Business Manager Tony Sapienza
December 30, 2020 - At least one good thing has come out of a very bad year: Workers at the Kittery Water District have overwhelmingly ratified their first contract with IBEW Local #1837. The 15 workers at the water utility include office staff, filtration plant workers, laborers, meter readers, service technicians and others.
IBEW Local 1837 represents a total of 46 members at Newington and Merrimack Generating Stations in New Hampshire. These fossil fuel power stations were acquired by Granite Shore Power from Eversource NH in 2018 as part of the legislatively mandated divestiture agreement. Schiller Station was also part of that sales agreement but is no longer operating. Newington and Merrimack provide critical sources of electricity to the ISO-New England electrical grid.
Stewards at Granite Shore Power: Adam Morin and Ezra Carr
There have been numerous watershed moments in the labor movement in Maine and New Hampshire, and for the past three decades – Matt Beck has been at the forefront for nearly all of them. From a contentious effort, which successfully stopped an attempt to bring “right to work,” to the Granite State in 2011 – to supporting his union brothers and sisters on the picket lines during the strike at the New Hampshire Electric Co-Op in 2018 – Beck has had his hand in numerous events through the years, in addition to countless organizing campaigns and contract negotiations.
Good job opportunity at Kennebec Valley Community College for a retired lineworker or anyone with that skillset. More information and contact info in this link: CLICK HERE
IBEW Local #1837 have been nominated and selected to serve as delegates to the International Brotherhood of
International Convention in Chicago: IBEW 1837 Business Manager Tony Sapienza, IBEW 1837 President Michelle Crocker, IBEW 1837 Organizer/ Business Representative Matt Beck, IBEW 1837 Vice Pres. Bob McNeff, E-Board Rep Kitty Kilroy, and retiree Bill Tarallo. Since the number of nominees was equal to the number of delegates for our Local, there will not be a n election held for those seats.
Companies with employees represented by our Union have developed and revised policies related to safety protocols for COVID-19 since the early days of the pandemic and in recent months with the spread of the Delta Variant. Before the introduction of emergency use authorization vaccines, most of the policies concerned vehicle sharing, masking, testing, working remotely andmaintaining 6-ft. social distancing indoors at company facilities.
IBEW 1837 has joined Brookfield Renewables and the Kennebec River Alliance in a bid to prevent the removal of dams on the Kennebec River where our members work generating electricity. A proposal to amend Maine’s Kennebec River Management Plan and remove at least two and eventually as many as four dams has been withdrawn. That apparent victory for dam supporters was just one step in a complicated and hard to follow licensing process.
