The hurricane-ravaged east coast has been receiving north Alabama help, but crews learned they’ll be doing work in Long Island, New York instead of in New Jersey.
Crews from Decatur Utilities and Joe Wheeler out of Trinity headed up there this week, but Derrick Moore, one of the Decatur workers, said they were told by crews in New Jersey that they can’t do any work there since they’re not union employees.
The crews that are in Roanoke, Virginia say they are just watching and waiting even though they originally received a call asking for help from Seaside Heights, New Jersey.
The crews were told to stand down. In fact, Moore said the crew from Trinity is already headed back home.
Understandably, Moore said they’re frustrated being told “thanks, but no thanks.”
Huntsville Utilities said they were not turned away and are up in storm ravaged areas working.
(Source: WAFF)
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9 Responses
Governor Christie knows how to look away from politics but JCP&L can’t work with non union workers ????? These guys DROVE from Alabama to HELP not to take over the jobs. At the end of the day unions do more damage for the people then good. The “union” workers must be getting triple overtime and are just “exhausted” already from their 8 hour shifts. Guess that’s why NJ will still be without power for 2 more weeks in certain areas.
UPDATE FROM HUNTSVILLE:
The local (very conservative) News/Talk radio station here (WVNN/770AM) decided to do some further digging. That just had – on the phone – the heads of both the Huntsville Utilities and Joe Wheeler Electric Co-op organizations.
In the case of Joe Wheeler: they ARE a union shop, so that wasn’t even an issue. Their crews were actually sent up ahead of the storm – rode it out in Maryland – and have been working much of the week. The are now coming home as their assignments have been completed.
The Huntsville Crews were en route on Monday, and their bosses were working to try and get them a destination while they were still on the road. They were ‘turned down’ initially from one location simply because that area had plenty of help already. They are now in the Long Island area and expecting to work today. It seems their biggest problem was in trying to find an under-manned area, but they claim to have had no union issues.
The radio station has not (yet) heard from the Decatur (AL) Utilities bosses, but that’s 2 of the 3 groups that were supposedly involved here, and neither of those crews are reporting any union-related rejections.
In fact, one of the directors on the phone indicated that they were working through trade associations – not unions representatives – to get their assignments. But it would seem that the original WAFF report is falling apart.
The unions are destroying America. obama did what he did with GM and Chrysler instead of what Romney suggested in order to win the union votes. The unions destroyed the car industry in America and push things into Canada and Mexico.People are without power, without heat [no power the boilers don’t run], with out lights because of union nonsense. The union heads should go to jail over this since
this is an emergency. I would hope the union thugs don’t have lights in their homes
To No. 3 “Ditzchoky”
You are obviously confused. There were no work crews turned away from any emergency work. This story has been discredited by the Associated Press and all the parties mentioned so I’m not sure why you still rely on it for union bashing. Perhaps go take a somthing to deal with your anger management.
Gadolbe’einav, the story has not been “discredited” by anyone. Decatur Utilities has confirmed that its crew was on its way to Seaside Heights NJ, but at a staging area in Virginia they were told that they would not be allowed to work unless they joined the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. So it’s technically true that they weren’t “turned away” from Seaside Heights, because they never got that far. But it is true that they were prevented from helping.
Doneel, you are just as bad as Gadolbe’einav. Nobody ever claimed that Joe Wheeler or Huntsville Utilities workers were turned away, so your claim that “that’s 2 of the 3 groups that were supposedly involved here” is a blatant falsehood. There’s no reason why “digging” should have involved asking them anything. The only company the story is about is Decatur Utilities, and they have confirmed that it is true.
Milhouse, on Decatur Utilities own website it has a statement which, in part, reads:
“To be clear, at no time were our crews “turned away” from the utility in Seaside Heights.”
Perhaps a little “digging” would do you some good. I can’t find one thing in either of your posts that has turned out to be true.
And you are right Milhouse. No one was ‘turned away’ by definition. The unions, however, presented paperwork that the Alabama Utilities couldn’t agree too. IBEW, in the paperwork, stated that one of the requirements was that Alabama HAD to agree to affiliate themselves with the unions. So, if they were called home because of a disagreement over these contracts, common sense would say that they were told, “either agree to the terms, or you can’t work.” ..unless some other information presents itself otherwise..
In any case, the sad part about this is that much needed help in that area was not ‘turned away’ but denied because the union couldn’t look past Ala. non-union status.
These are crews that have dealt with MANY hurricane/severe storm disasters. They have a lot of expertise in the area of these particular disasters and can offer aid in the wake of all this… Yet they were denied because of an ‘affiliation’ dispute with the union. In my opinion, denying aid because of something as trivial as this is ridiculous.
SuzieQue, you are playing semantic games. They weren’t turned away in Seaside Heights, because they never got there in the first place; they were turned away at the staging area in Virginia. How does that make the article one bit less true? Did it say where they were turned away?