Columbia Gas and NiSource get grilled

NiSource, Get Your Act Together

CEO Pay A Bitter Pill for Seniors

Struggling to afford your medicines? Wondering where your prescription money goes? The AFL-CIO’s new Executive PayWatch web site, reports that much of it goes straight into the CEOs’ wallets. And I’m not just referring to the drug companies, either.

A few examples of annual pay:

Johnson & Johnson $29.1 million
Abbott Laboratories $28.3 million
Merck $25.1 million
Wyeth $24.2 million
NiSource $2.5 million

According to The New York Times, the 2003 Medicare Part D drug law has proven to be “a financial windfall larger than even the most optimistic Wall Street analysts have predicted.” The law prohibits Medicare from negotiating volume discounts with drug manufacturers, and as a result retirees in the now-privatized Part D plans pay 58% more than under plans administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs which is allowed to negotiate price discounts. NIPSCO retirees fall into this category.

Greedy CEO’s are ruining our country. Would NIPSCO see their way clear to increase the pensions of their retirees even the slightest? Hell no! Why? Because the genius bosses in charge of NiSource and NIPSCO under funded the pension plan. They’re the ones who have NIPSCO and NiSource reeling after their bad decisions. Well then, what about a small bonus to help retirees on Medicare pay for their lousy Medicare Part D (prescription drug plan)? Hell no! Why? Because their retirees “can’t help us out of this deep hole we’ve gotten ourselves in”.

A little $300 bonus paid to each of NIPSCO’s 2,150 retirees would amount to $645,000. That’s just about half of what this Skaggs fella took in as his increase in compensation. That’s right, 102% increase in his compensation. Over $2.5 million. But hey, I think he should have got 112% increase like his NiSource buddy board of directors.

And now……we can all look forward to their 15% increase in electric rates!

I’m not going to bother looking up the compensation of the cheapskate feather-their-own- nesters who run NIPSCO. No need. I have their quotes and know the value they place on the people who made that company. They're the ones who can't pay death benefits in a timely manner. They're the ones who speak with forked tongue. They're the ones who cheat their retirees.

I have no good words for the NIPSCO or NiSource........ Well, maybe one.

Pitiful

Robert C. Skaggs Jr., CEO of NiSource Inc.

According to the AFL-CIO Executive Pay Database:

Robert C. Skaggs Jr.
Chief Executive Officer
NiSource Inc.

In 2007, Robert C. Skaggs Jr. raked in $2,494,755 in total compensation. In the previous year the CEO of this company made $1,232,745. Total CEO compensation has increased by 102%.

NiSource is the parent company of the Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO).

By going to the Executive Pay Database, you can see how that compares with your wage.

NIPSCO Liar

The Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO) is demanding that their poor old shaky retirees pay more for their medical insurance premiums.

Although NIPSCO has agreed to meet periodically with specified members of the United Steelworkers Union to confer and make recommendations for the most efficient and cost-effective operation of the medical plan, and to agree on projected premium and other plan costs, get this, NIPSCO has refused to meet with the specified union members.

Now I want to know who the liars are. What NIPSCO management people agreed to meet periodically with specified members of the union but won’t do it? Do the liars work for NIPSCO or do the liars work for NiSource? I would assume that the liar or liars work for NIPSCO because the agreement was made by NIPSCO.

So, is the Liar Gary Neale, or Doug Bobillo, or Tim Dehring, or Bret Mcintyre, or Mel Stasinski, or Jerry Godwin, or Joel Hoelzer, or Jim Petroskey? In other words, which one of the above persons will step up and say, “hey, I’m the liar”. I agreed to meet but I won’t do it.”

I guess if any of the persons named above doesn’t work for NIPSCO any more, I can’t hold those persons responsible. So who then is to blame? Who is the liar? Will the liar please step forward? The CEO? Who is the CEO of NIPSCO? Who’s in charge at NIPSCO? Who’s the liar at NIPSCO? Who’s responsible for enforcing the contract at NIPSCO? Does the buck stop anywhere?

Who at NIPSCO is responsible for not meeting with the union to keep medical insurance premiums as low as possible but at the same time wants to increase medical insurance premiums for the retirees? Who is it?

Who ever you are, it’s a damn good thing I’m not you’re boss.

Letter to NiSource

In this morning's newspaper, the headline article explains that the NiSource (parent company of the Northern Indiana Public Service Company) Directors are paid $165,000.00 per year for attending about a dozen meetings.

