Subject: [SocialistWorker.org] Locked out at a nuclear plant
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http://socialistworker.org/2012/06/11/locked-out-at-a-nuclear-plant
Analysis
======== LOCKED OUT AT A NUCLEAR PLANT =======================================
Chris Morrill and Ann Coleman report on a lockout at a Massachusetts nuclear
power plant--and argue that environmental activists have a stake in this
fight.
June 11, 2012
SOME 250 workers are locked out at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant in Plymouth,
Mass., as facility owner Entergy tries to squeeze more concessions from
members of Utility Workers Union of America (UWUA) Local 369. Front and
center among workers' concerns are untrained scabs and management running a
nuclear facility.
Two days after workers voted overwhelmingly to reject the final contract
offer by their employer, Entergy responded by escorting UWUA workers off-site
at midnight on June 5. Since then, the union has organized round-the-clock
pickets to protest the lockout at the facility 45 miles south of Boston.
At the heart of Entergy's demands is increasing workers' health care burden.
While Pilgrim workers already pay 25 percent of health care costs, Entergy is
seeking to double that amount--effectively a huge wage cut as families
languish during the worst recession in decades.
But it's not as if Entergy is hurting. The company rakes in over $1 million
in profits every day from Pilgrim, and Entergy owns several other lucrative
power plants around the country in states like Michigan, Arkansas and
Vermont. Just last year, Chairman and CEO J. Wayne Leonard made $18 million.
As if that wasn't enough, Entergy was recently awarded a 20-year extension by
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Despite community opposition, the
NRC guaranteed 20 years of profits for Entergy executives, denying a full
investigation of long-term safety and environmental concerns.
Flush with profits and a guaranteed source of revenue at Pilgrim, Entergy is
seizing an opportunity much like employers across the country. The weakness
of organized labor and the recession has given Entergy the confidence to try
to extract more concessions from its workers.
But Pilgrim workers aren't taking it sitting down. In May, Pilgrim workers
had voted more than 85 percent in favor of authorizing the local leadership
to call a strike. When Entergy's final offer was put up for a vote last
Sunday, workers overwhelmingly rejected it. There's a sense of anger and
willingness to fight on the picket lines.
Beyond a willingness to fight, how can Pilgrim workers win? Building
confidence among the rank-and-file members and grassroots support in the
community will be key. As the lockout continues, there will be pressure for
the union to give in to a bad contract. Workers' morale will need to remain
high if they are to hold out against Entergy.
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IN ADDITION to the battle between workers and Entergy, local activists have
continued to organize for a nuke-free Plymouth. Groups like Pilgrim Watch
have held their own pickets at the plant over the past few months, and have
organized town referendums against Pilgrim's license renewal.
Rather than keeping these struggles separate, environmentalists should be
front and center in aiding UWUA workers.
Many of the Pilgrim workers have been at the plant for more than 20 years and
are witnesses to the devastation caused by deregulation of electricity. After
the oil crisis of the 1970s, there was a drive by corporations and the
federal government to deregulate energy, transportation and communications.
In New England, deregulation was not complete until 1997.
With promises of more competition, cheaper energy prices and alternative
generation options, deregulation has instead enabled a for-profit drive that
disregards both the environment and workers.
Anti-nuke activists and workers can accomplish much more united than divided.
With scab replacements running a facility that has the same design as the
four reactors at Fukushima-Daiichi in Japan, community safety concerns are
even graver than before the lockout. UWUA Local 369 President Dan Hurley
said:
>Entergy's complete and utter disregard for the safety and well-being of
>Massachusetts workers and communities has been well documented. Rather than
>head back to the bargaining table and negotiate in good faith, Entergy makes
>coercive statements and attempts to intimidate the workers who safely run
>Pilgrim Nuclear.
>
>It's disgusting that Entergy CEO Wayne Leonard and Chief Nuclear Officer
>John Herron have made hundreds of millions of dollars over the past several
>years, and yet company executives lock out workers who not only have young
>children and bills to pay, but who keep our communities safe.
>
Companies like Entergy use everything they have to pit environmentalists
against the workers. The drive for a more sustainable energy program must
take on wider structural changes that curtail the power of the corporations
by forcing the government to regulate their operations as a part of a broader
government action plan on the environment.
Real worker and environmental reforms can and have been won when we
collectively demand, organize and fight for them. As Chris Williams states in
the book, /Ecology and Socialism/, "The self-regulating capitalist enterprise
is a contradiction in terms. Only through governmental regulation such as
occurred in the 1970s--changes to laws and the redirection of governmental
subsidies through collective and determined action--can we hope to have an
impact within the time frame given to us."
By building a mass community movement in favor of a "no concession" contract
for workers and against nuclear power companies like Entergy,
environmentalists can be instrumental in winning UWUA workers a good
contract--and building trust with those who hold the power to transform our
energy priorities to the interests of people rather than profits.
Union workers who have the training and expertise maintaining such facilities
will also have the expertise to safely put it out to pasture, but only as a
part of a long-term sustainable drive that holds the corporations and
government accountable.
The stakes of this fight go beyond the Plymouth workers, or the safety of the
Massachusetts Bay. UWUA Local 369 is currently in a contract battle with
NSTAR as well, one of the largest energy providers in Massachusetts.
This fight is particularly significant for another of Entergy's holdings,
Yankee Nuclear Plant in Vermont. In 10 weeks, workers' contracts are up at
that plant as well. If the employer lockout succeeds, it would have a harmful
ripple effect to this and other upcoming contract fights.
That's why there's an urgency to support locked-out Pilgrim workers and help
them win in the here and now. If environmentalists and labor are able to
unite, it could set a precedent for building a united movement for workers'
rights and the beginning of a more sustainable energy plan for the planet.
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