File rate application with PUB before cuts: NDP to Hydro

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This article was published 10/06/2020 (2088 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In an effort to get a public review of pending Manitoba Hydro layoffs, the Manitoba NDP is asking the Crown corporation to make a rate application before the Public Utilities Board.

“It is imperative that Hydro immediately file a rate application with the PUB so that the impact of the layoffs on the services provided to Manitobans can be publicly examined and studied prior to their full implementation,” said a letter sent Monday to Hydro president Jay Grewal from NDP leader Wab Kinew and Manitoba Hydro critic Adrien Sala.

“We think the job cuts and other layoffs are going to damage the utility,” Kinew said Tuesday. “Before Hydro does something that’s going to permanently damage its service to Manitobans, the public should have the facts.”

On Friday, Manitoba Hydro announced the four-month layoff of 200 workers in response to government-mandated cost-cutting, 190 of whom belong to Local 2034 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers saluted in the legislature for their work during last fall’s ice storm.

In addition to the IBEW layoffs, Hydro said 12 members of its natural gas unit would also be temporarily laid off. An official with their union, Unifor, said the dozen workers include eight first responders to emergency calls.

While both unions had been offered three days of unpaid leave for all members in place of temporary layoffs for some, they said they balked at the proposal when Hydro wouldn’t assure them there’d be no future layoffs.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 998 has recommended that its members — 900 clerical and administrative staff at the corporation — accept the unpaid days off. They’re expected to vote this week, starting Wednesday. They’d been trying to get a guarantee there would be no layoffs if they accept the unpaid days off. However, as of Tuesday, had only been given a promise of no COVID-19-related layoffs. If it rejects the unpaid leave days, 28 of its members will be laid off for four months.

The NDP says it’s concerned Hydro can’t afford any more staff reductions without it having a negative effect on service.

Last September, Grewal sent a message reassuring staff that Hydro had already achieved the staffing-reduction targets set out earlier by the provincial government, and layoffs weren’t imminent.

Just over a year ago, after Hydro had already cut staff by 872 positions — 14 per cent — over the preceding two years, the Pallister government asked Hydro and other Crown corporations to cut management staff by 15 per cent and their overall workforce by eight per cent. Hydro spokesman Bruce Owen said at the time that any further staff cuts would be risky.

“We believe that further staff reductions would significantly increase the risk of public and employee safety, of system reliability… as well as our ability to provide reasonable levels of service to our customers,” Owen told the Free Press last May.

On Tuesday, Owen said there are no plans to submit a general rate application (GRA) at the Public Utilities Board.

“The preparation of a GRA takes months of work prior to the commencement of hearing themselves, and as such is not feasible at this time,” Owen said.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca