![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/McIntosh-Unit-3.jpg?resize=1024%2C768&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n“I’m really pleased we were able to reduce this from our original estimate,” Lacy said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lakeland Electric had lined up about 60 employees last December, unionized under the Utility Workers Union of America Local 604, to notify them of the pending layoff as Unit 3 would be decommissioned in the spring \u2014 much earlier than 2024 as originally predicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the eight months that have passed, Lacy said 23 have accepted other positions with the city, of which 17 stayed with the utility. Five individuals chose to retire, according to Lacy, and 16 left Lakeland Electric for other job offers or personal reasons. Each individual who has left was granted eight weeks of severance pay. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bob Mahoney, a UWUA representative for Local 604 in Lakeland, said he doesn’t fully agree with those numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many Unit 3 employees are “desperately” seeking other gainful employment, according to Mahoney, who said the city’s decision to accelerate the plant’s shutdown was completely unnecessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“They closed the plant just to break the union,” Mahoney said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mahoney pointed to a May presentation given by LE Plant Manager Stephen Reinhart that listed the union “UWUA” as a “threat” to the utility’s future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It’s a shocking and baseless claim,” Lacy said. “The decision to close Unit 3 was a purely operational decision.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lakeland Electric has faced a series of problems with the aging coal-powered plant that kept it offline, not producing power for most of last summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Joel Ivy, LE’s general manager, previously told city officials the utility planned to spend approximately $4 million on Unit 3’s maintenance during its regularly scheduled spring outage. Once the summer repairs were fully tallied, the costs came to more than $5 million. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The city’s decision to shutter the aging coal plant, after repairs, stands. There are about 26 Unit 3 employees whose last day of work will be Sept. 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mahoney said he has filed grievances against the utility \u2014 currently in arbitration \u2014 saying it violated a memorandum of agreement with the union to keep Unit 3 operational through 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The union also alleges under the same contract that the displaced workers should have been given preferential hiring status for city jobs that have opened up since December. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“They were supposed to have preference to all jobs that are open,” Mahoney said. “My guys were told, ‘We have to interview you, but we don’t have to hire you.'”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lakeland Electric counters that the laid off workers will be given preferential hiring after they are officially off payroll, Sept. 4, for future city jobs, according to Lacy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The utility has six vacant positions it is hiring for. Lacy said some of Unit 3’s workers have submitted applications and are in the interview process for these or other job positions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lakeland Electric also has a recall provision under its contract with union members that if a position opens within the next two years, laid off workers can be recalled and offered the spot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Unit 3 workers are also eligible under civil service laws to apply for other city jobs, if qualified, in other departments. There were a total of 43 job openings, external or internal promotions, posted on Lakeland’s website as of 3 p.m. Wednesday. Those who apply will be offered a chance to interview if they meet the minimum requirements, Lacy said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lakeland Electric will let go of approximately 26 employees this week. It’s thought to be the utility’s first layoff in the company’s nearly 117-year history. Cathryn Lacy, LE’s spokesperson, said the municipal-owned utility… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[1079],"class_list":["post-14503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-lakeland-electric-will-lay-off-about-26-employees"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}