San Juan mayor: Energy company 'threatening not to do their job'

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

The mayor of San Juan said the small company tasked with restoring power to Puerto Rico is threatening to pull out their services over her criticism of their contract.

"We've got 44 linemen rebuilding power lines in your city & 40 more men just arrived. Do you want us to send them back or keep working?" Whitefish Energy tweeted Wednesday.

Link to tweet

The tweet was in response to Mayor Carmen Yul n Cruz's request for more transparency about their $300 million contract, which has faced scrutiny because of potential conflicts of interest.

Cruz tweeted in response that the company's comments are a threat, expanding on her criticisms of the company's contract from earlier Wednesday.

"They are threatening not to do their job which frankly is quite irregular for a company hired to the work for the public sector," she tweeted.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/san-juan-mayor-energy-company-threatening-not-to-do-their-job/ar-AAu3dfO?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=edgsp

[defacto7]

1. But she should have thought this through

before signing this particular company.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

2. Did you forget the sarcasm smile?

[Tatiana]

4. Is this sarcasm?

I honestly can't tell.

[Igel]

11. She didn't sign.

And in addition to this company's workers, there are hundreds of rank-and-file power company workers repairing power lines.

There's a difference between the high-tension lines that hook into substations and the lines than run down the street and connect to houses.

The grid was destroyed. That includes the high tension lines and substations. Whitefish is a subsidiary of a large Brazilian company that specializes in heavy-duty and large transformers. We're not talking the little things hanging on telephone poles in front of your house. Like a lot of builders, they have contractors. Not employees.

PR was very slow in requesting the help that they could have requested on day 1. Nobody cared because they could make political points off of puertorriquense suffering and blame Trump/FEMA. It was PR's decision, and, again, it was probably the correct decision even though it seems heartless and cruel at first glance. Why? Because without the high-tension lines there's no way to replace and verify the low-level lines going to houses and businesses, or even along the streets.

It's like people expected an entire electrical grid to be airlifted in the first week or so for people to plug into their houses. First, generators. Then high-tension lines. Then substations. Then the low-level connections. Some things you can build in parallel. Some you can't.

[lostnfound]

15. "This particular company" had only two full time employees until they were given this contract

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029749496

Those rates are not the result of maintaining a trained and equipped workforce. It is crony capitalistm.

[Demtexan]

3. Someone is getting a kick back from this.

You just know it.

[defacto7]

5. Actually no. Help me here, am I missing something?

It has always seemed like a strange choice of contractors with ties to government officials and no experience. Although I can't say I know what the alternative would have been.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

6. Two words Ryan Zinke

The company is from his home town of Whitefish Montana.

[Sailor65x1]

7. What the hell did she expect?

She's calling for their contract to be voided. They responded as any reasonable person would expect, and she's claiming it's because she's a woman?

She was the face of something very positive, but now she's coming off like an idiot.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

8. Maybe you need to familiarize yourself with how Whitefish Energy got the job.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/10/24/whitefish_energy_from_ryan_zinke_s_hometown_received_a_300_million_contract.html

They appear to be in over there heads.

[Sailor65x1]

9. Actually no

How they got the contract is completely irrelevant to my statement. Whether I think they should have gotten it or not is also irrelevant. The fact is, they are on contract, she's calling for it to be voided, and they are reacting by asking whether she wants their people to keep working or not.

Nice try but apropos of nothing.

As an aside, being an electrical PE myself, I can tell you that journeyman linemen are worth those rates, and those rates are commonly charged.

[kacekwl]

10. Wow, maybe they should shut the f up and do the work they

are being paid VERY handsomely to do. Stop whining while stuffing your daily food and lodging stipend in your pocket . As president moron would say Your lucky to have a job.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

12. Do you argue with your customer over twitter?

Or do you call them up and work it out?

Whitefish Energy strikes me as pretty unprofessional. As I said I think they're in over their heads.

[Sailor65x1]

13. No, I don't, but she chose that forum

They didn't

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

19. That's the kind of excuse Donald Trump uses

Don't be that guy

[lostnfound]

17. Crony capitalism and the linemen ain't getting that money.. seems like a Putin style contract

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029749496

Handpicked cronies to be made rich.

[lostnfound]

16. "They" are two full time employees

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029749496

Exploiters and crony capitalism.
Nice swamp"

[Lee-Lee]

18. Everyone keeps harping on the two employees thing

I've worked in disaster response before and almost started my own company. Almost all disaster response companies only have a few full time employees.

My friend owns two of them. One does localized stuff like fires and water damage and has about 12 employees full time. They stay busy doing just local work. The other just exists to do big responses like hurricane and major flood out of town on contracts, usually for FEMA but also local and state contracts and sometimes corporate. She and her husband are the only two full time employees of the second company because 8-9 months of most year they don't have any work.

But they have a long roster of people ready to go when needed and they can have teams of 12-120 deployed in Just a few days if needed. That is how they did for Houston, they called around and had a crew rolling out from NC before the water was even fully receded.

I helped them with setting up their logistsics plans for food and water and shelter for their employees while working because there are often no hotels and they must bring everything with them.

Companies that do full time linesman and grid work are not going to bid on these contracts the same way. They don't have hundreds of excess employees sitting around waiting for the word to go and most don't have the logistics behind them to feed and house employees in a disaster areas. The companies that specialize in disaster response are set up with all that in mind and they are the ones who will bid on this kind of work.

I'm not saying that Whitefish didn't get favorable treatedment- although I haven't seen any indication of it yet despite all the hype- but if you are attacking them for being structured like they are you will be attacking the vast majority of companies in PR or Houston or anywhere else doing disaster response work, because the vast majority of them are just a few people in an office when not working contracts. It's not unusual or atypical in the disaster response world.

[HAB911]

20. Have to agree with you

utilizing contract labor is prevalent across most industries today, not to say this isn't a sweetheart deal through Zinke

[Lee-Lee]

21. Agreed- but people need to drop the "2 employees" line

Because to anyone who knows how this stuff works it just makes them look clueless.

Fact is if they opened it up for bids again most of the companies bidding wouldn't have any of the people they would send if they won't the contract on the payroll now. Even if it was a company with thousands of employees they wouldn't take them off work they are being paid to do now, they would hire more.

Just how these things work. And because it's work that is in areas under austere conditions and long hours and it's temporary they pay really well. Last time I did a 3 week stint for my friend company doing the logistics for the crew I made $55 an hour and did 3 70 hour weeks in a row. Adding mileage and per deim I made over $5000 a week before taxes.

Had I gone to Houston in the same role it would have been $75 an hour.

But it has to pay well to get people in for something they know is temporary, to either quit an existing job or use a lot of vacation time.