History | History |
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Table of Contents
The Early Years This agreement, while short and simple, established some of the founding principles that members built upon in later years as the Union worked to better the wages and working conditions of its members at Springdale, Ridgeway and Connellsville Power Stations.The 17-page agreement
To enforce the terms of the first contract and operate and maintain these collective bargaining responsibilities, Union dues were set at $1 per month. Post-War Union Grows Stronger
Except for cost of living wage adjustments, the agreement stayed pretty much the same throughout World War II. When the war ended in 1945 and veterans began to return to West Penn employment, workers made more demands to improve wages and working conditions and built the solidarity necessary to make major improvements. By 1947, the contract was a completely new document. The Union, now called the Utility Workers Union of America Local 102, not only grew to include Lake Lynn Power Station, but expanded to the Lines, Meter Reading, Garage, Substation and Stores Departments. Branch Locals organized first – Charleroi, Ridgeway, Connellsville, Kittanning and soon reached across the entire West Penn Territory. With this growth in membership came the power and leverage to expand the contract.
The 1947 agreement contains:
This new agreement was 62 pages of guaranteed rights our members were proud of. The stage was now set and members of the Utility Workers Union of America, Local 102 never looked back. Quality of Life Improvements
Through the fifties, the focus turned to quality of life issues.
Union members were able to negotiate language to make their work lives
better such as
Hospitalization coverage remained among the bargaining units’ top priorities through the sixties. In 1963 the union went on strike over the company’s efforts to replace Blue Cross with an inferior plan. As a result, and after much debate and struggle, the Union won the right “to administer all details of a hospitalization and medical plan which is satisfactory to the majority of Union represented employees.” Union members would vote democratically over their health coverage. Members chose to stay with the Blue Cross plan, and Local 102 has administered the plan ever since. Members have come to appreciate the direct assistance and personal attention they receive with enrollment and claims issues when they contact the union office. Keeping the importance of family and personal time at the forefront, the union was able to negotiate significant gains in paid time off through the mid-sixties with a 4th and 5th week of vacation added for 20 and 30 years service respectively, in addition to one personal convenience day for all bargaining unit members. Work to Live, Don’t Live to Work
Long working hours had always been part of the job for Utility Workers at West Penn. Storms and equipment failures made it the norm for workers to toil around the clock, year round, in the most extreme weather conditions.
By 1971, the Union realized that working in these conditions for
more than 16 hours without rest was not only unreasonable, but unsafe.
Members negotiated a rest period that gave workers relief after working
16 hours in a 24 hour period. As an added incentive to the company to
limit such long hours, workers would be paid double time after 16
hours. Union negotiators improved on this provision in the 1980 contract by negotiating the “magic hours rest.” This provision made sure that when workers were called out in the middle of the night and their sleep was interrupted, they would be relieved from duty on paid rest the next day for up to 4 of those lost sleep hours. This provision also improved the callout acceptance rate in the middle of the night. Protecting Members from the Inflationary ’80s
The ’80s were a decade of high inflation, unemployment, and spiraling health care costs, and Local 102 addressed these issues head on in contract negotiations with:
The union negotiated substantial increases in the Company’s contributions to the Union’s medical plan, and, in 1980, full paid hospitalization for individual retirees and in 1984 retiree spouse plus dependent coverage. Better PensionAs the decade came to a close, heavy industry, especially steel, saw many plant closings, so Local 102 turned its attention to protecting the pension. Members negotiated contract provisions that allowed the pension plan to be amended or modified only if it was favorable to the employees covered by the contract. This requires the company to continue plan benefits for the length of each agreement. Better protection from disciplineDefending union members involved in disciplinary proceedings is one of the union’s main obligations, so in 1980 Local 102 successfully bargained the stipulation that disciplinary records over 2 years old would not be used against union members, provided no further infractions or reprimands occurred during that period. The New Energy Corporation Landscape - the ’90s
The ’90s brought on the greatest challenges that the utility industry had ever experienced - deregulation. Large, big business industrial users of electricity joined forces with private capital and energy concerns led by Enron to lobby and convince State Legislatures, primarily in the industrial, highly unionized Northeast, to deregulate. Most of these regulations had been written after the Depression Era, when many electric companies went bankrupt. Regulation allowed individual states to govern and police electric utilities, creating the world’s largest, safest, most reliable and affordable electric generation transmission and distribution system. Despite this success, hollow promises of competition and lower cost rates for electricity, combined with hefty corporate campaign contributions, moved the deregulation scheme forward. By 1995, following other utilities, Allegheny Power (AE) embarked on a total corporation redesign in preparation of deregulation. Massive job cuts swept the non-union workforce, with the company issuing 500 pink slips on one day. By the time this purge was complete, more than 1,000 non-union workers would lose their jobs.
