NRC limits workers to 48 hrs/wk

[Rennhack]

Slo,  If I thought the utilities could understand you, I'd delete that message so they don't get any wise ideas.

[Mike_Koehler]

I wasn't thinking that the pay was gonna come up, I was just commenting that pay would need to be 40-45/hr with diem to make the same $$$$. Basically we're gonna get forked again......

Mike

[Roll Tide]

Right now, we are cheaper than peak generation electricity. If there are fewer workers, it will have to either stretch the outage season, or they will have to raise wage rates to bring in new blood (and entice retired blood to come back for a few...)

[alphadude]

dont forget the age factor.  as most of you know the schools are cranking up again to produce more techs..and rat companies and untilities are planning to produce more (notice the demand for green jrs lately??) the results will be a younger work force that will appreciate working for the present wage or less.  so dont expect the wages to be cranked up to compensate the lack of work for the maturing work force of techs already out there.   the utilities did this in the downsizing boon doggles of the 80's and 90's. the high achievers were kicked to the curb..who all went on to make more money consulting , and they brough in young, 1.5 kids, new house, and car type people at 60% or our wage.  those young 1.5 kids types will do what ever they are told to do..(bills another kid on the way etc) to keep afloat. whereas the high achievers had kids already out of school, lower bills, one or two houses etc.. and questioned the process and management tactics of the utilities. anyway... its the same cycle repeating... so plan for the future.. go to school... rise above your present job title and pay grade...

[hghlndr]

What the hell... I had heard murmurs but had seen nothing in printed matter until I got home this week about this BS. The short outages hurt enough but limit the hours to 48 and it hurts even more. Right now I can work about 20 weeks a year and slide by... but thats netting about a grand a week. I would much rather work more weeks but not at the cost of hours per week. There is something to be said about being happy in ones employement a joy I did not know until I started as a roadtech two years ago... I like my job, I like the hours, and I LOVE the MONEY... and no mater how you slice it 48 is just not the same as 72, and 48 will do nothing to increase the number of techs...

[alphadude]

the risk is rather high and not acceptable... the rate of accidents will increase at the 72 hour level.. its a proven statistic.. 

if you are only making 20 k a year that puts you around the poverty level.. perhaps looking to other fields may help...by getting a BS degree or MS you can quadruple that amount... don't live at the mercy of others ... year after next is a lean outage year and there will be a lot of hungry techs out there taking lower wages just to keep a job

[RRhoads]

try going here to read the full text of whats going on & get away from the media take on things. This topic is getting a little out of touch w/ whats going on.
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news/2006/06-041.html

[Roll Tide]

try going here to read the full text of whats going on & get away from the media take on things. This topic is getting a little out of touch w/ whats going on.

Probably my fault. I was looking at the eventual outcome. As an analogy, consider impact from increased oversight on truckers and more stringent limits on their hours; the net effect is that the majority of carriers are recruiting teams for long distance runs. What would be the long term effect for nukeworkers?

[SloGlo]

 the utilities did this in the downsizing boon doggles of the 80's and 90's. the high achievers were kicked to the curb..who all went on to make more money consulting , and they brough in young, 1.5 kids, new house, and car type people at 60% or our wage. 

eye dawnt know wattinel yer talkin here.  my pay in 1980 wuz $10.5/hr; '81, $13.5,  '85, 18.5; '87, $16.5...etc. upta twodey @>eye'm gonna say, 'k?  job descrip has maintained.  pay was based on contract and company involved.  same as it wuz in the 70s.  eye bin thru 84 scheduled hrs/wk, 60 hrs, 72, etc.  hours scheduled didn't affect the rayte of pay.  eye due remember the graduating class of '79 at tmi had a depressing effect on wages, but that wuz overcome in about a fuel cycle.  most people really do not like to travel.  that's why travelers usually make more.  hardship for leaving the hearth of home, ya know?

[Already Gone]

Has anyone considered the following scenario?
Cut hours from 6-12's to 6-8's.
Go from two shifts to three.
Change the two breaks of three hours each (or three breaks of two hours ) to one 30 minute lunch and two 15 minute breaks.
If you had 40 techs, you can now do with 30.
After one outage season, all the road techs will go to DOE or leave the business altogether.  The utilities can finally get their longtime wish of "qualifying" workers to self-monitor (citing the lack of RP's as the reason). 
C'mon, they've been doing everything they could do (except take away per diem) to get rid of the RP roadblocks.  This could be their chance to get it done.

