Frontier Slams CWA Opposition to Verizon Deal after Union Rally at FCC
A Thursday rally by CWA members at FCC headquarters in Washington protesting Frontier’s proposed acquisition of landlines from Verizon drew sharp words from a Frontier spokesman. The CWA said about 200 members, accompanied by supporters affiliated with the IBEW and the AFL-CIO, demonstrated. “This deal will pad the pockets of Wall Street executives while only deepening the digital divide,” CWA District 2 Vice President Ron Collins told rally participants. Afterwards, the union said, CWA President Larry Cohen, Collins and others met with Commissioner Michael Copps, FCC Chief of Staff Edward Lazarus and other agency officials. Responding to the event, a Frontier spokesman evoked Ronald Reagan’s retort to Jimmy Carter during a 1980 presidential campaign debate.
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"There they go again,” spokesman Steve Crosby said. “We do not understand why the CWA leadership continues to oppose a transaction that is good for network and broadband investment, good for jobs, and good for West Virginia and the other involved states. Union leadership continues to spread inaccurate information about the transaction announced between Frontier Communications and Verizon.” He said the union “has devoted itself to dog-in-the-manger tactics designed to scuttle the transaction."
Before the Verizon deal, his company barely made the radar screens of unions representing Frontier employees, Crosby said. “Our relationships were based on … respect, teamwork and a focus on the customer,” he told us in an e-mail. “Suddenly, issues are being raised that were never a concern in the past.” In six of nine states requiring approvals, Frontier and Verizon have reached settlements on many issues with commission staff, competitors and others “to the satisfaction of all parties, except the unions,” he said.
Frontier has agreed to widen broadband offerings in every state where it’s acquiring Verizon access lines, Crosby said. “Today, Frontier makes broadband available to more than 91 percent of its customers in the 24 states it serves and plans to bring all of the soon-to-be-acquired properties to at least 85 percent availability within approximately three years,” Crosby said. “Frontier has agreed to spend millions of dollars to achieve this goal; that money translates into good news for jobs, the community and local and state taxes.” The company has said in public and in writing that the acquisition would result in no job reductions at the customer service level, he added.
The FCC, state regulators and prospective customers should recognize that Frontier keeps its word, Crosby said.