AE then consolidated its three operating companies, West Penn Power, Potomac Edison and Monongahela Power, and layoff notices soon followed. Corporation executives of AE, widely viewed as one of the most cost-efficient, reliable utilities in the Eastern U.S., decided that the company would become a nationwide provider of electric energy services. Even though our workforce numbers were already considered low by industry standards, on March 12, 1996, “in order to stay competitive” Allegheny proposed 97 layoffs of Local 102 members across the West Penn Power System in Pennsylvania. With negotiations already underway and the contract due to expire on April 30, 1996, these cuts became the Local 102 Negotiating Committee’s top priority. Similar job reductions were declared at Potomac Edison, also represented by the UWUA. Local 331 in Hagerstown, Maryland and Local 102 negotiated separately with AE, but worked closely away from the bargaining table. This teamwork paid off as the two locals confronted many first time concepts proposed by the company including resource sharing, ready response truck, cross training and 12 hour schedules. The Union’s first objective however was to protect Union members from forced layoffs. Negotiators were able to bargain an early retirement option and a reduction by attrition agreement. They removed the early retirement penalty for eligible members and protected health care costs for these early retirees by freezing costs at the rate at retirement. With jobs protected, the union completed negotiations by agreeing to voluntary participation in 4 of the company’s pilot programs. On July 15, 1996, the Local 102 membership ratified its new 3-year contract. Officers of Locals 102 and 331 decided to expand their cooperative relationship. As the two locals discussed a merger that would give them a stronger negotiating position next time around, with a strategy of combining their contracts, Allegheny Power and DQE, parent of Duquesne Light Company, announced in April 1997 an agreement to merge in a tax free, stock for stock transaction, creating the 10th largest investor owned utility, with 2 million customers in 5 states. The announcement of this merger concerned both UWUA Locals and the IBEW at Duquesne. It signaled loss of bargaining unit work, job reductions and the combining of the two company work forces. AE ignored the union’s attempt to discuss these changes, so UWUA took legal action by intervening before the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission (PA PUC) opposing the merger. Though the Company claimed the union and its members had no legal rights, either as employees of Allegheny’s workforce, shareholders, or electric consumers, the PUC ruled otherwise. It granted the Union’s request to intervene. The Company finally agreed to meet with the Union to discuss the Union’s concerns.
The parties signed off on a Memorandum of Agreement in October, 1997
that covered all of the DQE merger related issues and made it possible
for the Union to publicly support the DQE merger. The agreement stated
The new UWUA Local 102 grew to include the 1,250 members in PA, MD, WV and VA. UWUA Comes to Allegheny’s RescueNot long after the contract ratification, AE was dealt a huge financial blow when the PUC refused to consider most of the Company’s “Stranded Costs” under its Restructuring Plan. AE approached the Union for help on this stranded cost issue. At the same time DQE announced that it was pulling out of the merger with AE. Keeping its commitment to support AE, Local 102 officers organized a mass rally in Harrisburg, PA to petition the Governor, Legislators and PUC to reconsider the Company’s stranded costs. Petitions with thousands of signatures from Pennsylvania citizens were delivered to Governor Tom Ridge’s office. Union members used the 4-hour bus trip to the State Capitol to train other members as well as non-represented company employees how to lobby. When they arrived, they visited every State Legislator in AE’s Service Territory. Because of these efforts, spearheaded by men and women of Local 102, when the stranded costs of AE were reconsidered, the PUC granted an additional $400 million of stranded cost recovery. But no good deed goes unpunished, and despite the success of these efforts by the Union, as soon as the DQE merger was declared dead by the courts, AE’s attitude towards its bargaining unit members and Local 102 began to sour. It was back to business as usual. Over the next few years the Union came together as one organization covering 4 states and formed a solid bond of solidarity that would help them prepare for the 2001 negotiations. AE’s Expansion Frenzy – The Battle of 2001Prior to and during the 2001 negotiations, Allegheny embarked on an expansion frenzy that defied all logic. AE began building Gas Turbine Generators in the Southwest, bought interest in other generators, purchased 3 Midwest gas turbines from Enron for $1.2 billion in the East, bought West Virginia Power and entered into joint ventures with Adelphia Cable. AE’s purchase of Global Energy Markets from Merrill Lynch put the company into the high-risk Energy Trading Business nationwide. The costs to the Company for these acquisitions soon ran into billions of dollars of debt, while the Company books showed record profits. Union members questioned where the money to pay for all of this was coming from. As the 2001 contract expiration got closer, the Union surveyed the membership and held mass solidarity rallies. Local 102 leaders also began taking a closer look at the Company’s finances.
In February, 2001 Allegheny announced its expansion into the gas utility business with the purchase of Mountaineer Gas for $323 million. Officers from the Mountaineer Gas Unions UWUA Locals 420 and 496 and Paper Allied Industrial Chemical and Energy Workers Union (PACE) Locals 372 and 628 contacted the leaders of Local 102. They were concerned about both job security and Allegheny’s complete lack of experience in the gas utility industry.