[HydroDave63]

actually, going from 12s to 8s would increase staffing needs ( it was the issue of fewer jobs when 8s became 12s, that led to the long Caterpillar strike in the early 90s ). If you need "x" amount of techs to cover the work on 12-hr night shift , still need "x" number of bodies on 8 hr swing shift. Does Joe Deconner somehow wipe things down slower or faster on 8s vs 12s ??

At any rate, the proposed order is likely only going to affect positions named in the plant license. Do you really want fatigued operators or fatigued security on the 11th hour of their 13th shift in a row due to outage schedule? Yes, RP/HP is important too, but other than 1 house mouse per shift, its not a mandatory staffing requirement. If plants go cheap on staffing, dont blame the NRC order when it shows up, blame mgmt. greed. I know of a Region 4 site that, when it operates, makes about 200 million a year after all expenses. Adding or subtracting a few outage positions would scarcely affect the bottom line. Having a crew of fatigued operators making bad decisions that leads to another busted reactor in the US will.

As chuckhallett said it best: Remember that the Nuclear Renaissance is really only one accident away from being a memory.

[dangrs1]

I tried in an earlier post to get people to reply to the NRC on this subject. Everyone thinks this will not affect them. It will.
You can still send comments to the NRC. Just do it.

mailto:SECY@nrc.gov

[Already Gone]

Dave,
You're still a house mouse aren't you?  I don't remember.  Anyway, going from 2 shifts of 12 hrs. to 3 - 8's will actually decrease staffing.
You may not be aware, but if you do some snooping you'll find out, that 3-in-3-out is as alive and well as it has ever been.  Techs are just better at hiding it.  I came back onto the road in 2001 and was told that the 3/3 was a thing of the past.  I believed them and did a 2-in-1-out schedule with full approval of the house.  I didn't know any better.  The rest of the plant was doing 2/2.  Since then every single outage has been a 50-50 split of 2/2 or 3/3.
But anyway, any group that runs a 3/3 or 2/2 is actually running with four shifts.  So, if you think you have two shifts of 30 contractors, you actually have 4 shifts of 15.  You cut it down to 3 shifts of 15, and you go from 60 to 45 techs per outage.  Instead of coming to work and immediately starting a 2 hour break- or ending their shift on one, everyone does 2 in, 1 out, 2 in 1 out, 2 in and DONE.  They work 6 out of 8 hours instead of 6 out of 12.
The downside of this is that there is absolutely nobody to spare when the big jobs occur.  There will be nobody to borrow from refuel while you pop the s/g manways, and nobody extra on BOP when you need a cavity decon covered.  You will have three turnovers per day instead of two.  You will not turnover to the crew who turns over to you.  BIG opportunity for missed communications and interrupted work flow.
PLUS, the loss of overtime will be the absolute last straw that drives the remaining roadies out of the business.  Why leave home for 48 hrs a week?
You are right, the rules need not apply to contract HP's (or most of the house techs for that matter), but many utilities already use the work hour rules to justify cutting overtime, and they will do it even more with the new rule.
You and I know that the rule doesn't apply to the majority of the work force, but that doesn't stop management from applying it to them anyway for fiscal reasons.
I'm very curious to see how this plays out.

[RRhoads]

"but many utilities already use the work hour rules to justify cutting overtime, and they will do it even more with the new rule."

I was just at an outage last year that wanted us to work 84 hrs the first couple weeks of the outage..there are just as many that still do the waiver too....ex-com ed plants comes to mind also.

[Already Gone]

I hear that!
My last nuke outage was one where they held the entire plant to strict adherence to the 72 hour rule.  Then, they realized that the schedule was going to slip.  They dropped the 72 hour limit like it was a pile of steaming human waste.

[alphadude]

justify cutting overtime?  no justification needed!

hmmm the perspective is skewed. overtime is considered a failure or defect.. under the 6 sigma processs overtime is presented as a defect or error in the planning process.. and rightly so... it you have to use overtime to get PLANNED work done, look for new planners... emergent or hindered work is another situation. After 10 hours a day, you gain nothing in worker productivity, and after 60 or so hours you are at risk with higher error rates and lost time accidents.

[Fermi2]

justify cutting overtime?  no justification needed!

hmmm the perspective is skewed. overtime is considered a failure or defect.. under the 6 sigma processs overtime is presented as a defect or error in the planning process.. and rightly so... it you have to use overtime to get PLANNED work done, look for new planners... emergent or hindered work is another situation. After 10 hours a day, you gain nothing in worker productivity, and after 60 or so hours you are at risk with higher error rates and lost time accidents.

