The union workers’ strike at the Eugene Water and Electric Board has ended, but now the city utility is suing the State of California to clear its name.
During the energy crisis of 2000-01, EWEB spokesman Marty Douglass said, the utility sold power to the State of California at market price- a price Douglass called “extremely high.” Since this sale, Douglass said, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) has “periodically made noises about seeking refunds.”
Douglass said the noises amounted to DWR people talking in industry circles about perusing a lawsuit against EWEB. He said
about a year ago California looked into suing EWEB, but decided not to while keeping the option open.
Tom Dresslar, a spokesman for the attorney general of California who is representing the DWR, said “We’re still looking at the complaint. We will respond appropriately in court.”
Douglass said EWEB is simply looking for a statement from Lane County Circuit Court that would bar California from seeking legal recourse, to get them to “cool it,” and to “get this California cloud from over our heads.”
“We too had to purchase high-prices power,” Douglass said. “We don’t feel any refunds are due to us.”
He said EWEB went $30 million into debt from purchasing power in the high-priced market of the early days of the century.
“They would not prevail in any lawsuit against us,” Douglass said. “We’ve done nothing wrong.”
The utility and members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) who had been on strike will work on approving a new contract during the comingweeks. The workers, who initially demanded expanded health care benefits, Veterans Day as a paid holiday and extra pay for the first three
months of this year, achieved two of their three goals in the
new contract.
After the three-year contract expired Dec. 31, 2005, EWEB and the union decided to extend the contract for three months. EWEB raised the wages of some of its employees on April 1, and
the union said these raises should apply to wages paid during the first three months spent in negotiations. EWEB officials disagreed.
“We said ‘no, we’re not gonna do that,” Douglass said.
“We asked them about 175 times ‘which one do you want us to negotiate on,” Assistant Business Manager for the IBEW local 659 Lennie Ellis said. “They kept saying ‘pick one.’”
Douglass said the health benefits were a shoe-in. The workers had to chose between the money and the holiday.
“We were thinking they would leave (Veterans Day) out,” Douglass said. “To our surprise, they did just the opposite.”
The workers decided to keep up the demand for Veterans Day because it would affect all workers permanently , Ellis said.
Both Ellis and Douglass said most of the workers were happy to return to their jobs.
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