe -- but injuries do happen, and you certainly should have the right to

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fill out a minor, and go to a doctor, and if you have injuries, stitches, or

whatever, go into a compensation case.

I had an individual -- one of the stronger ones in System Council --

that was pulling wire in. And he got his hand caught in the shiblock. (phonetic

spelling) It was a Friday afternoon. All the safety precautions -- when I went

to the investigation -- because I would be sitting here not talking to you about

this, if the guy violated something. But we worked hard in negotiations to come

up -- where you got your protection, your leather gloves, your glasses, your

hardhats. Shame on somebody -- if they don’t wear that kind of stuff, Bones,

as business manager, is going to say, "Hey, if you get a reprimand, you deserve

it. Gosh darn it, that was there for your safety." Or if he had cut his hand, and

he didn’t have his glove on, I could have said, "Hey, look at the burden you put

on the company. Now you’re lost time, you’re costing this. And if you had had

your glove on, you wouldn’t have cut your hand." But he had everything on.

In their documentation, no safety violation, no work procedure violation. The

only thing was, after the final review-- And what happened is, when he got his

hand in, he continued to work the rest of the day.

I think, like Danny Clare mentioned earlier, and my other brothers

and sisters, that was intimidation. But it got swelled up so bad, he couldn’t

hardly get his glove off. So at 3:00, he told the foreman, "I better go get an Xray

because it’s Friday night, the weekend’s coming up." So they took him

down to Dover General Hospital. He had an X-ray. Thank goodness, there

were no broken bones. They felt it was just a bad bruise. The doctor down

there said, "We’ll put you on light duty for two days, come back Wednesday,

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and maybe you’ll return to work." That’s just what he did, nothing but a

medical checkup, and he got a three-day suspension.

People -- it’s not only him -- but say, "God, look what happened

to Hector." This is intimidation. A three-day suspension he got for that

incident that -- like I said, no safety violation, no work procedures. The only

thing they said -- "Well, what you should do next time, when you’re pulling wire

-- and if you want to communicate with the guy down the road -- when you step

forward, you should stop pulling the wire." That’s a good point. And in the

past, like Chubby said -- going back when we worked for a decent company --

you’d learn from that experience. At the most, he might have gotten a written

reprimand saying, "Hey, you should have used better judgement. You didn’t

violate anything, but next time, if you make a move, don’t pull the wire,"

because what happened was, when he stepped forward, he lost his footing in the

ditch where they were pulling. He might have fell and broke his leg -- and the

first reaction to put your hand up -- and he got his fingers pinched. And out of

that, a three-day suspension-- To me, it’s a direct -- they’re intimidating people;

that you’re afraid to work -- come to work.

I have an individual that I talked to personally -- and I can’t force

the individual -- but come to me through a shop steward -- had rotator cuff--

Went to his doctor -- certainly job related -- a lineman -- and he’s just had

surgery last month -- used 18 or 20 of his own sick days. I called him up. I

said, "Why didn’t you ask to go to a company doctor?" "Bones, I don’t want

time off. I’m afraid of the repercussions." So that’s one I know of, for sure.

And we have an attorney looking at that. There are many that, probably, we

don’t know. But there’s an individual that should have had the company

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responsible for that injury. And he’s on his own because of, probably,

suspensions and everything else. It’s definitely intimidation.

Getting back to the call-out procedure and the A and H list-- I

mean, getting right to where we are today -- and like Chubby said, in

arbitration-- You touched on that A and H list. It was very important. It was

a list that Chubby personally negotiated, in ’92 or ’93, it was. And it gave a

person in each district a percentage. You didn’t have to be an older person. It

could be a younger lineman that had really personal problems, himself or his

family, could go in and request to be on that list to be relieved. That didn’t

mean he didn’t work overtime. He stayed at the end of the day, he could stay

Saturdays, but just during the night time, be it medications or whatever, he got

relief.

