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Last week's natural gas disaster in the Merrimack Valley has heightened the impact on the lockout of 1,250 unionized National Grid workers, while the security of gas networks in the state is causing growing concern.
Another company, Columbia Gas, serves Lawrence, Andover and North Andover, where explosions and gas fires have killed a person, injured dozens and left 8,500 unserviced customers. But the disaster has put the gas industry in the spotlight, say labor professionals and crisis management, and could give Locked-Out National Grid workers influence over a company that does not want to be considered as endangering public safety. rely on replacement workers as the confrontation continues.
"If people in National Grid's board room were paying attention last Thursday. . . I'm sure they were extremely concerned about the ricochet effect on us? Here, we have locked out all these experienced workers, and are we just far from something similar? Said Robert Forrant, a labor historian at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.
National Grid forced gas workers to leave work at the end of June after refusing to accept a new offer that includes higher health care costs and a Type 401 pension plan ( k) instead of the traditional pension plan.
During the lockout, the unions followed every move of replacement workers, filing nearly 100 safety complaints with the Ministry of Public Services.
A few days before the Merrimack Valley disaster, public officials began pushing back the National Grid. The Attorney General's office called on the DPU to investigate security issues and Governor Charlie Baker met with unionized workers. Meanwhile, Massachusetts AFL-CIO has publicly called on Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts to remove National Grid Massachusetts Chairman Marcy Reed from its board of directors because it cut off its employees from the cover. 'Health Insurance.
On the night of the explosions, when pipeline safety suddenly announced the news, the DPU contacted the unions to schedule a meeting scheduled for next week. This will be the first meeting with lockout workers, despite repeated requests from unions. And the Baker administration told the unions and National Grid they needed "a quick consensus to get people back to work and that all possible resources are available to help the Greater Lawrence Region," he said. a spokesperson.
"I strongly believe that it will make people understand, if they did not realize before the tragedy, that gas can be dangerous and how important it is for the right people to work with it," said John. Buonopane, president of United Steelworkers Local 12012, one of two unions locked out by National Grid on June 25.
Lockout workers volunteered at Lawrence, distributing water and installing beds. But they are frustrated that they can not use their expertise to help the recovery, Buonopane said.
The National Grid territory surrounds the Columbia Gas territory in northern Massachusetts, and Buonopane said that if they had not been locked out, "we would have been the first to react to it. – and probably the natural choice of the governor responsible for recovery efforts, instead of Eversource, after Columbia Gas's response was deemed inadequate.
In the current climate, the fact that National Grid has locked out its employees at the expense of money could also lead the public to wonder if the company is too focused on profits, said Steve Striffler, Labor's director. Resource Center of the University of Massachusetts in Boston.
"If they are willing to make financial concessions to their workers, are they willing to save money in other areas that could have an impact on public safety?" Said Striffler.
National Grid said it was an industry leader in pipeline safety management and that the company had managed more than 18,000 jobs without incident during the lockout.
"We trust every employee and contractor working on our gas system," spokeswoman Christine Milligan said in a statement. "We regularly conduct appropriate examinations and investigations at our work sites and, if safety concerns are identified or observed, we take timely and appropriate action."
But the deadlock with the unions has hurt National Grid's reputation, and last week's tragedy has weakened the company's position, crisis management professionals said.
Initially, there was confusion as to which public service was responsible for the accident, with some Twitter users blaming it for National Grid and wondering if replacement workers had anything to do with it. This kind of ambiguity is good for the unions, said Ashley McCown, president of Boston-based public relations firm Solomon McCown & Co., and it will be important for National Grid to educate people that its workers are not responsible.
"Fear and uncertainty can be a powerful bargaining factor," McCown said.
On Sunday, Columbia Gas announced it would replace and modernize the entire Merrimack Valley natural gas distribution system, a 48-mile pipeline project. The company is modernizing its system across the state, but the project will be expanded and accelerated in the Merrimack Valley. The National Transportation Safety Board has attributed fires and explosions to overpressure in the Columbia system.
This will create a greater need for gas workers, which will increase the National Grid's dependence on contractors during the lockout and may force them to recruit less qualified replacements.
National Grid also hires workers from some of the third-party companies that Columbia Gas does, including Feeney Brothers Utility Services, which is being investigated as part of the National Transportation Safety Board's Explosions investigation. This association does not look good for society, even if it does not affect the security of National Grid, said Striffler.
"Nobody suggested that they had the same problems," he said. "Still, we did not think Columbia Gas had a problem either before it was a disaster."
Still, unions should be careful not to exploit the tragedy, Forrant said, union historian UMass Lowell. And National Grid must realize that the public is much more concerned about gas safety than a few days ago.
"It would be wise for National Grid to put an end to the lockout," he said. "Saying" We are aware of the importance of highly skilled workers for these jobs, and we will be looking at how to proceed. "
Katie Johnston can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @ktkjohnston.
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