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In August, we witnessed one of the largest blackouts in North American history, affecting some 50 million people in the United States and Canada. That prompted New Mexico Governor and former Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson to call our electrical system "third world."

Then in September, Hurricane Isabel roared through the Mid-Atlantic states where her heavy winds and rain created havoc with the electricity infrastructure. From North Carolina up to Pennsylvania, customers went without power, some for more than a week. The result was a tragic loss of life in some places and, at the very least, a serious disruption of daily life.

In both cases, IBEW members led the way to get the power back on line. It grieves me to report that at least two of our members lost their lives in the line of duty in aftermath of the hurricane. They were out there serving the public in the finest tradition of service, an ethic that used to motivate the utility industry.

Both the blackout and the storm caused angry citizens to wonder what on earth had happened to their once reliable electricity system. Many, including the talking heads in the media, came to the conclusion that a system susceptible to such widespread failure means something is fundamentally wrong. And it didnt take some of them long to put their finger on the fact that cutbacks in staffing at utilities and the economics of a deregulated industry had caused dangerous lapses in maintenance and new construction that left the system vulnerable.

Sound familiar? It should. The IBEW first publicly warned about these effects of deregulation in 1996. The pamphlet we published that year "Will Deregulation Short-Circuit North Americas Electric Power Supply?"- reads like an eerie foretelling of what has come to pass.

The blackout and the hurricane took the issue of the restructuring of the electric utility industry out of the realm of economists and industry insiders and put it squarely onto the kitchen tables of North America. The realization is finally starting to sink in that the promises of deregulation have proved to be empty. Proponents said that in a deregulated market, consumers could pick the utility they used, and with choice would come savings because to market rates would fall in a competitive environment.

Tell that to the people of North America from coast to coast who have had to pick up the pieces of these broken pipe dreams.

Since the onset of deregulation, utilities have shed workers at alarming rates, with reductions in work forces ranging from 25 to 35 percent between 1991 and today, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and figures provided by the companies themselves. Companies naturally have fewer line crews to maintain the lines, trim the trees and replace rotten poles and cross arms. At substations and power plants, maintenance cycles that periodically check breakers, transformers and turbines have stretched from two to three, four or five years. Some companies have resorted to a sole practice of maintenance by catastrophe.

Incredibly there are still those who dont get it. The U.S. Congress has been busy writing and rewriting a mishmash of an energy bill that is unlikely to protect Americans from the kind of disasters that have ravaged the system. And the trend in Canada continues to be for the privatization and deregulation of utilities that have for decades delivered reliable, affordable power.

Its time to stop all the talk about the wonders of deregulation. We need to go back to basic economics-you get what you pay for. What we need is investment in a system that delivers affordable, reliable power over a well-maintained, modernized grid-like the kind we used to have. Otherwise, Gov. Richardsons assessment of our "third world" system will become all too accurate.

Edwin D. Hill

International President

  Presidents Message

October 2003 IBEW Journal