On Dec. 18, the eve of the day United Illuminating pushed through a rate hike of an outrageous 50 percent, dozens of local residents gathered at the electric company’s New Haven offices to express anger and outrage.
Protestors gathered in front of the corporate headquarters with signs decrying the huge rate increases. Chants included “Don’t make us pay through the nose, take it from the stockholders and CEOs!”
UI plans rate increases of 24 percent in January, another 20.7 percent in April and another 4.3 percent in July. The average residential customer, who now pays $107.76, would pay $161.62 beginning in July. In 2005, UI earned $44.8 million in profits, and increasing profits are projected for 2006 and beyond.
UI serves 310,000 customers in Connecticut including the cities of New Haven and Bridgeport, which are among the country’s poorest with poverty rates over 25 percent.
For low-income people including retirees living on fixed incomes higher utility rates mean the possibility of turning to candles and charcoal, which can lead to deadly accidents. All working-class people will be forced to adjust their budgets and may have to decide between necessities like light and heat or medicine and food.
The demonstration was organized by the Committee to Stop the UI Rate Increase and attracted significant media coverage. Unions including SEIU Local 35 and UNITE HERE were present. Speakers called for public control of the utility and raised the disastrous effect of the war budget and the worsening conditions of workers in the U.S.
Activists from the Connecticut chapter of the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) participated. The groups signs were popular with the protesters; the signs read “Heat and light are a right, stop the rate hike,” “The price hike risks lives, utilities are a human right,” “Price gouging is criminal, roll back the rates,” and “Money for people, not for war.”
