Planned layoffs at a shuttered New Jersey nuclear plant run afoul of a collective bargaining agreement, a union representative said this week amid ongoing arbitration talks about the future of some 40 unionized radiation protection technicians at the site.
Holtec International, Camden, N.J., is responsible for decommissioning the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station and its boiling water reactor, which it bought from Exelon in 2019. In 2020, Holtec assigned decommissioning operations to Comprehensive Decommissioning International (CDI), the New Jersey-based company’s joint venture with Canada’s SNC Lavalin.
In June, the company announced it would lay off 92 people at Oyster Creek in August, including up to 38 radiation protection technicians who belong to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers’ Local 1289 in Wall, N.J. CDI eventually plans to bring in contract rad techs to backfill some of those positions on an as-needed basis.
As far as the union is concerned, CDI “assign[ed] our work outside of our unit, which is in direct violation of the decommissioning provision in our collective bargaining agreement,” Jeffrey Munyan, assistant business manager of Local 1289, wrote in an email to RadWaste Monitor.
When Holtec bought Oyster Creek, the company inherited Local 1289’s collective bargaining agreement with Exelon, which just prior to the sale was extended by two years, through Jan. 31, 2023. That’s two years shy of Holtec’s projected end-of-decommissioning date, and the company does not plan to re-up the union after the current bargaining agreement expires.
In the meantime, the pact called for the union and the company to negotiate labor terms for the plant’s decommissioning phase. Disputes about the long-term future of the union techs at the plant began at least as early as January 2020, when Holtec told Local 1289 about the cuts now planned for this August.
After the reduction in force, the company envisioned part-time work for the local 1289 techs during decommissioning, a Holtec spokesperson wrote Friday in an email. That’s similar to the schedules the company is offering members of other unionized trades at Oyster Creek, the spokesperson said.
“As an example, we need someone for two weeks, then they would be furloughed and brought back again when needed,” said the Holtec spokesperson. Local 1289 “did not want to agree to that.”
With the impasse, which sparked a since-withdrawn grievance before the National Labor Relations Board in 2020 and arbitration talks that were ongoing at deadline, about 30 of the Local 1289 workers at Oyster Creek accepted the company’s voluntary separation benefits package, the Holtec spokesperson said.
The union hopes to get “a favorable award” out of the ongoing arbitration, Munyan said Thursday. He didn’t elaborate but said that he thought the company should “absolutely” cancel the planned layoffs. Neither the union nor the company provided a timetable for the arbitration.
“I think the company should follow the contract, and that they should walk these layoffs back,” Munyan said.
According to Local 1289’s contract, union members “will be given first consideration [for carryover employment] before utilizing external resources.”
Meanwhile, decommissioning at Oyster Creek continues. Holtec finished moving the plant’s spent fuel inventory to an onsite dry storage pad in May. The company has said that the Forked River, N.J. plant will be completely decommissioned by 2025.
