Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 17, 1994 TAG: 9407070082
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The 30-28 vote means about a fourth of the division's 246 employees - including line crews, station crews and meter electricians - will be eligible to join the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
A similar vote to organize was narrowly defeated by Pulaski division workers in 1990.
"The issue wasn't money but being treated fairly," IBEW representative Merle Wylie said.
Staffing policies and grievance procedures will top the agenda when contract negotiations begin in several weeks, Wylie said.
Demands placed on workers by last winter's devastating ice storms also influenced the pro-union vote.
Workers were paid for the many hours of overtime needed to repair utility lines after the ice storms. Yet the additional workload magnified other concerns about work conditions, he said.
Apco spokesman Dick Burton said the widespread power outages caused by the ice storms were the worst the utility has ever faced.
"That's the way it is in this business. God determines the weather, we don't," he said.
Burton said Apco will work closely with the new Pulaski Division union as it does with organized employees in other areas.
The IBEW already represents about 800 Apco production and maintenance employees in seven of the utility's nine divisions, which stretch across Southwest Virginia to Southern West Virginia, Wylie said.
A total of 63 of 246 division employees were eligible for Thursday's vote and will now have the option of joining the union.
Apco's Pulaski Division covers Christiansburg, Floyd, Galax, Hillsville, Pearisburg, Pulaski and Wytheville.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***