Linked to Minority Advances : New Utility Merger Law Urged
Public Advocacy, a San Francisco-based public-interest law firm that recently helped negotiate an unusual minority-advancement agreement with California First Bank, has asked state legislators to prohibit utility mergers unless companies demonstrate “a positive and substantial record” of hiring and doing business with minorities.
Public Advocacy has proposed the legislation because “many regulated utilities (that) have historically ignored our state’s 12 million (minority citizens),” according to Public Advocacy attorney Robert Gnaizda. “We want to ensure that the entire community is served and that the public interest is advanced by these mergers.”
Public Advocacy, the San Francisco Black Chamber of Commerce and the Consumers Union in June negotiated a sweeping minority agreement with California First Bank. The Japanese-owned bank, which is merging with Union Bank, agreed to provide $84 million in loans for minority and low-income neighborhoods, increase recruitment of minorities and women and add three minority or women directors to its board.
Public Advocacy’s testimony criticized minority hiring and promotion records at San Diego Gas & Electric and Rosemead-based SCEcorp, which wants to acquire SDG&E.; Spokesmen for both utilities, citing Securities and Exchange Commission regulations, on Tuesday declined to discuss minority hiring figures.
According to Public Advocacy, only four of 84 San Diego Gas & Electric employees with annual salaries above $75,000 are minority members. Among the 22 SDG&E; employees earning $100,000 or more, “none is black, Asian or Hispanic, and just one is a woman,” according to Gnaizda.
At SCE, “there are no blacks, no Asians, no women and just one Hispanic” earning $100,000 or more annually, Gnaizda said. “I double-checked the figures with Edison’s head of affirmative action because, when I first got them, I didn’t believe them because they were so bad,” Gnaizda said.
Group Praised
State Assemblywoman Gwen Moore (D-Los Angeles) on Tuesday credited Public Advocacy with playing an active role in the recent push for legislation to require utilities to do more business with companies owned by minorities and women.
Gnaizda said the newly proposed legislation would prohibit utility-industry mergers unless companies agree to adopt “positive and substantial” programs to increase the hiring and promotion of minorities.
“We’ll deal with the utilities (in the manner that) we dealt with Cal First,” Gnaizda said. “We knew of their poor record and realized it served no purpose to pillory them because of that record. We told them to make an all-out effort in the future and we’d forget their past.”
