Datelines
Bremer, Barbara Kingsolver and Jill Barrett-Fein, Ben L. Kaufman, Richard Munson, Carl Goldfarb, Fra
Women on the Line AJO, ARIZONA The enmity between copper miners and the Phelps Dodge Company is as old as the state of Arizona. It has erupted into pitched battles from time to time, most notably...
...The sales pitch is to give consumers "greater control over their monthly bill" by persuading them, among other things, to use electricity at off-peak hours...
...Such a certification could take three years, Cincinnati Gas estimates...
...Zimmer's conversion is a victory for whistleblowers," said Thomas Devine, legal director of the Washington-based Government Accountability Project, which represented Zimmer's critics in license hearings...
...When he returned to New York, he told his colleagues he was giving up his Wall Street practice...
...They really thought I was cutting my throat...
...Electricity demand dropped by almost 3 per cent in 1982, the first annual decline since World War II...
...Regional grocers who have expressed interest in leasing the site contend that Safeway's price is prohibitively expensive...
...Frustrated by the abrupt closing of the Tenderloin store, San Francisco Supervisor Nancy Walker has introduced an ordinance that would require a supermarket to notify the city six months before closing and to make "good faith" efforts to find a comparable grocer to replace it...
...Cincinnati Gas & Electric is the primary owner, and its partners are the Dayton Power & Light Company and the Columbus & Southern Ohio Electric Company, a subsidiary of American Electric Power...
...As with any military campaign, success in this case will depend significantly on timely and complete communications," the Institute says...
...The Bush Street store—serving a poor, elderly, and immigrant community—didn't fit into the company's plans, since its clientele wouldn't purchase enough of the profitable nonfood items and gourmet products...
...Azar's office is in the rectory of St...
...Karl Bremer (Karl Bremer is editor of Statewatch, the newspaper of the Minnesota Public Interest Research Group...
...With almost 50,000 square feet, Safeway's new store is its largest in Northern California...
...Taking O'Connor's cue, the Edison Electric Institute has declared a public relations war on American consumers...
...It's time to stop the bleeding," said David Altaian, head of Cincinnati's official Environmental Advisory Council...
...These are the worst financial problems the industry has faced in forty years," laments James J. O'Connor, chairman of Chicago's Commonwealth Edison...
...I don't know how I can work it out...
...It's a wonderful day," said geneticist David Fank-hauser, a veteran of fourteen years of battling Zimmer...
...Disillusioned, Azar began to search for a meaningful application of his legal skills...
...Entitled "Electricity: The Power of Choice," the new campaign is designed to "position electricity in terms of the everyday tasks it performs—at low costs," thereby reminding the public of "the incomparable service it provides and good value it represents...
...For a decade, whistleblowers have been risking—and sometimes losing—their jobs to call attention to safety hazards at Zimmer...
...The Edison Electric Institute is faced with the task of reconciling the industry's pro-conservation line of the 1970s with the current pro-consumption line...
...At a closed-door industry meeting in October 1982, O'Connor pointed a way out for the electric companies: "Without growth in sales, we will not see the strengthened balance sheets and the increase in earnings and dividends for which we are all striving...
...A Costly Night in Jail MINNEAPOLIS The North Star Legal Foundation, a conservative "public interest" group, has filed suit against a number of peace organizations and activists in the Twin Cities area to recover public funds spent on arresting, detaining, and prosecuting hundreds of antinuclear protesters in Minneapolis last year...
...William Morron, the campaign coordinator, says he has no interest in reviving the "Live Better Electrically" sales blitz of the 1960s...
...One Salva-doran whom Azar is representing in a deportation case recently asked the lawyer to be the godfather of his youngest child...
...Now that Safeway has abandoned Tenderloin, neighborhood residents are trying to get a new supermarket to replace it...
...Conservation was "a highly useful and necessary undertaking" that reduced the need to build additional expensive power plants, the Institute says...
...The largest resulted in 577 arrests for trespassing last October at Honeywell's Minneapolis headquarters...
...It is what grocers call a "superstore," selling not only food but such products as flowers, prescription and nonprescription drugs, beauty products, greeting cards, books, magazines, and motor oil...
...It has taken more than a decade for women to fight their way into Phelps Dodge...
...But it may have worked too well, diminishing revenues and saddling the industry with excess generating capacity...
