The System Council met this week for the first of three meetings this year. There were are lot of topics discussed and I will be giving a full report at our next regular meeting. One of the items that was on the floor for discussion concerned finding a better system to track grievances. The Council examined several different systems and we finally settled on a system that would allow the membership to log on and see the status of each grievance. It will take us some time to get it loaded and up to speed but the final product will provide all of us a tool to research grievances. I will be publishing that web link once we have a sufficient amount of information logged into the system.
One other topic I would like to discuss is the Florida Utility Alliance. I am currently in Gainesville meeting with all of the IBEW Locals who have jurisdiction in the utility sector. The reports from FP&L, TECO, SECO, JEA, Gulf Power and Progress are all so close you'd think it was the same managers running all of the companies listed. The number one issue concerns the staffing levels on the line crews and in the power plants. The need for Journeymen in each craft is only going to get worse and the resolution to the problem may come too late. We have been telling our management team for several years now that home grown Journeymen are the way to go and improvements to our apprentice programs has to come sooner rather than later. Unfortunately I don't think we are moving fast enough to fix the root of the problem. The companies are all looking for journeymen and the pool to draw from has been draining for quite some time now.
There were several other topics discussed at the meeting but I would like to save that for future information. My newsletter should be out in a couple of weeks and I will be giving thorough reports on both meetings at the May 7, 2007 regular union meeting. As a reminder, we have local union nominations at that meeting. I hope that all of you will attend and exercise your right to nominate the officers who will be running the local union for the next three years.
Please continue to work safe and I look forward to seeing you there on May 7th.
David B Price
President
IBEW LU 1412
