the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Jun 9, 2025
When images from a surveillance video suggested that January’s Eaton fire, which killed 18 people and destroyed thousands of homes and businesses, started at the base of a Southern California Edison (SCE) electric tower, it didn’t come as a surprise. In 2024, SCE equipment had already started 178 wildfires—almost twice as many as in the previous year, and 39% above the company’s five-year average. Also in 2024, the number of Edison workers seriously injured on the job rose to 56% above the average—and five of them died.
In April, Edison International, SCE’s parent company, told California regulators that it was cutting down part of its executives’ bonuses because of the company’s worsening safety record, as required by a state law passed in 2019.
It was just a show. The Los Angeles Times reported that, overall, the bonuses for four of Edison’s top five executives actually rose in 2024. And the only top honcho whose bonus declined, CEO Pedro Pizarro, had hardly anything to complain about either. Pizarro’s cash bonus was “reduced” to 128% of his salary, instead of 135%—so that, his total compensation for the year was “only” 13.8 million dollars!
In fact, that 2019 law is a huge bailout for California’s three big utility companies, whose equipment has sparked so many big, deadly wildfires year after year. The law created a 21-billion-dollar insurance pool to pay for the utilities’ future liabilities because of the wildfires they keep causing—and half of the money is to come from taxpayers!
It’s not the only big gift state politicians have given to Edison and the other utilities. For many years, the state has approved practically every rate hike the utilities have asked for. So today, California households pay about twice as much for electricity as the national average. And SCE, whose rates have increased by about 40% in the last four years, has asked the state to approve another 10% rate increase.
Put another way, SCE wants to increase the monthly electric bills of its customers by 18 dollars on average. If approved, that would mean an extra 270 million dollars in Edison’s coffers each month!
Edison’s cutting back on safety has paid off hugely for the company’s big shareholders and executives. They have already become very, very rich, whether California regulators approve this latest rate hike or not. All at the expense of Edison customers, including the victims of the Eaton fire, many of whom are working-class people who have lost their homes—probably because of Edison’s cutbacks in the first place.