...The trade group's "plan book" for the $20 million campaign identifies "commanders" and "soldiers" to conduct various projects...
...But the Institute is encouraging individual utilities to rebuild the marketing departments they abandoned in the early 1970s when conservation was the order of the day...
...The fight has resulted in jail sentences for many women...
...These plants will be as safe as the employees insist...
...Flight from Wall Street NEW YORK CITY "I was more and more unhappy, not only with the work—it was all the pursuit of money, that was all anyone cared about," says Jose Azar about his highly paid job as an attorney specializing in aviation and maritime law at a prestigious Wall Street law firm...
...Like Blase, Knott is a miner's daughter...
...When Phelps Dodge moved to freeze wages, cancel cost-of-living adjustments, and reduce medical, dental, and retirement benefits, the miners walked out...
...If the city is going to extend very substantial concessions to Safeway," says Erik Schapiro, an organizer for the North of Market Planning Coalition, "there's a certain obligation that is incumbent upon the city and Safeway not to abandon this neighborhood...
...The shift toward superstores has brought a bonanza to Safeway...
...As for the suit against the Honeywell protesters, "I don't see a conflict here," Bachman says...
...The suit charges that the protesters cost the taxpayers "hundreds of thousands of dollars" which "more properly could have been used for legitimate social purposes and/or reducing...
...A bailout is in the wind...
...I've always taught them not to be led around by the nose...
...Many are single parents, most are minorities, and employment opportunities in the area are extremely limited...
...CARACEN is aided by a volunteer organization of refugees...
...Lighting the Way to Profit WASHINGTON, D.C...
...Company officials claim the Bush Street Safeway had lost $550,000 when it was closed...
...I don't think any utility executive in his right mind in this country would even consider for more than thirty seconds starting a new nuclear plant...
...To be sure, the pay is not up to Wall Street standards...
...And on the eve of the conversion announcement, Moody's Investors Service lowered the utility's bond rating once again...
...I'm striking because I believe in what my dad fought for," says Gloria Blase, daughter of a Mexican father and Papago Indian mother...
...Stockholders, consumers, and local, state, and Federal governments should help Zimmer out—providing up to the $1.7 billion already squandered on the nuclear plant, Altman suggested...
...They have alternately been ignored, denounced, and red-baited by company officials and employees alike...
...Because of the violence, the Phelps Dodge strike has attracted some media attention, but little mention has been made of the vital role women-miners and supporters—are playing on the picket line...
...Converting Zimmer to a coal-fired plant cannot begin until the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency certifies that Zimmer has the best available technology for controlling air pollution...
...Safeway's use of this public subsidy has angered Tenderloin activists...
...The women blocked traffic at the mine gate," says miner Janie Ramon...
...To counter expected criticism, the Institute claims its marketing strategy is not to promote consumption but to manage the electricity load more efficiently...
...They asked if I would mop floors and clean bathrooms, which I did...
...After almost sixteen years of blunders, mishaps, construction flaws, and cost overruns, Zimmer's owners abandoned the atom in January and decided to convert the power plant to coal...
...It is a lesson to the entire nuclear labor force: You are not helpless...
...Strikers began to get suspension notices, and Phelps Dodge shut off electricity, foreclosed mortgages, and evicted many workers from their homes in these prototypical company towns...
...Azar tendered his resignation and went to work for CARACEN handling a docket of deportation cases...
...It has the potential for "chilling freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom of protest in this country...
...When I was divorced with three kids to support, I knew it was time to work for the Company," says Lydia Gonzales Knott, the only woman on a crew of sixty-five in mill repair...
...i could never go back to worrying what the senior partner thinks about me,' says Jose Azar...
...The refugees respect Azar and the service he provides...
...Women were given the old "Mexican" locker room and bathroom facilities left over from the days of racial segregation...
...With nuclear power out of Zimmer's future, Cincinnati Gas is left in a precarious financial position...
...Conservation "reduced expenditures but it also reduced income," says the Institute...
...Minnesota nuclear weapons contractors, particularly Honeywell and Sperry, have been the targets of major civil disobedience actions...
...Said Maggie Erbe, another anti-Zimmer activist: "I cried for five minutes when someone called this morning to tell me...
...Barbara Kingsolver and Jill Barrett Fein (Barbara Kingsolver is a Tucson-based writer...
...Critics of nuclear power exulted in victory following the announcement by Cincinnati Gas...
