Cut contractors first, workers urge TVA

CHATTANOOGA (AP) — As the Tennessee Valley Authority prepares this week to begin another round of staff cuts, employee groups are urging the utility to look first at cutting contract workers before trimming its employment rolls.

“A lot of contractors are taking jobs that should be permanent positions at TVA,” Calvin Underwood, president of the TVA Engineers Association, told The Chattanooga Times Free Press. “Those are the positions that should be cut first if reductions are needed.”

TVA has nearly tripled its contract work force since 2000, primarily to help install pollution controls and repair its oldest nuclear reactor, according to agency records.

TVA officials said contractors provide more flexibility and specialized skills to meet seasonal and temporary needs arising from construction projects, outage repairs or one-time engineering tasks.

“It just makes economic sense,” said Paul LaPointe, TVA’s senior vice president of procurement. “Most large utilities are doing the same thing because you don’t want to hire a permanent employee for a job that goes away in a few weeks or months.”

Last month, more than 43 percent of the 23,578 workers at TVA were employed by contractors. TVA spokesman Gil Francis said most of the 10,331 contract workers were involved in short-term assignments. Nearly half were working on either restart activities at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Athens, Ala., or the installation of selective catalytic reduction devices to cut emissions at coal plants.

A review of TVA’s use of contractors is part of a companywide effort to identify ways to cut expenses to help the utility reduce its $25 billion debt. Many of the cost-saving programs, including possible employee layoffs by this summer, will be outlined to workers at staff meetings Monday.

“TVA must have greater financial flexibility, and that means we must reduce our debt and other fixed costs,” TVA President O.J. “Ike” Zeringue said in a recent memo to managers.

Zeringue said TVA expects most of its budget savings will come from cuts in capital projects, reductions in contractors and voluntary retirements or resignations by TVA employees.

The average TVA employee is 46.4 years old, TVA spokesman John Moulton said. In the next five years, 35 percent of all TVA workers are eligible for retirement.

If layoffs are required, TVA plans to give displaced workers the required 60-day notice of termination by April 22.

TVA Director Bill Baxter said last week the board still is looking at ways to reduce expenses, “but there is not a predetermined number of job cuts we’re going after.”

“This will allow us to save some money in fiscal 2004, but it also sets the table for a much more efficient and streamlined organization in ’05, which is going to be a very critical year for us financially,” Baxter said.

The Knoxville-based agency has been trimming its work force incrementally for years. TVA’s last major incentive-loaded layoff, in 1994, eliminated 2,600 employees.

TVA supplies electricity to 8.3 million consumers in Tennessee and parts of Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Kentucky, Virginia and North Carolina.
———
On the Net:
Tennessee Valley Authority: http://www.tva.gov

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.