The Personnel Sharing Program is designed to provide many benefits for the participating plants.  The Borrowing Participants obtain experienced personnel at a reasonable and value-added cost, using other utility personnel results in a more experienced work force than those hired from commercial sources.  In most cases, this results in either less personnel required to complete specific tasks, or the task can be completed in less time.  The loaning participants reduce their O&M costs by transferring those costs to the borrowing plant for the duration of the agreement.

The sudden emergence and rapid global spread of the coronavirus in early 2020 eclipsed the benefits of the program and the plans that were in place.  Vacations have been cancelled and family gatherings stopped.  We cannot go to many restaurants and shopping has become difficult.  It’s no surprise that the Personnel Sharing plan that was in place to support the spring outage season was basically put on hold.  At that time, public health officials were telling Americans to avoid face-to-face contact, including working, in the hopes of subduing the coronavirus outbreak.

On August 6, the USA Board of Directors (BOD) met and one of the topics of discussion was the Personnel Sharing Program and the fall outage season.  The topic was put on the agenda to ensure the USA fleet had a unified approach to how the plans would be implemented rather than each plant making individual decisions.  The BOD was informed of the plans that were in place for this fall, their options and the impact of the various options.

The options discussed were:

• to direct that the plan be implemented as is, meaning that it would be a decision that would not be overridden by individual managers.
• to not implement the plan
• or, have the individual stations work their own deals using the current schedule/plan as a starting point and the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to implement any individual plant-to-plant plans.

The USA/STARS plants had about 27 exchanges planned for the fall outage season.  The wholesale termination of those plans would be a significant impact to the savings for both the borrowing and loaning stations not to mention terminating the planned exchanges would be an impact to the plants that were expecting those resources to come in to support their outages.  The various challenges that could arise and that are not addressed in our current MOU were also presented.  Those concerns include:

• Who should pick up the expenses associated with a COVID quarantine?
• If a loaned employee is required to self-quarantine for 14 days, would we choose to terminate the contract at the time of quarantine?

• How do we ensure we are staying inside of the HIPPA law boundaries if an employee tests positive?
• What if a state’s requirements change to a 14-day quarantine upon entry and the borrowing/loaning is cancelled, who pays for travel?
• If the work scope changes to a time allotment shorter than the 28 days due to covid does the worker have to refund costs stipulated in the MOU.

The final option, that each station makes final agreements with the other involved station using the USA/STARS MOU as a guideline was what the BOD determined was appropriate and best for the workers and the plants.  That approach allows each station to deal with the local state and company mandates that may be in effect.  The BOD also directed the Personnel Sharing Team to write a covid amendment/attachment to the MOU to address the concerns expressed above and any others that may come up.  The BOD also directed that the Personnel Sharing Team proceed with the 2021 bartering session.