The Turlock Irrigation District Board of Directors will start their meeting early tomorrow morning, beginning at 8 a.m.
Directors are scheduled to then immediately adjourn to closed session, where negotiations will occur with both the TID Employees' Association and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
TID and the IBEW have been embroiled in a labor dispute reaching back to April 2011. The IBEW contract with TID expired in December 2011, but IBEW members have continued to work under the old agreement until a new agreement can be reached.
The dispute culminated in a 45 hour electricity outage which cut power to 49 TID customers in late September 2011.
IBEW-represented TID line crews did not respond to calls for assistance during the outage. When TID asked for help from nearby utilities, their IBEW-represented crews also declined to help. Private electric contractors arrived, but were turned away by an IBEW member.
“A TID employee, a member of the Lineworker’s union, interfered with the job, thus causing the contract crew to leave the site due to concerns by the contract crew of a potential hostile work environment,” Hashimoto said at the time.
Unless an agreement is reached on Tuesday, no report will be made of the discussion.
The TID Board of Directors are also expected to:
• Hear regular, weekly reports on electrical service, power costs, and irrigation water supplies.
• Receive a monthly report on activities in the Electrical Engineering and Operations Administration.
• Begin the process to include land into two improvement districts. The GSL Pump would add a total of 55.81 acres, owned by Dale and Julia Matney. The Muller Murphy Pump would add 55.88 acres owned by Eric Muller and Lisa Muller.
The TID Board of Directors will meet at 8 a.m. tomorrow, in the board room of the TID Main Office, located at 333 E. Canal Dr.
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