FGD and DeNOx
NEWSLETTER       

                                                                                                           May 2003
                                                                                                             No. 301

Union Protests SCR Contract

Gary Osborne, of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, told the Henderson, Kentucky Utility Commission that it erred last May when it awarded a $35-million contract to ALSTOM Power Inc. for designing and building a SCR system for the Station Two. ALSTOM is using Zachry Construction Corp. of San Antonio, TX, as its construction contractor, which is a non-union firm. Labor officials for months had lobbied for the contract to go to Babcock-Borsig Power Inc., which said it would use local union labor for the project. The Babcock bid was $3 million higher than ALSTOM's, however.

"My No. 1 concern at the time (of the contract award) was the loss of jobs to my members and to the area workforce," Osborne said. "And quite honestly those fears have come true. My No. 2 concern at the time was the $13 million worth of labor dollars leaving this community. My estimation would be, if things stay on track as they are now, approximately 82 percent of those dollars will leave this community." 

But Osborne's main point in a lengthy presentation was that the city utility commission should have awarded the contract to Babcock if it had followed its own bid specifications. If the utility commission had been operating under the model procurement code, he said, it would have been required to reject ALSTOM's bid. "This commission did not require the awarded contractor on the Station Two SCR project to obtain a 100-percent performance and payment bond, as was required by your own specifications on that project and as required by the Kentucky Model Procurement Code," he said in an article appearing in the Henderson Gleaner Newspaper.

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