Jun 27, 2007
Energy workers to decide on union
700 employees at nuclear plant to vote Thursday

By Sam Scott
Staff Writer
sam.scott@starnewsonline.com

For a long time, Ralph Whitman said he was anti-union, associating the organizations with the overbearing ways of his father-in-law, an auto worker who would jump down his throat for driving a Toyota.
But now Whitman is among the rank-and-file at Progress Energy's Southport nuclear plant who are pushing for collective representation. On Thursday, he and 700 other workers at Progress' nuclear plants in Southport and near Raleigh and Hartsville, S.C., will vote on whether to join the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
The union has members at 60 percent of the nation's nuclear reactors.
For management, a "yes" when results are announced Friday would be a step backward, threatening to drive a wedge between workers and management, and handicapping the company's agility to do business as it needs to.
"Basically what the union does is add a layer to business that you don't really need," said Rick Kimble, spokesman for the Raleigh-based utility. "It's better to work directly with our employees and resolve our problems than it is to go through a third party."
Whitman said the situation would never have advanced this far if teamwork and communication had received the attention they have been receiving from management as the vote nears.
A new management team brought in several years ago came in with the message that the Brunswick plant was broken, blaming workers for doing what the previous regime wanted, he said. At the same time, a survey of worker concerns resulted in few changes, Whitman said.
That brought up old anger about a change in retirement benefits, he said. In 1999, Progress switched from a fixed pension plan, which pays out until death, to a cash-balance plan where the company makes regular contributions to an interest-bearing account that the worker might outlive.
Workers at Progress Energy's unionized plants in Florida were allowed to stay in the old system with the change affecting only new hires. In North Carolina, the change was across the board, Kimble said.
But Kimble said the newer system was also best overall for many employees. Progress has to offer attractive benefits to keep and recruit workers in the competitive field, he said.
In fact, workers in the Carolinas enjoy benefits like stock incentives that are not available to union members, he said.
Still, C.J. King, a union organizer with IBEW, said the nearly decade-old change to the retirement plan and the erosion of other benefits were the driving force to join a union.
King said he didn't know whether union backers had the votes but said he was "cautiously optimistic."
The results are based on the number of votes at the three plants combined.
Kimble said there are lots of workers who are against it.
If union supporters prevail, they will go against the grain in the Carolinas, the states with the lowest percentage of workers in unions in the country, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
In the 1930s and 1940s, when unions were establishing elsewhere, the two states lacked the large industry to support them, said Steven Allen, a professor of business management and economics at N.C. State University. Small textile plants didn't have the profit margins to make unions possible.
"For a union to be successful and protect jobs and raise wages, (the companies) have to have a somewhat sheltered economic environment," Allen said.
More recently, union memberships have been in decline in the private sector nationwide for the past 50 years, he said. Historically, unions have made the workplace safer and better-paying, but Allen said they typically come at a cost.
"It has got to come out of the customers' pockets in terms of higher prices or out of shareholder pockets in terms of lower profits," he said.
A victory would have "moderate to high significance" as it could inspire unions to organize elsewhere in the state, he said.
North Carolina is a right-to-work state where workers at unionized companies are not required to pay dues or join, Allen said.
"It makes the unions' job a lot harder," he said.

Sam Scott: 343-2370

Source: StarNewsOnline.com