FirstEnergy Corp.‘s stock had its “sell” rating reiterated by stock analysts at Citigroup Inc. in a report issued on Thursday...

Local 102 represents about 690 of FirstEnergy’s linemen, substation workers, meter readers and technicians in the big electric utility’s Potomac Edison and West Penn Power territories.
About 125 of Local 102’s members work at Potomac Edison service centers in Williamsport; Frederick, Mount Airy and Thurmont, Md.; Martinsburg and Berkeley Springs, W.Va.; and Waynesboro and McConnellsburg, Pa.
Potomac Edison serves about 250,000 Maryland customers in an area stretching from Garrett County east to parts of Montgomery and Carroll counties, and about 132,000 customers in West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle.
West Penn Power, whose territory includes Pennsylvania’s Franklin and Fulton counties, serves about 720,000 customers.
In March 2013, FirstEnergy began negotiations with Local 102 for a labor contract to replace the three-year pact that was to expire April 30, 2013.
What happened next is in dispute.
The company said the contract expired and the union members have continued working under the terms of the previous contract. The union, on the other hand, said the contract was extended for one year until May 1, 2014 — 10 days from today.

Asked last week whether that means a deadline is looming, FirstEnergy spokesman Toad Meyers said, “We’re not facing a deadline from the company’s standpoint. The plans are to continue to negotiate.”
Meyers, who is the utility’s spokesman for comment on negotiations with Local 102, didn’t mention the talks in Detroit.
He said “at least seven more negotiations” are scheduled with Local 102 leaders before April ends. He said he has “no idea” where those talks are taking place.
Asked Thursday what happens if an agreement isn’t reached by May 1, Whalen said there’s a “variety of things that could happen.
“First of all, we continue to work day by day,” Whalen said. “Or, the union could agree to sign an extension to work under the (last contract’s) terms for ‘x’ number of days.
“Or, depending on what (FirstEnergy is) thinking, they certainly have the ability to lock us out when they want,” the legality of which would “depend on where it’s at in the negotiations,” Whalen said.
“And then, the last thing, if we don’t have an extension, we have the right to strike,” Whalen said.
If a strike or a lockout were to come, Whalen said neither could happen until at least May 1, when the “no-strike, no-lockout provision” expires with what the union said is still the contract.

Tell Uncle Tony to take a cut in pay, put a pair of di electric boots up his a$$ filled with concrete and take a plunge in the Delaware. Italian my a$$ he is a embarrassment to the nationality and the human race. Some would call him "Yellow" not Uncle Tony or possibly numb-nuts. Yell "Mafia" and I bet he pees his pants.

Mon Power is an a$$-hole company. The WV PSC allows them to screw over consumers of electric.

Staff has reviewed the initial briefs filed in this matter and finds it has very little to
respond to. Actually, the initial brief of the Companies and the most recently filed
monthly statistical report confirms many of Staffs fears. The Companies are still
providing a lot of excuses without many answers. They continue to point the finger at the Derecho and Super Storm Sandy, when the truth of the matter is those two storms did not cause this problem, but simply exposed the problems within the Companies that were
destined to arise and will do so again if  changes aren’t made.* Further, a review of the February monthly statistical report shows an increase in consecutive reads due to weather related causes, just as Staff suspected. That will continue to be a problem as long as there is weather. Also, as Staff suspected, the Companies cannot or are not willing to seek a modification to its billing system to allow manual changes to a customer’s account when it is shown the estimation routine is inaccurate for that customer. These are just a few examples of many where Staff fears have been confirmed.

Also, Staff finds it odd that the Companies dedicate such a large portion of its
brief arguing why the Commission should not impose the “penalty” provision for missed
meter reads when they claim this problem has been solved. If the problem has indeed
been solved and given the concessions Staff made for reasonable circumstances to avoid the penalty, these penalties should seldom come into play if at all. Again, it is important
to remember the Companies are required to read every meter bi-monthly, absent exigent
circumstances, not just the ones that are convenient at the time. Further, the Commission has approved similar service based performance credits in the past, specifically in the settlement in the Verizon quality of service case, Case No. 08-0761-T-GI. This circumstance is almost unprecedented in West Virginia and calls for bold action. This penalty provision is just that action, a stick in order to incentivize the Companies to make better decisions in the future to the benefit of their customers instead of to the benefit of the Companies.

