What's happening
This bill requires a study and report on workforce trends and future labor needs in New York's utility power generation and transmission sectors.
Why it matters
Prepares New York for Workforce Shifts. By requiring ongoing monitoring and analysis of utility workforce trends—including retirements, hiring plans, and skills needs—the bill aims to help the state anticipate and address potential labor shortages before they affect power generation or reliability.
Links Workforce Analysis to Utility Actions. The bill ties additional workforce studies to specific triggers, such as utility rate hike requests or third-party complaints, ensuring labor issues are directly considered in key regulatory and business decisions.
Broadens Oversight and Stakeholder Involvement. It creates a diverse data review committee (with representation from utilities, labor, ratepayers, large users, and regulators), ensuring that workforce planning reflects input from all major stakeholders in the energy sector.
Empowers the State to Require Utility Workforce Data. The commissioner of labor is given wide authority to demand detailed staffing information from utilities, enabling more informed policymaking and potentially greater transparency for the public regarding how utilities manage and plan their workforce.
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Who cares
Headline styles
Study Utility Workforce Trends
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Sponsors
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History
- Referred to energy
- Referred to energy
Full text
2 pagesUnderlined is new[Struck] is removedOfficial text on nysenate.gov ↗
STATE OF NEW YORK
19
2017-2018 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY (Prefiled)
January 4, 2017
Introduced by M. of A. CAHILL -- read once and referred to the Committee on Energy
AN ACT directing a study and report on current trends in the workforce that supports the generation and transmission of power in the utility industry
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:
Section 1. 1. The commissioner of labor, in consultation with, and using data collected by, the public service commission, shall monitor trends in the workforce of:
(a) personnel that support the generation of power in the utility industry; and
(b) personnel that support the transmission of power in the utility industry.
2. Not later than one year after the effective date of this act, the commissioner of labor shall submit to the legislature a report on current trends under subdivision one of this section, with recommendations to meet the future labor requirements for the energy industries. The commissioner of labor shall have the authority to commence additional studies when (a) a utility initiates a rate hike request; or (b) a complaint is brought by a third party. The scope of any additional study can be broadened to include all utilities in the state or limited to the evaluation to just one utility.
3. As soon as practicable after the date on which the commissioner of labor identifies or predicts a significant shortage in this state of personnel in one or more energy sectors, the commissioner of labor shall submit to the legislature a report describing the shortage, after the data review committee, appointed pursuant to subdivision four of this section has reviewed and provided input on the report. The commissioner of labor shall have broad authority to require utilities to provide
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[ ] is old law to be omitted.
LBD01480-01-7
A. 19 2
documents and reports regarding their staffing practices. The commissioner of labor shall have the authority to seek the following types of information, including but not limited to:
(a) staffing-related service quality data;
(b) current staffing levels;
(c) recruitment and hiring plans;
(d) anticipated retirements;
(e) anticipated skills set needs;
(f) retention plans;
(g) succession plans; and
(h) efforts to capture knowledge from retiring personnel.
4. The commissioner of labor shall evaluate the data with the assistance of experts in human resources, corporate management, internal controls and business/planning policies, and forecasting and planning. The commissioner of labor shall benefit by being informed by all entities with interests in, and relevant information concerning, utility staffing issues. The commissioner of labor shall form a data review committee and shall appoint one member each from the following constituencies to serve for terms of 2 years:
(a) a regulated utility;
(b) a labor representative;
(c) a state ratepayer advocate organization;
(d) an industrial customer or other large user; and
(e) the public service commission.
§ 2. This act shall take effect on the thirtieth day after it shall have become a law.
Reflowed for reading: line numbers and page breaks removed. Cite the official text.
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.