December 5, 2010 - With the impending layoff of dozens of CMP meter readers and the imminent early retirement of an unknown number of CMP workers age 55 and older, IBEW members met in Gardiner to discuss the impact on the Union and the Company in the weeks and months ahead.

October 21, 2010 - Northeast Utilities, the owner ofPublic Service Company of New Hampshire, will purchase NStar for $4.17 Billion in a deal that both companies describe as a “merger.” If approved by federal and state regulators as well as shareholders, the new company will be New England’s largest utility with a total of 3.5 million electric and gas customers in New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut. The merged company will have a total enterprise value of $17.5 Billion, according to a joint statement.

October 15, 2010 - Months of uncertainty for more than 125 members of IBEW Local #1837 followed the February 2010 final approval from the Maine Public Utilities Commission that gave Central Maine Power the green light to move forward with their Automated Metering Infrastructure project. Once the AMI was complete and CMP’s residential and business customers had so-called “Smart Meters” installed, the positions of Revenue Data Readers and other workers in the Revenue Service department were slated for elimination.

October 14, 2010 - Workers at Granite Ridge Energy in Londonderry, New Hampshire are preparing to negotiate the successor agreement to their first union contract. The power plant workers voted to join IBEW Local #1837 on August 4, 2006, though it took until March of 2008 to complete negotiations on the first contract. The represented workers include all 20 maintenance and operating personnel at the plant. Their first contract runs through March 26, 2011.

October 8, 2010 - When a Maine union local with more than 1,000 members endorses a candidate for Governor, it’s a pretty big deal. It’s an even bigger deal when it’s a union local that rarely makes endorsements.

At the meeting of our IBEW 1837 Executive Board in Manchester on August 20, our elected unit representatives voted overwhelmingly to endorse Libby Mitchell for Governor. The decision was made largely because of Mitchell’s support for workers throughout Maine, but in particular, her support for members of our own union.