Well said!

[SloGlo]

under the 6 sigma processs overtime is presented as a defect or error in the planning process.. and rightly so... it you have to use overtime to get PLANNED work done, look for new planners...

or better staffing companies that can put feet on the site to accomplish the planned work without exceeding the straight time goals. 
 of course, better planners would be interactive with others in the industry to align the routine scheduled work in order to accomplish it with a minimum of schedule conflicts.  so better planning would run at the upper eschelon of industry management, not on the individual plant site nor even in the corporate office building.  this is a reason of the maximum profit of the fleet owners compared to the individual utility plants. 
  but why is it that management executives can work and bill all the ot required and no one is regulating them in the wake of bad decisions? 

[alphadude]

power plants are cash cows thats why...

[Fermi2]

I'm somewhat curious as to which management executives get OT?

[alphadude]

management usually does not get OT under professional employee status.. line supervisors do. OT is usually charged off to the customer in some way or form. Shrewd managers will budget 110% to allow for "emergent" OT situations which gets "burned".

[Roll Tide]

One possible outcome would be more plants using "Core Techs" via a contractor (e.g. Duke) or having "Itinerant" positions (e.g. FP&L); both routes provide more workers guaranteed to be available for any situation.

[Fermi2]

management usually does not get OT under professional employee status.. line supervisors do. OT is usually charged off to the customer in some way or form. Shrewd managers will budget 110% to allow for "emergent" OT situations which gets "burned".

I know managers don't get OT, and in many plants it's going away for LIne Supervisors too.

However, in deregulated plants NO ONE is budgeting 10% OT just to burn it. I know at DTE budgets were scrutinized with a fine tooth. It's fast becoming the new way of the world.

Mike

[Already Gone]

justify cutting overtime?  no justification needed!

hmmm the perspective is skewed. overtime is considered a failure or defect.. under the 6 sigma processs overtime is presented as a defect or error in the planning process.. and rightly so... it you have to use overtime to get PLANNED work done, look for new planners... emergent or hindered work is another situation. After 10 hours a day, you gain nothing in worker productivity, and after 60 or so hours you are at risk with higher error rates and lost time accidents.

Skewed from where?  From the "ideal" which exists only in the classroom (where the six-sigma process and other total fads are taught)?  Or, skewed from reality?  Perspectives differ depending on the location of the observer.  However, one's perspective is not "skewed" merely because his placement is different from someone else's.  It is just different.  Two intelligent people who see a situation from different perspectives should come to an agreement as to what the actual situation is.  One reality will yield multiple perspectives to observers in multiple locations.  The differences are probably the most valuable tool for determining the truth.
In the real world, utilities do not have enough employees to accomplish outages without overtime.  The reliance on contractors necessitates the use of overtime.  The failure is not in lack of personnel, or in the use of overtime.  It is in the inability to reconcile the cause with the effect.

Finishing an outage in a reasonable time, at a reasonable cost, given the limitations of the workforce must entail the reasonable use of overtime.  Trying to eliminate the effect (OT) without addressing the cause (short schedule and limited resources) is sheer stupidity.

If you are worried about lost-time accidents, you are not going to fix that problem by cutting hours alone.  Occupational safety is more complex than that.  Fatigue is only one factor in workplace injuries.  By far the more prevalent cause of accidents is time pressure.  It's not the hours that people are at their jobs which puts them in danger - it is the speed at which they are forced to work (and the corners they must cut to maintain that pace).  The answer to that problem is most definitely NOT in giving them fewer hours in which to accomplish the same workload.

You are simply not going to get a workforce of trained and qualified people to travel long distances to work 48 hours per week for fewer than 25 weeks per year.  It is not the fault of the "planners" that outages happen in a very narrow window of time each spring and fall.  It is also not their fault that utilities do not beef up their staffing to accomodate outages without contractors.  
The better situation would have been to build multiple-unit sites with several smaller units in place of one or two huge ones.  They would be better able to schedule outages through most of the year and do them with an in-house staff who would not need tons of overtime to earn a living.  If you had six 400MW units on site instead of two behemoths, you could have a full time in-house outage staff, and run outages from September until July with minimal OT.  
But remember... we are in the world we have and not in the one we would have.

[Roll Tide]

I have seen work schedules where either January or December were off and then either July or August would be off. You worked 10 months (kind of like school teachers) for 12 months reduced pay.