Concerned about safety issues, Mayor Pro Tem Jackie Goodman and Council Member Raul Alvarez recently sent a letter to Austin Energy’s Andy Ramirez requesting information about the alleged use of nonunion contract labor by the South Texas Project Nuclear Operating Company — the nonprofit that oversees plant operations and whose board of directors includes Ramirez. Austin Energy owns a 16% share of the Wadsworth plant, along with AEP-Central Power and Light, City Public Service of San Antonio, and Reliant Energy HL&P.
Goodman and Alvarez’s letter is partly the result of meetings with representatives of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 66, which has roughly 300 members employed at STP. The union and the company have struggled to sign a contract agreeable to both parties since November 2000, but IBEW strongly objects to the company’s desire to let nonunion workers hold the same jobs as dues-paying IBEW members. “We don’t want to go back to the old days when [the plant] gets shut down for having troubles with unqualified employees,” said IBEW Local 66 Business Manager Greg Lucero. STP wants “to be able to cut back on training of workers they’re bringing in and revert the responsibility to contractors” and union workers who have earned certification for certain tasks. Meanwhile, Lucero adds, “a lot of contractors could care less about how their employees are trained.” As an example, he cites STP’s award of a painting contract to a maintenance/cleaning contractor. “One woman [I know of] was a cleaner and is now a painter. She’s never painted in her life.”
In their letter to Ramirez, who serves as Austin Energy’s senior vice-president of power production, Goodman and Alvarez say they were told that the STP Board had insisted the hiring issue become top priority during negotiations. “[I]f the union does not agree to this proposal and the rest of the already agreed to language in the contract, the offer will be taken off the table,” they related. “To your knowledge, has the board taken such a position?”
Ramirez told the Chronicle that the plant drives negotiations but presents items to the board of directors for concurrence. The proposal to hire nonunion contract labor “was a reasonable request,” he said, considering that the current contract allows STP to hire nonunion workers as long as the plant pays an additional fee to IBEW. Now, STP hopes to avoid paying that fee to the union.
Austin Energy has drafted a response to Goodman and Alvarez and is waiting for General Manager Juan Garza to sign off. But regarding safety concerns posed by training discrepancies between union and nonunion workers, Ramirez asserts that Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations require equal standards. “Different training requirements aren’t possible,” he said, adding that STP is “very committed” to IBEW, and is “not out to replace union workers.”
According to an NRC spokesman, however, agency regulations do not apply to all trade workers (electricians, pipe fitters, welders, etc.) but only those whose performance has a direct bearing on reactor safety. Lucero says that while all workers at STP must get “a small amount” of training to work at the plant, the union requires training above the minimum standards.
This article appears in March 29 • 2002.