I don’t buy much into this story. Either the company has lousy expectations on what it costs to hire qualified labor, or their HR crowd are unqualified for the job.
This is a regulated monopoly. They have to have their budgets approved by the Georgia PSC. Not sure exactly what they are going for, but they probably want the PSC to approve a bigger budget for completing the plants and more importantly higher rates to offset the costs.
HR = Trade Unions