By Johnny Mason
Hartford - Angry protesters, upset with Connecticut Light & Power, and its handling of last month’s snowstorm, hit the street to voice their outrage and to demand change.
The protesters - a mix of disgruntled CL&P linesmen, Occupy Hartford participants, college students, immigration activists and other union workers - listed demands that CL&P hire more staff, reimburse its customers for storm-related damage and forget about any ideas for increasing consumers’ rates. “What if this second outage happened in the middle of winter?,” (the first was during Tropical storm Irene in August) asked Ted Donoghue, a waste water system operator, who along with 75 protesters demonstrated Saturday outside Northeast Utilities, downtown Hartford office. “The people of Connecticut have to hold CL&P to a higher standard.”
Protesters such as those Saturday have taken to the streets across the city, demonstrating or holding “general assembly” or organizational meetings, to address concerns: corporate greed, economic injustice and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But much of the group’s outrage Saturday was directed at CL&P and its former president and chief operating officer, Jeffrey Butler. Butler, who resigned Thursday, came under intense fire for his handling of the widespread power outage following last month’s snowstorm that affected more than 800,000 households and businesses. Like many state legislators and town leaders, the protesters said CL&P management was unprepared for the storm and failed to adequately respond to residents’ needs.
“The whole system needs to be changed, including healthcare and utilities, because it’s all profit-driven,” said Tokuji Okamoto, a socialist, who supervises after-school programs for a non-profit. “Citizens would get better and more affordable service if utility companies were publicly-owned.” What angered many of the protesters more than Butler’s actions was his reported severance package estimated to be worth millions. Carrying a pole with the American flag, college student Erik Gilbert, 22, led the group in chanting, “Where’s our severance package?” “You have corporate greed to the extent that they’re laying off people to make more money for stockholders and the CEO,’’ said Johnny Williams, an associate professor at Trinity College, who has supported the Occupy Hartford movement since its beginning two months ago.
Frank Cirillo, business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 420, said he wasn’t there to “bash” CL&P. He hoped to convey the message that the American labor movement is dying. With unions representing only 12 percent, down from 47 percent, of the American work force, future work opportunities look grim for many of the young people at the rally, he said. “We’re going backward to the 1930s, a time of street riots and hungry people,” said Cirillo, who worked 20 years as a service mechanic. “American labor movement shouldn’t die.”
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