Since I heard yesterday that NIPSCO wants to put the screws to their retirees by increasing their medical insurance premiums, and at the same time is wanting to increase my electric rate by 15%, I've decided to try to find a part time job.

After thinking long and hard about it, I've decided to put my name in the hat for a directors job.

If someday I'm selected for this job because of a vacancy, I promise to earn my $165,000.00 by attending each and every meeting. In fact, I'll come an hour before the meeting starts and stay one hour after it ends.

Thanks NiSource.

NIPSCO Credit When Credit is Due

A few months ago I replaced my 30 plus year natural gas furnace. I then applied to the NIPSCO EneryHarvest program in an attempt to get their advertised rebate for purchasing an energy efficient furnace.
A couple weeks ago I received a check from NIPSCO for $250.
What a great deal from NIPSCO.
What a wonderful program.
This company seems to be doing their part to help our environment, and conserve our natural resources.

I congratulate NIPSCO on this program and encourage others to take advantage of it by clicking here

USW 12775 Important Notice

Attention all Linemen
You are invited to attend

A Linemen’s Meeting
March 5, 2008 5:00pm CST
At USW 6787
1100 n. S.R. 149
Chesterton IN

All of us have been devastated by the recent fatality and what this means to linemen and the work we perform at NIPSCO.

We need to come together and discuss what we can do to keep ourselves safe.

We need to do this for our families, our apprentices and our customers.

There will be a second meeting later in the week for our Linemen on the east end of our service territory

NIPSCO Balderdash on Lineman death

The following is taken from the Michigan City News Dispatch.

"NIPSCO has commissioned a third-party investigation into the accident.

NIPSCO director of communications Colleen Reilly said any time there is a serious injury or fatality, the utility calls in a third-party inspector to investigate.

"Every job has a safety protocol," Reilly said."

Isn't the Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration (IOSHA) a third party? And can anyone remember NIPSCO ever accepting their findings and taking responsibility?

NIPSCO's only "safety protocol" is to find the accident victim at fault. The NIPSCO management team will not accept any responsibility for its failed safety program. Lies, lies, and more lies. Sort of reminds you of the Bush administration, doesn't it?

Another Fatlity at NIPSCO

NIPSCO Deaths And Injuries

• Journeyman lineman Jeff Cox died Friday as the result of injuries he suffered after an electrical accident in Marshall County on Feb. 16, 2008.

• Apprentice lineman Mike Nesius died Aug. 16, 2006.

• Kevin Reinhold, a journeyman lineman in Angola, IN, died Aug. 1, 2001.

• Since 2001, there have been at least a dozen electrical contacts, with five resulting in serious injury or amputation.

(Source: United Steel Workers Local 12775)

Let's not kid ourselves. We all know what the problem is at NIPSCO and NiSource.

Nipsco says they’re dealing with safety by trying to find out how an accident happened so that they can prevent similar accidents in the future. They call such an investigation, “Root Cause Analysis”.

NIPSCO also has implemented what they’re calling a “behavior-based safety process.”
By that, they mean, they’ll give their workers a little pat on the head when they keep from getting hurt, and heck, they may even give them a Chinese made jacket or a piece of pizza, but they’ll discipline the hell out of them when they do get hurt.

NIPSCO is so smart, of course, that they don’t allow the union to participate in the safety program on an equal basis. They make it a strictly disciplinary process.

Everyone knows how nipsco’s safety program really works.

The highest paid managers at the top put on a good show about safety, but the front line supervisors are pressured to get more and more production and so, although they do have safety tailgate discussions dealing with safety, and they do hold an occasional safety meeting, they at the same time look the other way when safety rules are broken. The worker knows that to do a job safely takes more time, but wanting to please his boss and make the job easier, goes ahead and breaks the safety rules. So everybody's happy. If he doesn’t get hurt, his boss is pleased as punch and gets a feather in his cap. Production increases and usually the jobs get done with nobody getting hurt.

But this is managements game plan, and it’s no secret.

Although the safety manual at nipsco does put the greatest responsibility for a workers safety on the employee, I believe it also says that the supervisor is ultimately responsible for the safety of the workers under his direction, or some such thing.

Any time there is a lost time accident at NIPSCO, the front line supervisor should be the one being investigated, and if there are more than two accidents within a year involving workers under his direction, that boss should be fired.

