Marin Women's Hall of Fame

Sylvia Marrich Siegel

        The headline in the Independent Journal newspaper reads "Consumer activist Siegel  coaxed into  lobbying rerun"!   Known throughout the state  as a leading consumer activist, Sylvia Siegel has come out of retirement at  the request  of the  Marin County  Board of Supervisors  to  investigate  consumer complaints directed at the cable television  industry.   Representatives of  the local cable television station,  Viacom, are nervous - with good reason.  The issues at stake in the cable  television "battle"  are high.   It may  involve  the  re-regulation  of  the  industry,  reinstating strict guidelines that had been eliminated at the  national level during  the   Reagan  administration.    Working  with  Bay  Area government officials,  Siegel is  busy educating  herself on both consumer issues  and cable  television's counter-issues.  It will be interesting to see what results.

         Sylvia Siegel is  no  stranger  to  controversy.    She remembers cutting  classes  at  Detroit  City  College  (later  Wayne State University) in order to go and watch the United Auto Worker (UAW) pickets.   Under the  leadership of the Reuther brothers, the UAW was attempting to negotiate fair labor  practices with automobile manufacturers.    It  was  not  always  a  pretty  site, with the automakers' private security guards often attacking the pickets. Having personally experienced hunger and poverty during the Great Depression of  the 1930s,  Siegel understood the need for people to earn a fair wage, as well as the need  for industry  to follow fair business practices.

        Having scrimped  her way through college by working afternoons at the National Youth Authority, at the local office of the Campfire Girls, Siegel  was able to gain her first job out of college with the  same  organization.    Working  as  a  Campfire  Girl summer counselor,  she  remembers  earning  $90  for  her  work.  Facing another cold Detroit winter, she spent  all her  money on  a warm camel's  hair  coat  with  a  fur  collar.  She chose the classy, expensive coat to cover the ragged clothing she  wore underneath.  "I never took my coat off," she claims with a smile.   Finally, in February of 1944, she  escaped  the  cold  and  relocated  to San Francisco.

        Moving to San Francisco was a bold move, for Sylvia "knew nobody, and had no place to live.  I  got a  bed to  sleep and  spent the next  three  months  'pounding  the  pavement'  to  find  a job."  Working for the War  Labor  Board  as  a  researcher/analyst, she found that  many of  her co-workers  were also "transplants" from other areas of the country.  They became  like a  family, joining each  other  for  holiday  celebrations and supporting each other through the joys and trials of daily life.

         With the end of World War II, many people who had war-related employment found  themselves out  of work.   Sylvia  moved to the California   State   Nurses   Association   (CSNA),  an  advocacy organization for the nursing profession.  Serving as  Director of the  Economic  Security  Program,  it  was  a  very demanding and strenuous job.  Late night  telephone  calls  to  her  home, long hours  at  the  office,  tireless  hours  were spent pressing for improvement  of  the  working  conditions  of   nurses.    Siegel successfully  developed  the  collective  bargaining  program for professional nurses.    Once,  in  a  debate  with  San Francisco Supervisors  over  nurses  wages,  Siegel  arranged  to  have the hearing room packed with nurses in their white uniforms; she also had three  nurses in wheel chairs attend, underlining the dangers of the nursing profession.   These nurses had contracted the polio virus while  treating patients.   The  event got tremendous media attention.   And  Sylvia  Siegel  learned  some  valuable lessons regarding advocacy and the media.  

        Having married Paul Siegel during this period, the demands of the CSNA work load after  seven years  began to  interfere with sleep and time  away from  work (there was barely time for either).  So Siegel moved  to a  less fatiguing  job with  the American Cancer Society (ACS).   For  two years, Siegel supervised the activities of the ACS in nine counties  in  central  California  as  a field representative.  The Siegels moved to Marin during this time. She was with the ACS until the birth of her first  child, Richard, in 1957.   A daughter,  Polly, arrived  a year  later.  For the next four years, Sylvia stayed  home  "sloshing  diapers".    Then her neighbor,  Helen  Nelson  (who  was Governor Pat Brown's Consumer Counsel  for  California),  encouraged  her  to   apply  for  the Executive   Directorship   of   the   Association  of  California Consumers, a budding  consumer  group.    Soon,  in  1969, Sylvia Siegel was back into the fray of advocacy. 

        At  that  time  Pacific  Telephone  (PacTel)  was applying to the California Public Utilities Commission  (CPUC) for  the right to increase  its  telephone  rates.    Siegel, feeling that the rate hikes were unjustified, called the  media  and  began  efforts to block  the  rate  increase.    Seeing  that  other public-serving industries were also regulated by the CPUC, Siegel researched the role and  the language  of the CPUC.  She found out "Who was who; who were the 'good guys' and  who  were  the  'bad  guys'."   She attended  CPUC  hearings  and  asked  questions  of the witnesses speaking in favor of rate  hikes.    One  CPUC  commissioner, was heard to ask "Who is this broad?;"  He would soon find out.

         She once  attended a  hearing on the moving industry and listened to the reasoning behind their request for rate hikes.   She asked questions and  picked apart  the survey  that they were citing as evidence the hikes were needed.  She found that the survey was ten years old, that three of the ten companies surveyed  were out of business  and that  other "facts"  were just plain false.   The people in the hearing room were stunned by her ability  to cut to the essence of the matter.

        Siegel's  ability  to  interpret complicated data and communicate the findings  into  the  "everyday  language  that  consumers can understand"  was  an  important  tool for the California consumer movement.  When the  Association of California  Consumers decided to move its offices to Sacramento, Siegel decided not to continue as Executive Director,  instead, she  drove to  the state capitol when she  could (often  using grocery money for gas expenses) and attended hearings of importance to her.  "I  knew I  was hooked," she laughs.

