University of Maryland sells out to Engie 50 year lease? (loan, high school)

[rerod]

Hey everyone..

This morning at our shop meeting, we were informed that "possibly" Engie may lease the university of Iowa's utility system. Or in other words, "your positions may be bought by Engie and you might work for Engie instead of the U of I.

This was a shock to all of us, half of us over the age of 50, that the U of I was so poor or unable to manage it's budget that they were going to sell us out..
I mean, we survived the housing crisis, but now after a nice bull run in the market suddenly the U of I is broke??

Anyway. I understand University of Maryland sold out it's utilities to Engie and I was wondering how that has, or will impact the community and employees of University of Maryland Utility's?

[NJ2MDdude]

Ohio State also has entered into a partnership with Engie:

https://www.thelantern.com/2017/08/h...-coming-years/

Keeping Ohio State energy employees

In addition to transparency questions, one major concern for university staff and faculty was whether Ohio State’s utility systems’ employees prior to the deal would stay as part of the Energy Partners. For the most part, they have.

Forty-two of the 49 utility-system employees will continue their work in energy management with the Energy Partners, an accomplishment Tufekci said is due to multiple practices.

“One of them is we just are who we are. We’re a good employer,” Tufekci said. “People join Engie, and they usually stay, so we presented [an employment] package that mirrored packages that we do elsewhere.”

Tufekci said Engie also flew out two of its employees from the University of Maryland to meet potential Ohio State employees and explain their working roles. He said they also relied on other face-to-face meetings, such as the director of operations meeting with each of the 49 employees every day for a week.

He said many of the frustrations Ohio State employees had revolved around the nature of the acquisition.

“There is a natural unknown and certain things cannot be released to every employee as part of the business, so they just voiced their concerns, the frustrations they had,” Tufekci said.

“One of the questions (an Ohio State employee had) was, ‘Are you guys going to bring an army of Engie employees to replace us?’ And the answer is no,” Tufekci said. “This is your plant, you’ve been operating it. You know it more than any employee we can bring.”

Energy Partners plans to hire local employees. “Our preference is to have a diversity from within Ohio, but at the end of the day, we will hire the best candidate that applies for a role,” he said.

Regarding the University of Maryland, I'm not in a position to know what happened after the lease was signed. The school president, whose prior job was at the University of Iowa, has a reputation for conducting business in a less than transparent manner. That said, Maryland is a liberal state and I suspect it just doesn't fill open positions.

[rerod]

Originally Posted by NJ2MDdude

Ohio State also has entered into a partnership with Engie:

https://www.thelantern.com/2017/08/h...-coming-years/



Regarding the University of Maryland, I'm not in a position to know what happened after the lease was signed. The school president, whose prior job was at the University of Iowa, has a reputation for conducting business in a less than transparent manner. That said, Maryland is a liberal state and I suspect it just doesn't fill open positions.

Thanks but I'm not sure what you mean about Maryland not filling open positions because I'm sure their utility division was running just fine as is the U of I's. There's no rational reason to lease the property of the tax payers of maryland to a foreign entity. IMO Except for quick money, but when the economy is great? It might have made sense after 09, but it doesn't now.

After the "partnership", sounds like all hard earned seniority (some of us over 30 years) will be lost working for Engie when they say.. "we will hire the best candidate that applies for a role,” And I bet "hire" and "replace" have the same definition for Engie.

We were told the U of I was concerned about enrollment numbers dropping, because high school graduate numbers were way down?

So accept a 1 billion dollar loan to spruce the place up? And then 3 billion must be payed back Ive just learned?

And the displaced worker offered a job? But what kind of a job? My guess a crappy one compared to what they had.

This P3 isn't a done deal yet, but I hope the U of I doesn't fall for this quick money.


https://pathforward.uiowa.edu/sites/...et-2019-f2.pdf