NIPSCO Needs Help...mayday...mayday....mayday

If you are a life insurance representative, please contact the Northern Indiana Public Service Company and show them how to go about paying a death benefit.

Is NIPSCO a Cheat?

When NIPSCO fails to pay a negotiated death benefit to a deceased retiree's beneficiaries in a timely fashion so that they can pay final expenses such as funeral costs, taxes, pay off a mortgage loan or other personal debts, is the company just a plain old fashioned cheat?

Or......are they just being heartless, unfeeling, coldhearted, uncaring, insensitive, unsympathetic, cruel, cold, pitiless, harsh, unkind, ruthless and inconsiderate?

NIPSCO......pay what you owe!

NIPSCO, Get off your Duffs!

About a year ago, a member of our chapter of the Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees who worked several years at the Northern Indiana Public Service Company passed away.

This retiree had three children.

He retired with union negotiated life insurance.

The sons sent in the required death certificates and other information and hoped to receive the death benefit within a reasonable length of time. It wasn’t forth coming.

One of the sons phoned me about three weeks ago and told me that the death benefit hadn’t been paid yet, and that after phoning the NIPSCO representative, was told that they couldn’t find the necessary paperwork. After mailing it to them once again, the representative phoned him and told him that they found the paperwork, but still no check was sent.

I phoned Mel Stasinski twice about this. I don’t know who he works for since NIPSCO contracts out so much of their work to Costa Rica, several other companies and perhaps several other countries, but I know he has something to do with benefits. He has a NiSource email address. I believe I sent him an email message as well about this problem. I got no response from Mel Stasinski as he is very seldom by his phone.

I then phoned Rick Bond, Benefits Director for NiSource and asked him to look into this snafu.
Rick Bond then phoned me more than two weeks ago and left a message. The message said they had all the necessary paperwork and that the benefit “will be processed very shortly.”

I phoned the beneficiary this morning and he said that no check had been received.

Now, someone is speaking with forked tongue.

If any NIPSCO customer fails to pay a NIPSCO bill, do you think NIPSCO would sit on its hands for a year? I don’t think so.

NIPSCO either needs to hire enough people to do the necessary jobs, or they need to fire someone. Which is it?

NIPSCO, or NiSource, or who ever is responsible for paying death benefits, please get off your duffs and pay this one!

Another NIPSCO NiSource Blunder

The NIPSCO NiSource Runaround

NIPSCO……….

Pay death benefits in a timely manner.

What do you think a death benefit is for, anyway?

Is this another job you’ve outsourced to Costa Rica?

Pay the lousy death benefits!

Learn to have a little empathy or compassion for crying out loud.

You know the one I'm referring to.

Pay it quick cause I'm pissed!

Lousy Safety Program at NIPSCO

The safety manual for the employees of the Northern Indiana Public Service Company used to say something about it being the responsibility of every employee to read the darned safety manual once in a while and become familiar with it.

Having retired about ten years ago, I don’t have a copy of the safety manual any more, but my guess is that it still says the same thing.

Well, It’s time for NIPSCO management to require each and every member of their management team to do just that before they end up murdering another worker or a member of the public.

Reports going around my neck of the woods are indicating that NIPSCO is playing the “blame game” rather than providing a good safety program and I am expecting that to change. Get it NIPSCO?

Who’s in charge of that outfit these days, any way? Start doing your job!

And more importantly, who's in charge of the Safety Department? Who is insisting that workers work unsafely? Who is doing the lying to OSHA?

We don't need any more workers getting electrocuted and we don't need any more explosions.

Does NiSource prey on seniors?

The reasons I ask this question are as follow:

1. A NiSource owned company seems to be refusing to pay a death benefit to a NIPSCO widow whose husband passed away over seven months ago. How can a company cobble up something as simple as this, you ask.....well, NIPSCO and NiSource have outsourced so much work that deals with real people, to either out of state or out of country companies who seem to only be in it for the buck and the language barrier is proving to be overwhelming to seniors.

2. In the Bremen, Indiana area, as I understand it, NIPSCO mailed out flyers advertising their so called Price Protection Service (PPS) and stating that anyone interested in more information would have a chance to win a colored television set. In this particular instance, the elderly customer mailed back for more information, hoping to win the television. A couple of weeks later, on a Sunday afternoon, a salesman from the U.S. Energy Savings Company came to her home and persuaded her to sign the contract.