Local 102’s initial research indicated that the purchase price of $323 million was more than twice the value of the gas asset. Again the unions attempted to meet with the Company and discuss these issues in the best interest of the public and the Union members. Allegheny resisted all efforts to compromise, so the Unions intervened again, opposing the AE acquisition of Mountaineer. The sale eventually went through (at twice the book value), but because of the Union’s intervention, the jobs of the workers at Mountaineer were protected by the final order of the WV Public Service Commission, and the public could be assured continued safe and high quality service. Gain to Management, Pain to Workers?The tough approach by the Company in negotiations continued. While AE rode high on record corporate profits, and passed out tens of millions of dollars in bonuses to management, it proposed massive take-aways to its frontline workers at the bargaining table. The first assault was on healthcare. AE not only refused to permit the Union from replacing its traditional Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan with a more cost effective PPO, it demanded to take over the healthcare plan with no future bargaining over premium costs or benefit levels. Despite the fact that improvements to the pension had not been made for many years, the company refused to discuss any pension improvements. Rights and protections our forefathers had negotiated were at risk.
As the May 1, 2001 contract expiration date passed, it became clear to the 102 rank and file that AE was out to break the Union. Union members became all the more determined to stay on the job, unite and fight back. Company executives bent on destroying AE as we know it, announced they would split the generating supply stations into a separate, independent company, by way of an IPO (initial public offering). The regulated delivery (wire) business would be left behind and the upper executives would take control of the new generating company and all of its megawatt (profit) generating assets. AE was still collecting millions of dollars in “stranded costs” on these generation units, as a result of deregulation, and to spin off these assets would not be in the public interest and may not even be legal. The Union once again filed motions before the PA PUC and was granted intervener status by the courts. The Union began a campaign called “STOP the Allegheny Ripoff” to put an end to this new brainchild of AE. Union members spoke out at rallies, to legislators and to media. The Union purchased billboards in strategic locations and hundreds of union members wore anti- IPO T-shirts. By the time the union prepared to file legal briefs, and before hearings were convened, AE announced that the IPO was now not in the Company’s interest. The pressure had worked. Union members spent little time celebrating. May 1, 2002 would mark one year with no new collective bargaining agreement. They kept up their campaign against corporate greed, and the Company announced that the AE pension multiplier would be increased voluntarily. Union members knew they had caused this so-called voluntary pension improvement by AE. AE SettlesBehind the scenes, AE’s pyramid scheme to become a nationwide provider of energy was beginning to crumble. By June 2002, the Company showed signs it wanted to end the battle with System Local 102. By April 28, after round-the-clock weekend negotiations before a widely-renowned mediator, we came to a tentative agreement.
The take-away demands were gone.
Corporate MeltdownOnce again however, there was no time to celebrate. The Company was now late in filing financial reports required by law. Profit statements from previously reported quarters were restated, showing dramatic losses, with the Global Market Energy Trading wing and its head, Dan Gordon accused of “Enronesque” trading practices. Gordon was fired and the billion dollar global energy market eventually shut down. New construction of western generators was stopped at additional hundreds of millions of dollar in costs. Due to the Company’s inability to get credit to purchase natural gas to fire the turbines, the Midwest Enron billion dollar gas turbines, were now not able to run even on the few days per year that there was a market for their electricity. A full blown financial meltdown was now gaining momentum, with possible bankruptcy a real possibility. Before long, the executive management team responsible for the fiasco, from CEO on down, flew the coop. All landed safely and comfortably, thanks to their multi-million dollar golden parachutes, provided by their hand-picked Board of Directors, at employees’ and customers’ expense. Soon there would be hundreds more non-bargaining unit employees receiving pink slips and a new executive team in place (with even bigger and better signing bonuses and golden parachutes). A fire sale of debt ridden, non-core assets and re-finance of billions in long term debt were the first order of business for the new management team. UWUA – Proof that Unions WorkWorkers at AE who don’t have a union never had the protection, rights and voice at work that the Union members of UWUA Local 102 have enjoyed since the 1940s. Through all of these industry changes and shifts, corporate mergers, deregulation and downsizing, those workers have suffered from that insecurity and sense of powerlessness. Only the Union has been able to speak and act effectively on behalf of workers, because we use the strength of our combined and organized voices to do it. The history of the Utility Workers Union of America, System Local 102, is still being recorded. One thing remains constant - 102 members will continue the difficult and dangerous work of maintaining electric service to more than 1 million homes in PA, MD, WV, and VA. Rank and file 102 members will continue to fight for our share of profits from our labor. The struggle to improve safety, wages, benefits and working conditions is never over.  When Allegheny Power said, "Let 'em eat cake" we did! |
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Local 102 members offer a standing ovation at a 2001 Contract Campaign Solidarity Rally.
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