“What I think would help is to get some of these guys with ties on to come down and see what’s actually going on. They need guidance at a higher level,” Hott said.

Strenuous efforts to mitigate rather than innovate seem likely to increase vulnerabilities by generating public and customer backlash, motivating market competitors, and instigating potential legal challenges.

This story has significant implications for electric utilities facing increasing and especially disruptive competition that may shift their risk position from the zone in which regulation is effective to one in which it is not. That Market Street responded to disruptive competition by simply requesting rate increases from its regulator reveals denial that their economic woes were due to fundamentally changed circumstances that required new organizational strategy, not just regulatory intervention. Market Street, while fully understanding the existence of threats to its viability, showed no real signs of innovation or adaptation in this regard, but rather continued a reliance on conventional cost-accounting-based utility ratemaking practices to the bitter end.

In the end, the electric utility as an institutional form has not exhausted its relevance. Claims that utilities are in a certain death spiral seem premature. However, those predictions seem disturbingly grounded in tacit assumptions that utilities are too hidebound by their past to be able to adapt in a timely or agile way to rapidly changing conditions. If so, utilities will find themselves to be brittle rather than resilient when confronting disruptive competition in a sector that is central to social, economic, security, and environmental necessities and, therefore, cannot remain static. All signs point to the reality that utilities must change. The open question is whether they will change by embracing and, indeed, leading value creation or be changed by others in the market who embrace it first and more firmly.

The breakfast meeting will include “the standard list of characters,” he said when asked who will attend.

Any time there is a bill inquiry on the account more than one occasion we do send out to verify a check reading..."

Converting from bimonthly to monthly meter reading in the territory of both FirstEnergy operating companies in West Virginia will require a transition period that allows FirstEnergy time to procure additional  equipment, hire and train new meter readers and make any necessary changes to its billing platform. Therefore, the Commission will require that FirstEnergy implement monthly meter reading as quickly as possible, and no later than July 1, 2015. The Commission will monitor the transition as part of the adjustment to its metrics discussed below. The Commission will be watching for continued improvement and consistent performance. The handling of current annual read customers will also be discussed in the relevant section below. FirstEnergy should file amendments to the tariffs of each West Virginia operating company that provide for monthly meter reading and billing for residential customers. Finally, FirstEnergy may request to amend its filings in the pending general rate proceeding and provide evidence of the reasonable increase in the estimated cost of service.

FirstEnergy, the parent company of West Penn Power and the employer of 695 workers in the several local unions in the area, is engaged in a contract negotiating process right now.

As FirstEnergy moves to negotiate, it’s clear that they are fully invested in reforming the way that the former Allegheny Energy has done business and they are fully invested in bargaining for a contract that favors only one side.  The company is now proposing sweeping changes in every aspect of ‘work life’ for their union employees.

Previously employees in the bargaining unit were afforded the ability to work hard and be rewarded for that work.  These are men and women with families who have spent time in the classroom and they’ve spent countless hours learning and relearning safety procedure after safety procedure.  They’ve moved up from one job to another to secure the job they have now.  They have earned the privilege of seniority, providing the company with an extremely valuable experienced, safe and dedicated work staff. 

FirstEnergy would like to modify the job requirements effective immediately.  Employees who’ve worked hard to put themselves in positions with set schedules would be subject to working at the will of the company.   Jobs which have weekends and nights off now – jobs that these men and women have competed for – will be scheduled by shifts or even worse with no considered pre-planning.  Workers will be forced to work a 16 hour shift and told to not report the following day, with no predictability and not a dime of overtime pay, effectively eliminating their ability to plan quality time with their families and completely discounting the effort, time and planning that it’s taken these employees to put themselves in these positions.

I fully support the company’s right to efficiently and effective manage and schedule their staff.  They do have obligation to make the company profitable and provide a decent return on investment.  I do find it hard to believe that the best solution for all is to put the burden on the people who come to work, learn their job, put themselves in harm’s way and earn their wage in the field.  I believe, however, that it is the easiest way to do it and the way that is the least painful for the upper levels of management.  It’s the way that keeps their salaries intact.  It’s the way that does not force them to review efficient conduct of business logistics, from inefficient orders and computer systems that don’t make sense to a top heavy management structure. 

 I just don’t see how the public can continue to believe that the company tasked with keeping our lights on is continuing to act from any other motivation than management’s greed.