Mr. Rennhack:
Just what is your post referring to? The NPUA. Answering questions? Is there something I wrote that leads you to believe I am somehow ill-educated and uninformed?
I got news for ya, bud; I are smart too.
to mutant, Marlin (he's a game fish), and Carmella:
As to the Standard, it's written out. Personally, I don't exactly know what a professional appearance is. For myself, I come in clean shaven every day. I don't wear clothes with holes in them. I even wear matching socks. But that's me. I don't know what other people consider a "professional appearance". I don't.... And I expect that this is one area which has not been really thought out. If you have input on what you think the Standard should be, go to NPUA.org and give your opinion. I do believe there is something in the verbiage about the Standard reflecting whatever the standard at the power plant in question is, and from my point of view, that's about all that could be enforced. Follow the rules of the plant.
As to direct hire, that was the goal when this Union was formed, and maybe still is. I hope so. The model was Diablo. The way it should work is a plant, or a company, contacts the hall (hiring center), tells them how many techs they want and what type, the Union contacts the techs on the waiting lists, asks them if they are interested, and sends out a list of techs and resumes to the requesting party. That's how it was done this time, and that is how it should continue.
The Standard is not a one strike and your out kinda deal. There is a process that will be followed. You can't be removed from the rolls for a single infraction, unless it's a major one (theft, lying on your PHQ, those kind of things).
Raising the quality of Techs.
Most Unions have some type of apprenticeship program. This Union should be no different. Anybody who has been in this business for anytime at all knows that, just because a resume says three years in a power plant, this doesn't mean the tech involved has an adequate level of knowledge to cover any job that comes up. This is especially true of those ANSI 3.1's who were 18.1's until the plant found itself short of 3.1's. Raising the level of training and education is also a goal because, if you're gonna ask for more money, somewhere you need to show why the increase in pay is justified.
And, to my mind at least, increased training and higher standards of knowledge will lead to less incidents. What happened at Diablo, which was referenced earlier, was management pushing and making less than conservative decisions. But anyone on this website knows of incidents that were driven purely by the lack of skills of the person involved. By having an actual apprenticeship program, these skills will increase in Techs as a group and those types of ignorance driven incidents should decrease.
Finally, a couple of points:
Everything that has been discussed here could have been asked on the NPUA website. Just go to it and ask. It's really simple.
As to the failure of efforts in the past, that's up to each and everyone of you. Kevin has done the basics. Some of us have ceased sitting on the fence. Most of you are either still there or are afraid to even hop up and straddle the thing. No effort such as this will succeed if those of you currently throwing stones stay on the sidelines and refuse to take part. As I said earlier, it's as simple as not committing to an outage. (Yes I did commit, but not in June or May, or July.) All a power plant needs is about two weeks or so to process paperwork. Committing months in advance because you're afraid there won't be any work doesn't make sense to me.
There aren't enough Techs to cover the work. DOE will draw off more. Outages will not get staffed, period, and the quality of techs will be drawn down further as more and more techs are "created" to fill the gaps.
That's really all I'm going to say on this. Go to NPUA.org. Put your questions to those who are actually on the Board (or whatever it's called) Get the word right from the horses mouth. It's your future after all.
"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and it annoys the pig"
Robert Heinlein