*In their Initial Brief, the Companies state they have had no problems in Pennsylvania as evidence that the Derecho and Super Storm Sandy were the root causes of these problems. Staff has learned that on February 4, 2014, a complaint was filed by the Utility Workers Union of America against Penelec on behalf of its workers and individual customers for failure to properly staff the meter reading section and for failure to obtain meter  readings, leading to three, four, five consecutive estimated readings.

The focus of this assessment is to evaluate the BE protocols’ performance where bi-monthly
meter reading is the standard.

"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." - Thomas Pynchon

When the values are designated as actual, then BSE assumes that they are actual meter reads and treats when according to the
protocols employees in levelization.

As the number of consecutive estimates increases, the BE performance deteriorates.

...ascertain if using the Prior Period should not be considered for the Base Period if the Prior Period was estimated, and especially if there are indications that there was a large but unwarranted reconciliation.

In the case of scenario 10b (Figure 7-13), which imposed two months of 33%
underestimation followed by a large reconciliation, the performance was not quite as good. The R-value distribution became less compacted around R = 1.0, and the
percentage extreme R-value increased to 8%, four time that of scenario 1b. This might
result because underestimation of usage results in systematically poorer performance of the BE in situations where the estimated month’s usage and the reconciliation amount is large. More testing is called for to verify this result before changes are made to the BE
protocols to mitigate this apparent bias.

Missed scheduled meter reads resulted in a modest increase in the extent of
overestimation measured by the mean R-value, but more importantly more individual
customer R-values are in the extreme tails.

EPRl was asked to perform objective statistical testing of our estimation processes. While we (FirstEnergy) agree with EPRl that the  estimation algorithm performs well for most customers we also believe that performance can be improved.
As such we recognize the need to mitigate any unintended impact to customers in the interim and will as proposed in the settlement:
Bill message customers who received a bill varying by more than 25% from previous year following multiple estimates to remind of
payment options (February 2014);
Exception customers whose current estimate vary by more than 25% from their previous year’s bill for manual review (May 2014).

The two major storms were the largest impact cause of the disruption to obtaining scheduled meter reads. That conclusion is supported by  the experience of sister company, West Penn Power, which experienced all the same  integration issues (system integration,  renumbering, meter reading restructuring) as the Companies experienced, but did not  experience the same level of damage and  widespread outages from these two super  storms. Consequently, West Penn has not had the level of customer complaint and billing  issues that the Companies and their customers experienced.

UWUA brings this complaint in its capacity as the representative of meter readers and other Penelec employees who are being directed by Penelec to continually and willfully violate the Commission's meter reading regulations and the provisions of Penelec's own tariff.

UWUA states on information and belief that Penelec routinely estimates bills for thousands of residential customers three, four, or even five consecutive months when there are no exigent circumstances and no problems with utility personnel gaining access to the customer's meter.

UWUA states on information and belief that Penelec fails to read meters as required because it has failed to fill vacant meter-reading positions and has otherwise failed to properly staff its meter reading function. That is, Penelec has made a business decision to save the expense of hiring additional meter readers and instead issue numerous consecutive estimated bills to residential customers in violation of the Commission's regulations.