Again, no negotiations. They just tore that up and threw it away

in January. They abolished the H list. There’s no one allowed on it. I have

individuals right now seeking outside attorneys. One individual appeared in the

my people are being put under and all the aggravation, that he retired. He had

heart surgery, he had some problems with his heart. He’s on medications, and

also, with that, a little depression -- excellent worker. He’s 59 years old, had all

intentions to work until he was 60 for full pension. Understand, our pension

system -- 60 is full pension, 55 you can go out, but you take a percentage -- 20

percent less -- and then 56--

He left, because -- he said, "Bones, I cannot--" He got a verbal

reprimand -- a written reprimand -- put on notice. And he was on this H list,

because, hopefully, he’d get better where he could get back to taking calls, but

43

right now, he couldn’t. The medicine he was on -- he said, "I’m in la-la land

2:00 in the morning if they call me out." He retired. He left.

And I talked to the President, Mr. Steve Strah, after the newspaper

article. He was very upset that I went to -- the newspaper was coming to me,

because wives and families are affected by this -- was calling the newspaper.

And I didn’t want to go to the newspaper. I figured you’re better to stay inhouse.

But after about two months of what was going on, they said, "Bones,

we’d much rather talk to you than all these families and things." So I did an

interview.

But the bottom line is, the people that-- And I said to Mr. Strah,

it’s such a company that we work around very critical stuff -- electricity. And

you should come to work, be happy. You might not like your supervisor, but

you respect him, and you work. But with all these side distractions going on,

I’m scared every day somebody’s going to get seriously hurt. I have chief

linemen coming to me. They’re saying, "Bones, Joe, yesterday morning -- they

intimidated him, where he was over the weekend. I’ve got to watch him when

I get out on the truck. He’s not thinking of work now. He’s all worked up

over--" because they’ll never suspend you until 3:00. They’ll interview you in

the morning, and you don’t know all day long whether you’re going to get axed

at the end of the day or not. And it scares you that, because you know -- 25

people I’ve had suspended so far since December -- out of the workforce.

And I told Mr. Strah, "If you don’t see this turnaround, I’m afraid

of what we’re going to do to serve even the customers." We need linemen, and

these are very experienced linemen, 57-, 58-years-old. I’ve been full-time

business manager since 1995. And we used to have, maybe, 10 people a year

44

retire -- you know, the normal when they get to 60 or so. And it used to be you

could count on your fingers, the years I was president, that somebody left

sooner. They had a rich aunt or uncle who passed away that they got some

money, and they’d take the cut in pension and leave at 56. That history showed

you, when GPU, Jersey Central was here, people worked, basically, to 60. They

got their -- 60, 61, and then social security. Last year, I looked at my retirement

list that they send you, and I had 13 people out of that group -- 56-, 58-yearsold

just leaving. And if that doesn’t tell someone a story, if you see it-- But I’m

sure it didn’t bother him. I think it’s what they’re after. Merger savings, try to

cut the workforce. They’ve hacked us, and hacked us, and hacked us. But even

in negotiations, we’re going to have a tough time.

And I’ll be willing to work for my people to have a quality life and

earn a decent paycheck, but it’s hard with the number of linemen we’ve got and

the call-outs, because they can say they’ve got 20 percent more -- and they tell

me in Ohio, according to their standards, we have 20 percent more linemen here

in New Jersey. But believe me, it’s the big honchos telling me this, because

when I go around to the local districts, where the level foremen are, they’re

saying, "Bones, please don’t go back," or, "I’m scared to tell you, but I need

three more guys now. I can’t keep up with the developers in building the

houses." But it’s, to me, all in the merger savings, and we’re paying for it.

But I just-- And the one last one I had was with the compensation

-- is, I know it’s happening all over. One person slipped and fell going down the

steps, and he never went to the doctor. They asked him to go. They said that

night -- this is how bad it is -- they said, "Pete, do you want to go to the

doctor." "No," he said, "I think I’ll be okay. It’s not that bad," because he was

45

afraid of-- (indiscernible) so he went home. And about 9:00, he got severe back

pain, so he went down to his own family doctor, got in right before they closed,

and the family doctor made sure -- they wanted to do a urine analysis and

things. They thought he had a bruised kidney. It probably was, but there was

no blood in the urine. He called in sick two days. He pulled all the muscles,

here, in his back.

