If you’ve had a power outage, you’ll miss Alan Goddard, who passed away today.
Alan was an expert on deregulation of electric utilities. As a key labor spokesman for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, he was often a lonely voice at deregulation hearings in the 1990s.
He lost most of his battles, but not for lack of being on the right side of these policy hearings.
In a nutshell, he said that deregulation of utilities made it easier for companies such as ComEd, Ameren, AEP and others to cut their workforce of union power line employees.
Since the late 1990s, when there is an ice storm, hurricane, tornado or similar force that causes widespread downing of power lines— say, in Illinois (ice), Louisiana (Katrina), Oklahoma (dozens of twisters)— convoys of electric crews crisscross the nation, fulfilling aid and assist pacts. That’s because area utilities have cut more than 50% of their highly trained workers.
The utilities save lots of money—but Alan argued as follows:
These companies save money while making other businesses and homeowners pay for unnecessarily long outages.
When these companies promise to save consumers money, it often doesn’t happen.
At times, America’s power grid has the instability of those found in South America or Asia.
When good paying jobs are lost in a community, there is a pronounced, negative ripple effect.
If deregulation is such a great idea for consumers, why are these regulated monopolies proposing to deregulate themselves, while consumer, labor, and environmental groups oppose these efforts?
Rest in peace, my beloved friend.
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