...This decision, when added to the torrent of revelations about Zim-mer's construction and quality control problems, gravely damaged the financial community's confidence in Cincinnati Gas, hammering stock prices and bond ratings...
...Just a day after closing its Bush Street store on the outskirts of Tenderloin, Safeway opened a sparkling, mammoth new supermarket about a mile away on a redevelopment site financed with millions of dollars of tax money...
...It hurts...
...Carl Goldfarb (Carl Goldfarb is a free-lance writer in New York...
...It has erupted into pitched battles from time to time, most notably in the early 1900s and most recently last July...
...Azar knows how to reach the American public," says the Reverend Thomas Gomide of the Corpus Christi Church, who has worked closely with Azar...
...Feeser is fifty-eight and suffers from clogged arteries in addition to high blood pressure...
...But the utility industry is not standing idly by...
...Because public opinion surveys show that three-quarters of the American people believe electric rates are excessive, the Institute advises that "our voice must not be that of an industry, but of a local friend and neighbor...
...My kids are six and nine, and they understood perfectly why I went to jail...
...I could never kowtow any more...
...In the latest dispute, the company and the state have applied brute force to break up picket lines in the tiny mining towns of Clifton-Morenci and Ajo...
...Kenneth Tilsen, attorney for the Honeywell Project, another defendant, calls the lawsuit "sloppy political rhetoric" and says "the whole thing shouldn't be taken seriously...
...They were asking us to take a step backward, and we said no," explains Vicky Sharp, a Morenci miner's wife...
...The company must fulfill its obligation to its stockholders, Mahaffey explained...
...I've lived in Clifton all my life and was raised to believe in the union," she says...
...And since 1980, utility executives have canceled or delayed the construction of more than 200 power plants...
...The company contributes to causes "that emphasize education and social welfare," says Honeywell spokeswoman Karen Bachman...
...Fuel-Change Operation CINCINNATI When the history of nuclear power is finally written, Zim-mer rather than Three Mile Island will probably be the egregious symbol of the industry's ineptitude...
...Utility companies used to score public relations points by advocating energy conservation—but no longer...
...In response, the Women's Auxiliary was formed to boost morale, raise money, and generate public support...
...It seems fair to assess those costs on those responsible," says Elliot Rothenberg, North Star's director and legal counsel...
...If you tell the basics of the industry story believably, over and over again, you can make a difference in public attitudes," says William Mc-Collam, president of the Institute...
...It was terrible back then," remembers Ramon, the first woman hired in the Ajo mine...
...Five months later, he was back in the New York area setting up a refugee organization on Long Island, modeled and named after the Washington group though not formally affiliated with it...
...Not one of us had any weapon other than a baseball bat...
...Rothenberg, a former Republican state senator and candidate for attorney general, compares it to a class action suit but recognizes "there hasn't been any case in Minnesota quite like this...
...I'm getting a lot of godfather requests these days," Azar says...
...Zimmer's nuclear fate was sealed when the power plant was denied an operating license because of inadequate emergency plans...
...Their track record shouldn't give the public a lot of confidence," said Brewster Rhoads of the Ohio Public Interest Campaign...
...A Dominican by birth, he decided to spend his 1982 vacation volunteering at the offices of the Central American Refugee Center, CARACEN, in Washington, D.C...
...When I first started with the firm, I thought we were such a privileged priesthood," he says...
...They thought I had lost my mind," he recalls...
...But after two years, "it began to dawn on me" that the law wasn't quite what it was cracked up to be: "As long as we protected the coffers of the insurance companies, everything was fine...
...Profits continued to rise in the first three quarters of 1983...
...Nevertheless, the Honeywell Project is waging a legal defense and has filed a claim for the reimbursement of legal costs...
...In response to a union-backed equal opportunity lawsuit in 1969, the company slowly began hiring women...
...Supermarket chains make only a small profit on food sales...
...Zimmer, however, will never generate a single watt of electricity with nuclear energy...
...He knows how to package the big message in little pills that people will swallow...
...Sell the damn things while there is still a market," one industry analyst advised holders of the utility's stocks and bonds...
...at the same time, the all-women Citizens for Justice organized mass picket lines...
...Suddenly, six cars pulled up and state troopers jumped out with machine guns...
...A lot of us were told we could cross the picket line or stay in jail," says Ramon, who was arrested for alleged misconduct...