3. As I understand the latest fiasco, in Ohio, customers were required by a NiSource Company to pay for the riser connecting the gas service to the meter which was installed by outside contractors. Now, so many of them leak and have to be replaced, the NiSource Company wants the customers to pay for the shoddy workmanship.

4. If I have the story straight, at least three NiSource owned companies are attempting to take away medical insurance benefits from retirees.

New Flag for NIPSCO

In 2005, Robert C. Skaggs, Chief Executive Officer of NiSource Inc. raked in $1,756,152 in total compensation including stock option grants from NiSource Inc..
And Robert C. Skaggs has another $32,935 in unexercised stock options from previous years.

You know what? I don’t give a rip how much this guy needs to have joy and happiness in his life. Heck, it’s a dog eat dog world out there, but you would think that someone worth this much would at least see to it that the widow of one of his deceased retirees would receive some explanation as to why a lousy $10,000 life insurance claim is taking so long to be paid to her husbands beneficiaries. Seven months seems a bit too long to me.

This Skaggs fellow has allowed the Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO) to outsource so much of what used to be done by usually efficient Hoosiers at NIPSCO to places such as Costa Rica. This is causing so much confusion among management and labor at NIPSCO, that I’m wondering if this guy really is worth this much.

Workers have a right to know who the hell is in charge of the place.

NIPSCO doesn’t know up from down, left from right, or even right from wrong anymore.

Get on the ball, Skaggs, and treat your retirees and their widows right, and start bringing those NIPSCO jobs back to Indiana. We’re Americans, not Costa Ricans. And while you’re at it, see to it that the deceased retiree gets his due.

source for compensation: AFL-CIO Executive Pay Watch

Charlie Averill

NIPSCO Pay Your Bills

Hey NIPSCO! When people get their NIPSCO bill, you expect them to pay the damn thing or risk being shut off.
Well, how about paying your own stinking bills. What's the matter with you?
Your retirees have life insurance policys which were negotiated. Why put a widow through the hassle of waiting and waiting for you screw balls to pay up.
Either pay the stinking insurance claims, or tell people your just not going to pay, so they can sue your butts.
You got the most screwed up system I've ever heard of.
You didn't used to have this problem, but now you have so much work outsourced to out of state and out of country companies that it's no wonder your employees and retirees are upset.

Even your own management knows how screwed up you are.

Do I have to call Lou Dobbs or 60 minutes or the newspapers or what?

Pay up!

Charlie Averill

NIPSCO Cheats Widow

What Do I Have to Do?

My Dear Husband, David Letts, a retired NIPSCO employee, passed away on June 14, 2006. The following week I called the Benefits office in Orlando, Florida to see what I must do to have the $10,000 life insurance policy dispersed to his 5 children. David told me that he had changed the beneficiary listing to the five children after his divorce.

A nice gentleman, by the name of Steve, said that I would have to supply them with a death certificate and a listing of the children’s names, addresses and Social Security numbers. Within several days I received copies of his death certificate and typed up a listing of his children and all of their information, and sent it to Orlando.

Now, after over seven months since my husband’s death, I still can’t get any information as to why these claims have not been paid. I gave up writing down the dates and times of phone calls made to the Benefits office after the number reached ten. All I hear from them is that they are “waiting for approval from Corporate”.

However, I had been told by the Insurance Committee Chairperson for USW local 13796, that I should call Prudential since the policies were through Prudential. Through the number that I was given, I called Prudential and they said that they never heard anything about a policy concerning my husband.

Alas, I am no farther along than when David passed away. So, remembering that I am a member of the Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees, perhaps I needed to turn to other resources. Charlie Averill, president of my SOAR chapter, has come to my rescue, or at least he is trying to. He gave me the name and phone number for the Insurance Committee Chairman for USW Local 12775, who in turn gave me the name of Lois Olson, from NIPSCO, whom I have contacted and still am getting no results.

My husband has been gone over seven months and NIPSCO is refusing to acknowledge it and pay the rightful insurance claim to his children. David spent 35 years at NIPSCO, and they can’t find approval for issuance of the insurance proceeds? Do I need to send someone a copy of his ID card to prove that he truly did work for NIPSCO?

David had been receiving his pension payments without a problem. But now NIPSCO can’t find approval for his final insurance payout. How much more money do they have to cheat their employees and retirees out of before they are really, truly happy?

It is bad enough to have lost my husband, David, but now his children are being cheated out of what is rightfully theirs.

Marlys Letts, irate widow of NIPSCO retiree