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Utility's offer on contract doesn't sit well with union
By LOUIS HAU, Times Staff Writer ST. PETERSBURG -- Florida Power Corp. has proposed making sweeping changes to employee schedules and benefits in preliminary contract talks with a union representing 2,100 of its 4,500 workers, according to the union. The strong reaction of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers to many of the St. Petersburg utility's contract proposals doesn't bode well for formal contract negotiations that are scheduled to start Oct. 1. It's the first union negotiations for Florida Power's parent, Progress Energy Inc. of Raleigh, N.C., which has a nonunion work force in its home state. "What they've given us is unacceptable, we can't live with it," said W.O. "Butch" Enyard, lead negotiator for the union and business manager for IBEW System Council U-8 in Dunnellon. Florida Power spokesman Aaron Perlut declined to comment on the contract proposals, saying the company had assured the union "we would not negotiate through the media." Florida Power and IBEW officials met Wednesday to exchange proposals on a new contract to replace a three-year pact that expires Dec. 1. Among the proposals confirmed by the union: The utility has proposed dropping automatic annual pay raises for all unionized employees in favor of merit-based salary increases. Florida Power wants to require employees with working spouses under a separate health plan to use that plan as their primary insurer rather than the utility's own plan. The proposal is opposed by the union, Enyard said, because the company plan "is better in most cases than what spouses have." The utility wants to replace its traditional defined-benefit pension plan with a "cash-balance" plan based on what is already in place at Carolina Power & Light, the Raleigh utility that took over Florida Power in 2000 to form Progress Energy. While the current plan provides a pension based on a worker's highest average salary and years of service, the cash-balance plan would credit an employee's account every year with a percentage of pay plus interest earnings. Upon retirement, the worker would receive a lump sum or an annuity based on the value of the accounts. The switch to such a plan typically benefits younger workers at the expense of those nearer retirement, although CP&L executives have said they adjusted their plan to protect the interest of older employees. Florida Power also has proposed a number of scheduling changes, such as requiring "shift" workers -- those in jobs staffed around the clock, such as power plant workers and dispatchers -- to work 12-hour shifts, rather than eight-hour shifts with overtime pay for additional work. The company also wants to increase the number of lineman crews available to work any five consecutive days of the week, to facilitate weekend staffing. The pension program is a particularly sensitive topic at Florida Power, given the rich farewell payout awarded to Richard Korpan, who was the chairman and chief executive of Florida Power's former parent, Florida Progress, under the terms of CP&L's acquisition of the utility. Korpan received a salary, bonus and severance package worth $17.4-million and continues to collect a pension of $828,845 a year. "We've worked hard to enrich those people and make it a viable company," Enyard said. -- Information from Times files was used in this report. Louis Hau can be reached at hau@sptimes.com and (813) 226-3404.
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From the Times Business report
From the AP
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