Q. Okay. All right. And you mentioned EPRI and the EPRI study, and I know that you --- while we’re on the subject, on page 11 of your testimony, your Direct testimony, you’d made a change at line eight. You state that the EPRI study is now expected to be completed by January 6th, 2014; correct?
A. Correct.
Q. Do you know why it’s been pushed back from December 31st?
A. I received an e-mail this morning from them requesting a little bit more time, because they’ve been meeting with the teams that actually were on site, and after they’ve had a couple of their meetings, they just feel like they’re going to need a little more time.
Q. Now, do you participate in these meetings? A. I have been.
Q. I’m sorry, you have been?
A. Yes.
Q. Okay.
A. Now, I have not been making every single one of them, but ---.
Q. I mean, they’re weekly meetings?
A. That’s right. Recently they had me come daily.
Q. Okay. When did this --- when did the EPRI review begin? I mean, it’s been several months now in the making; correct?
A. Yeah, I believe we signed the statement of work with them in July.
Q. And what are you --- what specifically are you --- are the Companies having EPRI look at? I mean, what is the purpose?
A. What we’re doing is we’re trying to simulate the estimation routine with having lots of good data, and then going through and creating all those scenarios of every other estimate --- every other month estimate, two months in a row estimate, three months in a row estimate, and letting the routine take that data and determining --- I guess we’re trying to figure out where are those checkpoints that we might need. Are we not applying something appropriately that we should be? So we’re more or less --- we’re calling it forensics. That’s basically what they’re doing for us, trying to help us determine, you know, with the data available where we see some issues or breakdown and how can we improve our routine.
Q. And is EPRI going to tell you how it should be improved, assuming it finds breakdowns?
A. Yes.
Q. Okay. Now, is the Company’s plan to implement whatever correction EPRI recommends?
A. I think it’s a little early for me to say that, because I don’t know all of the expense associated with what they would ask us to implement or recommend we implement.
Q. Okay. So there’s a chance that EPRI may say you need to do these 20 things, for example, and the Company says we don’t have the money or the resources to do any of those; we’re just going to disregard your recommendation? That’s a possibility; correct? A. Anything’s possible.

Frederick County Commissioner Billy Shreve is asking Potomac Edison to donate some land for a park; specifically, the 150-acre Browning Farm, where the utility was planning to build a substation for the Potomac Appalachian Transmission Highline.

He called it a win-win for First Energy and county citizens.

FirstEnergy is trying to reach new labor agreements with two of its Utility Workers Union of America bargaining units.

They include Local 102, which represents several hundred workers in FirstEnergy’s Potomac Edison territory in Maryland and West Virginia and its West Penn Power territory in Pennsylvania.

The members of Local 102 are working as linemen, substation workers, meter readers and technicians.

Robert Whalen, system president of Local 102, said Thursday that so far, FirstEnergy hasn’t threatened to lock out his Potomac Edison and West Penn members. Local 102 began contract talks with FirstEnergy in March 2013.

About 125 of Local 102’s members work at PE service centers in Williamsport; Frederick, Mount Airy and Thurmont, Md.; Martinsburg and Berkeley Springs, W.Va.; and Waynesboro and McConnellsburg, Pa.

Whalen said many of the company’s offers are unacceptable.

“Every benefit — health care, long-term disability, dental plan, vision plan, 401(k) — that’s in our contract now, they (FirstEnergy) want to make them completely at the discretion of FirstEnergy to modify, terminate or amend,” Whalen said.

Company spokesmen disputed such arguments, and said FirstEnergy’s offers have been fair.

The company is “cautiously optimistic we can come together on something,” spokesman Todd Meyers said about negotiations with Local 102. “I think we have a good offer.”

But as to the lockout in Pennsylvania, FirstEnergy spokesman Scott Surgeoner said the company isn’t backing down.

“We think our last best offer is very, very fair, and we are committed to seeing this lockout through,” Surgeoner said.

Citizens also are concerned about their power bills, as the state Public Service Commission investigates allegations that Potomac Edison has not been reading residential meters in accordance with state law. The case follows customer complaints that the company cut back on its staff of professional readers and replaced them with a band of turbaned gypsies who gaze into the meters and estimate power usage.

Citizens tell the PSC they became suspicious when a bill came with a note predicting that the customer would “find an apple tree with seven apples and after eating one would grow three stag horns and find his flesh separated from his bones.”