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Strike vote looming for Nine Mile Point nuclear plant operators [28Jun11] - 0 views

www.syracuse.com/...e_vote_looming_for_nine_m.html

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 28 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • Syracuse, N.Y. -- Owners of the Nine Mile Point nuclear plants say they plan to keep the reactors operating even if nearly half of the work force walks out on strike Friday morning.
  • Constellation Energy Nuclear Group and IBEW Local 97, the union representing workers at Nine Mile station, will begin working with a federal mediator Wednesday in hopes of forging a new contract before the deadline Thursday night. But some management employees began “job shadowing” their union colleagues Monday, in case the talks fail and non-union workers have to take over, said Jill Lyon, speaking for Constellation.
  • The company has spent the past year devising its contingency plan and training managers to step in if the union goes on strike, Lyon said. “We don’t expect or want a work stoppage,” Lyon said. “But because of what we do, we have to be prepared.” Local 97 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers represents 560 of the roughly 1,000 employees at Nine Mile Point, including control room operators, radiation protection personnel, emergency response workers and others.
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Nine Mile Point nuclear workers in Oswego County strike after labor talks fail [09Jul11] - 0 views

www.syracuse.com/...le_point_nuclear_worker_1.html

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 28 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • Scriba, NY -- Today, for the first time in four decades, workers who operate two nuclear power plants in Oswego County went on strike. At midnight Friday, when a shift ended at Nine Mile Point Unit 1 and Unit 2, Constellation Energy Nuclear Group managers relieved union co-workers at desks throughout the plants.
  • The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 97 called for 460 workers to go on strike in the plants owned by Constellation Energy Nuclear Group after a final contract negotiating session lasted just minutes Friday morning. CENG will temporarily run the two reactors in Scriba with management workers, said Jill Lyon, a company spokeswoman. “... We are prepared to safely run the facility,” Lyon said in a statement issued hours before the company’s contract with the IBEW expired.
  • Local 97 represents 590 of the roughly 1,000 workers at the plant, including control-room operators, radiation-protection personnel, emergency-response workers and others, said Theodore Skerpon, Local 97 president. About 460 of the workers will be on strike. IBEW-represented security officers are not permitted to strike. CENG has spent the past year devising its contingency plan and training managers to step in if necessary, Lyon said.
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  • Strikes by nuclear plant operators are rare, but not illegal. There has never been a strike at the two Nine Mile Point plants, which became operational in 1969 and 1988. CENG purchased the plants for $762 million from Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. in 2001.
  • Skerpon said the union does not believe management workers have been sufficiently trained. “These management personnel haven’t been doing hands-on work like my members have,” he said. He said management workers began job-shadowing their IBEW counterparts only two weeks ago. “I would say the public should be concerned to the point that they should question it,” Skerpon said. “I’m not telling anyone to evacuate their house. But they should be concerned enough to question it.”
  • The last strike at a nuclear plant in the Northeast occurred in 2003 at Oyster Creek, N.J., where more than 200 workers walked off the job when contract talks broke down. The strike lasted about 11 weeks.
  • Dave Lochbaum, director of the nuclear safety project for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that management workers have safely operated other nuclear plants during strikes. Nuclear plant owners typically replace striking workers with managers who hold licenses to operate nuclear plants and who work daily in the plant control room or in training rooms, said Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer who worked 17 years in nuclear plants. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission sent three extra inspectors to Scriba to monitor the two nuclear plants around the clock from inside their control rooms during the first 48 hours of the strike, an NRC spokesman said. After that, inspectors will remain on-site 24 hours a day for the next couple of weeks to make sure things are going smoothly, said Diane Screnci, speaking for the NRC.
  • Screnci said the NRC has reviewed the company’s plans for operating the plants during the strike and is satisfied that its replacement operators can operate them safely. If the NRC inspectors find the replacement workers can’t do the job, they will order the plants be shut down, Lochbaum said. “The safety net the public has is the NRC watching the first few days,” Lochbaum said
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Leakage causes operators to shut down Nine Mile 2 nuclear plant [06Aug11] - 0 views

www.syracuse.com/...ge_causes_operators_to_sh.html

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 08 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • Scriba, NY – The Nine Mile Point 2 nuclear station was shut down this morning after higher than normal leakage was detected in its drywell, the plant’s operator said. Constellation Energy Nuclear Group officials declared an “unusual event,” the lowest-level emergency, at 3:22 a.m. and began a controlled shutdown, Constellation officials said in a prepared statement. The leakage rate decreased as the reactor power declined, allowing plant officials to call off the unusual event at 11:27 a.m. Employees this afternoon continued to seek the cause of the leak. The plant will remain shut down so repairs can be made, Constellation officials said. The incident posed no risk to the public or plant employees, officials said.
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Oswego nuclear worker pleads guilty to falsifying worker safety tests [08Sep11] - 0 views

www.syracuse.com/...o_nuclear_worker_pleads_g.html

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 09 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • An Oswego man has pleaded guilty to falsifying tests of safety equipment at the James A. Fitzpatrick Nuclear Power Plant in Scriba, federal prosecutors announced this morning. Michael McCarrick, a former radiation protection technician at Fitzpatrick, falsified records relating to 32 nuclear plant workers, U.S. Attorney Richard S. Hartunian said in a news release. The plea said McCarrick documented that the employees had completed tests to make sure emergency respirators were properly fitted and sealed, but no such tests were done.
  • No known injuries occurred as a result of the falsified tests. McCarrick pleaded guilty to one count of a felony violation of the Atomic Energy Act. He could receive up to two years in prison and a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced on Jan. 10.
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