...Until a funding grant comes through, Azar—who was married last summer—is not even drawing a salary...
...They didn't really know what to do with me...
...In August, more than a thousand pickets successfully prevented scabs from entering the mines, forcing a ten-day shutdown...
...Shortly after the workers went on strike, Phelps Dodge won a court injunction limiting the number of miners on a picket line to five...
...You might as well throw out the Bill of Rights if this suit is upheld," says Fred Pritzker, attorney for the Minnesota Nuclear Freeze Campaign, one of the defendants...
...To the women strikers, the union's success is especially important...
...Until last October he needed to walk only eight blocks to the Safeway supermarket to purchase the fresh vegetables, fish, chicken, and low-salt foods that are the staples of his restricted diet...
...Honeywell, for instance, made a $5,000 tax-deductible donation to the Foundation last year...
...A Safeway spokeswoman, Janet Mahaffey, says the company will lease the space to the highest bidder and will not make allowances to assure the neighborhood a new grocer...
...Three Mile Island may yet be repaired...
...I can't eat the fish and chicken that I like...
...Here I was at a law firm that people were basically dying to get into, and I was telling them in a very serious way that I was rejecting their world, their ideas on what a meaningful life was...
...Safeway, which has a policy of providing a community only one week's notice before closing, opposes the law...
...Ben L. Kaufman (Ben L. Kaufman, a reporter for The Cincinnati Enquirer, has covered Zimmer since the mid-1970s...
...The Minnesota Nuclear Freeze Campaign has gone further, filing a countersuit charging harassment and seeking $100,000 in damages...
...What we realized was that if you organize a refugee center and you want to make it permanent, you also have to organize a committee of refugees," he says...
...It's a tremendous inconvenience...
...Jill Barrett Fein is a Southern Pacific Railroad worker and member of the Brotherhood of Railway and Airline Clerks...
...The reason is simple: The industry is in deep trouble...
...Some of them told me to take time off with pay, relax, and think it over...
...When it closed, there was no alternative," says Feeser, the vice-president of the North of Market Planning Coalition, a Tenderloin community group...
...I could never go back to worrying what the senior partner thinks about me," says Azar...
...Richard Munson (Richard Munson, former director of Solar Lobby in Washington, is writing a book about the electric companies...
...The business of generating electricity has ceased to be commercially viable," says Ir-vin C. Bupp of the Harvard Business School...
...Brigid's Church in Westbury, Long Island, a symbol of his close ties with the religious community...
...Frank Clancy (Frank Clancy, a free-lance writer and member of the National Writers Union, lives in San Francisco...
...Such a fuel-change operation has never been performed before, but it's their only chance of recovering any of their $1.7 billion investment...
...The North Star Legal Foundation, in a suit filed on behalf of "the taxpayers," is seeking $500,000 to be repaid to public coffers and an injunction against future civil disobedience at military contractor sites...
...America's largest industry is flooding the nation's schools, legislatures, newspapers, and television networks with advertisements promoting electricity consumption...
...No Market for the Poor SAN FRANCISCO Mention the name "Safeway" to Donal Feeser and his high blood pressure creeps a little higher...
...In the light of the current attitude in the financial markets, and with the problems of the nuclear industry in the last few years or so, I think we had to recognize that it isn't practical," said W. S. White Jr., president of Columbus & Southern Ohio Electric...
...I'm on Social Security, and I have only so much money...
...But there's a hitch: Safeway holds the long-term lease on the building and is demanding a high price for the site, which is close to San Francisco's downtown...
...The North Star Legal Foundation has strong ties not only to state Republican politics but also to the military contractors subjected to civil disobedience...
...But he has no regrets...
...In 1982, the company reported a net profit of $159 million, a 47 per cent increase over the previous year...
...There are tens of thousands of Central American refugees on Long Island living in affluent and conservative communities...
...taxes...
...Some critics question whether the utility has the competence to convert the plant...
...Now they are vindicated...
...All that changed when Safeway closed, leaving Feeser and some 20,000 other residents of Tenderloin—San Francisco's most densely populated neighborhood—with few opportunities to buy inexpensive groceries...
...He worked as a crane operator for fifteen years before P-D gave him the same benefits as the white operators...
...the profit margins are much higher on sales of general merchandise...
...But Azar is not a one-man show...
Vol. 48 • March 1984 • No. 3
