The General Assembly finds that there is a critical necessity for trained and qualified personnel to operate all segments of the electric utility industry. The Department of Labor and Industry and The State Corporation Commission shall jointly with the utility industry, along with recognized employee representatives develop model standards to support electric system reliability. These standards shall include information on employee training, competency, and/or certification which can be developed using criteria set forth by the National Skills Standards board, as well as examining and consolidating existing guidelines on construction and maintenance of electric utility generation, transmission and distribution facilities such as those established by the National Electric Safety Code and other industry consensus standards.
Standards of personnel staffing sufficient to protect the health, safety and welfare of the public and of electric utility employees shall be set.
All electric utility work which is permanent in nature shall be performed by electric utility employees or vendor employees who have successfully completed applicable certified training programs, demonstrated competency in identified skill sets for the tasks being performed and hold a State issued license acknowledging such.
Whenever there is a sale or other transfer of ownership of one or more divisions or business units, generating stations, or generating units of an electric utility company to another person or entity, in order to ensure the continued exceptional reliability of the electrical systems, the Commonwealth shall require such person or entity to hire a sufficient number of non-supervisory employees to operate and maintain the station, division, or unit by initially making offers of employment to the existing non-supervisory employees of the station division, or unit. The wage rates, fringe benefits and terms and conditions of employment shall be equivalent to those that are in effect at the time of such sale or transfer. Such wage rates, fringe benefits and terms and conditions of employment shall continue for at least 30 months from the time of such sale or transfer.
If the employees of the selling entity are represented by a collective bargaining agent, that bargaining agent shall be recognized by the acquiring person or entity and the acquiring person or entity shall bargain in good faith with that agent. The selling entity shall make recognition of the collective bargaining agent a term and condition of the sale. The terms of the collective bargaining agreement in place at the time of the sale shall be honored.
If the acquiring person or entity has a need for fewer employees, the original electric utility company should offer those employees who are not offered jobs a transition plan.
If an electric utility company transfers ownership of one or more divisions, business units, generating stations, or generating units to a subsidiary company, the subsidiary shall continue to employ the utility's employees who were employed by the utility at such divisions, business units, generating stations, or generating units at the time of the transfer under the same terms, conditions and agreements as those employees enjoyed at the time of the transfer. If ownership of the subsidiary is subsequently sold or transferred to a third party, the transition provisions of subsection __ shall apply.
To provide for transition costs of electric utility workers including continued health care coverage, early retirement, job reeducation/retraining, outplacement services and related benefits, and severance. The Commonwealth shall provide extended unemployment benefits to any employee of an electric utility company who is terminated through no fault of his/her own as a result of electricity deregulation and is otherwise eligible for such benefits. Before any reduction in the utility workforce as a consequence of the Act, the Commonwealth shall require an electric utility to present to its employees and employee representatives a workforce reduction plan outlining the means by which the electric utility intends to mitigate the impact of such workforce reduction on its workers.
"Continued health care coverage" means continued health care coverage at the benefit and contribution levels in effect during employment with the utility for 24 months or until permanent replacement coverage is obtained through reemployment, whichever comes first.
"Early retirement" means the early retirement benefit payments.
"Job reeducation/retraining" means the provision of full tuition for 2 years at any state college or state vocational or technical school, or other reasonable retraining service of equal value, at the discretion of the displaced worker.
"Outplacement services" means the services provided to displaced workers that identifies available employment opportunities and necessary qualifications. Additional educational and training programs will be provided as necessary.
"Severance" means the severance pay, at a minimum of two weeks of base pay for each full year of full-time employment.