HECO strike: 1,300 workers walk off the job amid outages

Star Advertiser ^ | March 5, 2011 | By Alan Yonan Jr. and Rob Shikina

[Islander7]

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About 1,300 HECO workers who are members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1260 went on strike at 3:30 p.m. yesterday and began walking picket lines on Oahu, the Big Island and in Maui County.

--- snip

HECO workers said the two sides disagreed on a management proposal to raise the age of retirement with full benefits to 62 from 60; a proposed reduction in sick leave benefits; and a plan to create a two-tier contract with new hires receiving lower wages and benefits.

[Islander7]

Quince Mento, Hawaii County Civil Defense administrator, said Hawaii Electric Light Co. has informed the county that it has more than 100 management personnel to take over operations for striking workers.

"They will do their best to take care of operations," Mento said.

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Well, the power is finally restored. Comments on the article are running heavily in opposition to the union. Go figure! Lots of union supporting folks have been introduced first hand to union thug tactics.

[dsrtsage]

Fire them all, let god sort them out

[Cicero]

Full benefits at the age of 60. That’s practically as good as Greece.

[BenKenobi]

“new hires receiving lower wages and benefits”

Screw that. Do this for everyone.

[FlingWingFlyer]

How ‘bout those union thugs? It’s always about them. If the snotty nosed little, NON-WORKING, brats don’t get their way, they always go on strike. That’s why unions are not good for American and we need to get rid of them. Give the jobs to people who WANT to work!

[WVNan]

I would think that going on strike in this financial climate is not a very good idea. I keep recalling the Kroger employees sitting out in the store’s parking lot, striking. In about two months the store closed. Now we don’t have a Kroger store and they don’t have jobs.

[ml/nj]

The union babe that called Rush yesterday was IBEW. I wish he would have asked her why changing a light bulb in New York City (at Yankee Stadium at least) requires a union electrician or three.

ML/NJ

[blam]

Shoot all union thugs, now!

[Abathar]

How long until someone starts throwing rolls of aluminum foil across the big transformers around town I wonder? Of course I grew up around the Detroit area so my view of union strong-arm tactics is a bit shaded...

[FlingWingFlyer]

I know too many union types. I’ve got them in the extended family. I find them all very unAmerican and very greedy. They are always looking for ways around having to pay taxes and it’s always about them. They do not vote for what is good for America, they vote for anyone who will give them more freebies and more money to buy more “toys”. I don’t like those people.

[knittnmom]

Some of my family worked for Caterpillar in Peoria. For a few years, it seemed they were either on layoff, or on strike. Sometimes, the union called a strike just after they were called back to work. One relative moved to Florida, took a job in restaurant service. He said, yeah, I’m only making $8/hour instead of $27, but I’m employed year round. Not on layoff or strike 18 of 24 months.

[PapaBear3625]

The union babe that called Rush yesterday was IBEW. I wish he would have asked her why changing a light bulb in New York City (at Yankee Stadium at least) requires a union electrician or three.

At a building in Manhattan, a guy I knew got tired of waiting for the building electrician to replace a florescent bulb over his cube, so he went to the closet, got one, and replaced it himself.

The electrician comes along later and says to him "What are you doing?! You're talking food out of my kids mouths!"

My friend replies "Your kids are too fat anyway."

He got written up for that remark, but it was worth it.

[Thermalseeker]

Back when I was in graduate school I worked for Simplex, a major fire alarm manufacturer of high rise fire alarms. One of the big jobs I participated in was the Marquis II office tower, part of the Peachtree Center office complex in downtown Atlanta. This was a 33 story office tower. The IBEW electricians had been wiring the building for months for the fire alarm. When we arrived to to the final hookup and testing the room that contained the fire alarm panels was about 15’x15’ with 6’ tall fire alarm panels lining the walls. Each had between 200-300 wires hanging loose at each panel. No biggie. We saw that a lot. The problem came when we realized that these dipwads had wired the entire building without marking a single wire as to it’s destination. When I inquired with the IBEW “Master Electrician” who was running that part of the project he said “we thought you’d know where they go”. It said plain as day on every print that marking both ends of every wire was required. They spent the next eight weeks ringing out wires and tagging them so that we could do the final termination and testing. Many of the so-called “electricians” I worked with on that project, every one of them IBEW members, did not even know how to use a volt meter. Real, true professionals!

[FlingWingFlyer]

Unbelievable. I think that their shoddy workmanship comes from their “You can’t fire me!” attitude.

[unixfox]

Full benefits at the age of 60.

And to think that most people have to work till they are 65 to pay for govt leaches!

[wally_bert]

I’ve been in that building a few times on my rare visits to Atlanta.

Not that long ago, I looked into union electrical training/apprecnticeship that was advertised. I have some electrical and electronics background including knowing to how to use a meter and I went to an interview at the run down union hall.

It went well enough and it was mostly technical but like 99% of my interviews that I have had in the past couple of years, nowhere.

[ml/nj]

My experience was that I was responsible for the bulb matrix scoreboards, installed by the company I worked for in exchange for advertising revenue, during the renovation of Yankee Stadium completed in 1976. So we always wanted the thing to look as good as possible. The thing was a real light bulb eater, so usually 100 or more bulbs had to be replaced for each game. One fall afternoon in 1976, at 4PM I looked out at the scoreboard before a scheduled 8 PM playoff game, I saw our two sainted IBEW light bulb changers sitting in the bleachers shooting the breeze with the usual number of dead bulbs still to be changed. So I went out to the scoreboard and started changing the bulbs myself. What did I know? And I wasn't taking any bread out of any kid's mouth. The IBEW guys were still getting paid, but for BSing instead of changing light bulbs. The Union got very p!ssed. At 7 PM it still wasn't clear that THEY were going to ALLOW the game to be played. Working at the Stadium was a real dream. We weren't even allowed to run our own extension cords.

ML/NJ

[SgtHooper]

“...it has more than 100 management personnel to take over operations for striking workers.”

If that’s all it takes, fire the union bastages and let management do the work for a little extra pay and bennies.

[FreedomPoster]

Good God, that’s just pitiful.

I was a Co-op at a Georgia Power plant in college. The dos and don’ts due to being a non-covered employee were pretty interesting. All the electricians were IBEW, and I think the mechanics too. They might have been Machinists. I was working with the instrumentation and controls technicians. Good times, I learned a lot.

[TStro]

I had a friend worked at the Bell Helicopter Textron plant in Amarillo years back. One Friday pm, a heli had to go out. He finished the part around 5:30. It was a small part, but he had to get the expediter to take it. Couldn’t find him (they were all on overtime). Finally found the union slug sitting in the break room with the other union slugs shooting the breeze. Had to wait till 9:30 for the guy to finish his break and pick up the part. Moved it about 100 feet to the waiting heli.