When I found out about it -- because you represent 400-and-some

people -- the shop steward called me -- I said, "For goodness sakes, that’s a

compatible injury. They know he fell down the steps. They saw it." I told him,

"Don’t stay home using your own sick days. Call in. You must go see a

doctor," because naturally, we know the rules -- if you’re going to want to put

it under compensation, you can’t use your own doctor. He called in -- three

days they refused him. I had to go to the director of the north and talk to him.

Finally, he said, "Well, we’ll bring him back to work, but I don’t know if he has

to go to a doctor." I said, "This guy might have internal bleeding, anything else

going on." Seven days later they got him to a company doctor. He has a comp

lawyer on this case. But those are the ones we hear of.

I know you probably got tired of hearing all the stories, and

everything. But, really, this company is not being fair to the employees. It

affects their families, the neighborhoods, and everything else. It’s really tough

times we’re going through right now.

I want to thank you for the time to listen to me.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: Thank you for coming.

Any questions? (no response)

And our last person. Bill Kane, from the Industrial Union Council.

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Thanks for coming, Bill.

B I L L K A N E: Good morning.

Madam Chairwoman, thank you for the opportunity to testify here.

My name is Bill Kane. I’m the President of the New Jersey

Industrial Union Council, which is an organization of unions representing over

300,000 workers in New Jersey.

This situation that you’ve just heard of is not an uncommon

situation in the private sector. And the situation, as I hear it, sounds like we

have an employer who is, quite frankly, over the top in disregarding a fair

collective bargaining process.

I, first of all, would like to compliment the leadership of the

International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Locals, that are dealing with

this company, for the restraint that they’ve shown. Because some of the stories

that we’ve just heard, where people are suspended because their kids are dying

of cancer or even -- I don’t know about you, but I’m not real comfortable with

people in a nuclear power plant working 80 hours a week.

If this kind of behavior were to happen in a totally private sector

corporation -- I say totally private sector, even though Jersey Central private --

Jersey Central Power & Light is a private industry, they perform a public

function. If this kind of stuff had happened in, say, the Linden auto plant --

General Motors plant, the plant would be shut down. The autoworkers would

shut the plant down. If this happened in a construction site to the IBEW, the

construction site would be shut down.

Now, I’m sorry Assemblyman Gregg had to leave, because it seemed

to me like he was eluding to the collective bargaining process -- will take care of

47

it. These folks have an arbitration case that they’re in the middle of presenting,

which may or may not solve this problem. Probably, if the arbitrator is sensible,

it will. And Assemblyman Gregg talked about what, if anything, can be done.

Our opinion is that the restraint shown by this union probably has

to do with the fact that they represent the public. If they were to do, here, what

they would do in a totally private sector organization, or if they were to do what

another union would do in a factory, the lights would go out. And in talking to

them, getting to know them a little bit, they have a great sense of responsibility

that they perform. They’re professionals, and they serve the public, and they

don’t want the lights to go out, even though the employer sounds like one of the

biggest idiotic participants in the collective bargaining process that I’ve

experienced.

I would say this, as to what can be done.

Before I say that, nobody that sits at the bargaining table, whether

it’s management or the union, wants the government sticking their nose in their

business. We have tactics that we use in situations like this that are geared

towards bringing a radical employer into line -- totally legal. There are ways to

pressure employers to do things. I’m sitting back there saying, "Boy, if we just

taught these guys how to work to rule," for example -- in other words, follow

every single rule to the letter -- it would bring them to their knees, because the

lights would go out. They don’t want to do that. They have responsibility.

And because it’s a quasi-public institution, is probably why they’re

here. And I think it’s incumbent on the government to look at it from that point

of view and try to figure out what needs to be done in an organization that

48

provides a public service, when either side at the bargaining table is being totally

unreasonable.

The IBEW could, believe me-- Within a week, the IBEW could

create more havoc in the services that are provided by that company without

anybody getting suspended, because they’d be doing it all by the contract and

the rule. They could bring it to a standstill if they chose to.