        By  this  time,  the  new California governor, Ronald Reagan, was attempting to change the nature of the CPUC  through appointments to the  Commission.   Favoring industry,  new CPUC  acted in ways detrimental to the California consumer.  (Reagan also fired Helen Nelson, in an attempt to eliminate the position of consumer advocacy  from  his  administration.)    In  January of 1973, she founded the consumer  organization,  T.U.R.N.,  which  stands for Toward  Utility  Rate  Normalization.   She founded TURN with the idea of "turning" back  the PUC  to serve  the public's interest, the original mission of the PUC.  The business of regulated rate-setting is "complicated and tedious".   It is  tiresome work, and utility   companies   pay   highly-skilled   staff  to  work  the complicated system in  support  of  ever-higher  rates.   Against these  giant  utility  companies  with their staffers came Sylvia Siegel.

         For three years, TURN was a one-woman operation.  Then Siegel got a small grant of $1500 and enlisted the volunteer help of a Ph.d. economist.  Together they  began to  unravel the  maze of utility industry statistics,  developing "wonderful  testimony" which led to a landmark rate reform decision.  The  impact was nation-wide.  Basically,  it  led  to  the utility industry changing their rate structures  which  eliminated  a  discount  for  increased usage-rather it  supported reduced  use.   It also mandated a "lifeline rate" - a minimum amount of  gas and  electric made  available at reasonable rates  for those  who needed  it most - the segment of the population on  fixed  incomes,  benefiting  the  elderly and others.  This was the first major impact of TURN.

         They finally  got another small grant which enabled Siegel to pay the economist  a  small  salary.    They  continued  to translate puzzling  utility  documents  into  plain, everyday language.  If they didn't  know something,  they would  do additional research.   They kept at the heels of the utility industry, staying involved in the "juicy" issues.   "If you can't be juicy, no one's going to listen to you."  They fed their findings to the news media.  "It would drive  the utilities nuts.  They would say I was flamboyant or that I was exaggerating, but that's not  so.    I just  made it understandable and  juicy so  that people  would listen."  Siegel was once the subject  of  a  1984  CBS  "Sixty  Minutes" segment, entitled "Don't Mess With Sylvia".

        What most  people don't  realize is  that utilities can go in ten times a year to the PUC to request a rate increase.  So the vigil of Siegel  and TURN  was constant.   Many of TURN'S successes came in small victories far from  the  public's  eye.     And,   not all attempts to  protect "the  little guys" resulted in stopping rate hikes.  But, Siegel figures, "...over the years  - we  stopped to figure  it  out  a  couple  of  years  ago  -  we  have saved the California consumer over seven billion dollars."   In  hers years at TURN, Siegel led the battles against the rate hikes of Pacific Bell ("they go for rate increase every year and it's  a new story every time!"),  PG&E   and  its   Diablo  Canyon  costs.  Southern California Gas, and GTE  to name  a few.   TURN  has led petition drives in addition to its research/evidence gathering activities.

        Also, they often had to go use the legal system for some matters, a costly strategy.  Luckily, Siegel was successful  in attracting large law  firms to help TURN on a pro-bono (free) basis.  "We've had superb appellate council from Morrision  and Forrester  and so on.   We even  went to  the Supreme Court on one case."  She even went to law school four nights/week  for one  year, but  found it a  better use of her time to focus on leading TURN and relying on the legal  expertise  of  others.   Using  CETA  grants, TURN developed a  program of  training lawyers  in utility  law, as no western law schools  even  covered  the  subject.    This program lasted for  five years until the CETA program was cancelled. Some of the lawyers stayed on and worked for TURN, though the pay was never  high-they did it for their commitment to the public welfare.

        During the Ford administration, Siegel obtained  a $150,000 grant from the  Department of  Energy to  set up  a school for consumer advocates in  the  twelve  western  states,  to  educate  them in utility  issues.    She recruited  instructors  from  around the country and set up a  series  of  seminars.    She  established a hotline to give advice to the consumer advocates after completing the seminars in case they ran  into difficulties.   The  grant was renewed under  the Carter  Administration.  However, following his anti-consumer  policies  as  governor.  President  Ronald  Reagan killed the  school program upon entering office, as well as other consumer programs.  But, Siegel continued her efforts  in utility rate fairness.  “If I weren’t an optimist, I’d never be able to continue.  You don’t always win, you frequently lose.  You just can’t sit back, you have to go on.  Other things need your attention.”

        Finally, after sixteen years with TURN and reaching the age of 71, Siegel decided to retire as Executive Director, though she remains on its Board of Directors.  She left the organization she founded with sixteen paid staff in place, including three full-time lawyers and a projected operating budget of almost a half-million dollars.  In 1989, there was a “retirement roast” for her and over 350 people attended.  Many people from the utility industry came.  “I think they wanted to make sure I was leaving.” Siegel jokes.

         But then came the cable television controversy, and Sylvia Siegel is at it again, though not on a full-time basis.  “Cable is a monopoly.  Without competition and regulation it can raise rates at will in spite of bad service.”  Bringing her tenacious style to the investigation of cable, Siegel knows that she will have to be a “quick study” to understand the industry.  Quoted in the Marin Independent Journal, Dennis Mangers (the lobbyist for the California Cable Television Association) stated, “Sylvia had been effective in the past.  I consider her a pretty effective adversary.”  By the summer of 1991, Marin County Supervisor Bob Roumiguiere sought to have her removed, objecting to her hard-fisted style, particularly her sharp criticism of Marin’ Viacom Cablevision.  Siegel had criticized Viacom for refusing to divulge how much profit the company earned from its 61,000 Marin subscribers.