Hydro One maintains safe and reliable operations during Society of Energy Professionals strike

TORONTO, ONTARIO - Hydro One's strike contingency plans worked extremely well during a Society of Energy Professionals (the Society) strike Wednesday. As predicted, there was no operational impact to Hydro One's electricity system.

"Our robust contingency plans have been in place for some time and continue to serve us and our customers well," said Peter Gregg, Vice President of Corporate Communications. "We are expecting this strike action to continue and intensify, and we are confident that our system and customers will see little or no impact."

Hydro One also reiterated that the company remains willing to return to the table to have productive discussions on a potential negotiated agreement, contrary to Society allegations. The company has also told the Society that any discussions need to address the company's objective of significantly reducing future wage, pension and employee benefit costs.

"We have clearly communicated to the Society's leadership team that we will return to the table to restart discussions," added Gregg. "The statements from the Society that we are unwilling to talk are simply false. Our objective throughout bargaining has been to achieve significant future cost reductions; these costs cannot remain unchecked. Unfortunately the Society has refused to even recognize our objective and has maintained a rigid "not now, not ever" approach to concessions."

Hydro One owns and operates Ontario's 28,400 kilometre high-voltage transmission network that delivers electricity to large industrial customers and municipal utilities, and a 122,000 kilometre low-voltage distribution system that serves about 1.2 million end-use customers and smaller municipal utilities in the province.