So make no mistake. They’re not coming here, as someone said

earlier, as crybabies. They’re coming here, probably, because they’re very

responsible, and they work for a public institution. And what I hear them

saying is, "We’ve got an unreasonable employer that is, basically, performing

to you, "Because this is a public entity, please do something before we have to."

That’s what I’m hearing.

These unions are not a member of our organization, but they’re our

friends. And if they wish, we will begin working with them to help them do

whatever it takes to make sure that this company does not continue this kind

of behavior.

But in the long-term, I think the Legislature must look at what is

it that can be done to put some kind of public control over this kind of behavior

in a private sector company that is performing a public service. Obviously, there

is not enough there to allow this to happen.

So I just simply want to say that I think there are things that can

be done. I don’t know, quite frankly, what they are yet, in terms of legislation

or regulation. But I know there can be something done. And we are willing to

work with you, and anyone else, and we’ll certainly work with the union to

49

bring about some solution to this problem, so that no matter who comes in and

runs that company, or who comes in and runs that union, we make sure that

people are going to treat each other with respect, respect the institution that each

stands for, and make sure that the lights don’t go out.

And one last thing. I found it very ironic, driving down here today,

listening to the radio, that this is June 19. In the African-American community,

it’s called Juneteenth. It’s the anniversary of the freedom of the last slaves in

1865. And, believe me, the 13th Amendment outlawed indentured servitude.

And what you just heard today -- if it’s not indentured servitude, I don’t know

what it is.

So, Madam Chairwoman, again, I thank you for allowing me to

testify, and I tell you again that we will be at your disposal to help sit down and

craft some kind of solution to this. But something needs to be done to stop this.

Thank you very much.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: Thank you for coming, Bill. I

appreciate your offer to help, along with the other unions who are being affected

by this situation.

I agree with you that I believe something can be done. What it is

right now, I don’t know exactly. But I’ll be very happy to work with you and

the other union leaders to see what we can do about this. And I thank you very

much for coming.

Any comments from anybody else? (no response)

MR. KANE: Thank you very much.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: Before we adjourn--

Do you have a comment? Do you want to testify?

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J E F F S T O L L E R: Maybe just a brief comment.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: You have to fill out a form, Jeff.

You’ll fill out a form after your testimony, please.

MR. STOLLER: I will, certainly.

Jeff Stoller, from the New Jersey Business and Industry--

Just briefly, Madam Chair. Thank you for the chance just to

comment briefly. I hadn’t planned to testify.

Obviously, a lot of serious matters have been raised today by the

witnesses. Apparently, FirstEnergy wasn’t either aware or hasn’t been able to

participate today. I just was inquiring, would there be chance for additional

comment to be submitted as part of the record that you’re putting together here,

as part of the hearing?

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: From?

MR. STOLLER: From -- in case, you know, the company wanted

a chance to add its comments and have it be part of the record.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: I believe they were invited, were

they not?

MS. SCHROEDER (Committee Aide): They called us. They

contacted OLS.

MR. WILLIAMS: Yes, they contacted us.

MR. STOLLER: Oh, okay. Great. We just wanted to ensure that--

We didn’t know what the scope of this particular hearing was.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: They were very aware of it.

MR. STOLLER: Oh, okay. Very good.

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We would just like to say that, obviously, our Association has an

ongoing interest in communicating with the business community to get the

information out that helps with compliance, to work with this Committee, to

work with the Department of Labor, any of the other appropriate agencies, to

make sure that the labor laws are being complied with.

And, again, we just renew that offer, once again.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: Thank you, Jeff. We appreciate

it.

MR. STOLLER: Thank you.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: And before we end our meeting --

something I was remiss with last time -- I just want to welcome Gary Guear

back to the Labor Committee.

Welcome back, Gary.

ASSEMBLYMAN GUEAR: Thank you.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: Motion to adjourn.

Oh, I’m sorry, and my new Vice-Chair, Joe Egan.

ASSEMBLYMAN EGAN: Thank you.

What we can do, Madam Chair, is get this room temperature so

that we can sit here in a little comfort. I can’t take it.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN FRISCIA: Okay. We’ll see what we can do

next time.

Meeting adjourned.