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CWA Urges FCC to Reject Verizon's Bid to Provide Long Distance in Pennsylvania
The Communications Workers of America strongly opposes the bid by Verizon Communications to provide long distance services in Pennsylvania and calls on the Federal Communications Commission to reject the company's long distance application.
In a filing made today to the FCC, CWA stressed that "Verizon does not have a good track record for honest data reporting to regulators." The union cited the company's failure to meet performance standards in New York and CWA's documentation of a consistent and persistent pattern of Verizon management practices that resulted in the under-reporting and misreporting of service quality problems to the New York State Public Service Commission.
[Details of the CWA Report on Service Quality and Service Quality Reporting at Verizon-N.Y. are included in the full filing, which is available with this release at ga.cwa-union.org.]
Verizon also has failed to comply with agreements made with regulators and CWA, the union pointed out. Verizon-Pennsylvania hasn't fully met the market-opening requirements of Section 271 of the Communications Act, as indicated by a June 2001 report by the state Public Utility Commission that indicated deficiencies in Verizon-Pennsylvania's wholesale electronic billing system.
Two Pennsylvania commissioners have found Verizon's actions in this area troubling, with one calling the current system "unreliable" and another, Commissioner Nora Mead Brownell, expressing a real lack of confidence "in a company which has apparently misled this Commission on the record."
Verizon is promising full compliance with these and other requirements in the future, but CWA's experience with Verizon is further proof that Verizon doesn't keep its promises. Over the past 10 months, Verizon has engaged in flagrant and consistent violation of the collective bargaining agreement negotiated with CWA, rejecting the certification of CWA by the neutral third party American Arbitration Association for Verizon Information Services workers in New York and filing a federal lawsuit to further delay the issue; threatening workers with the loss of sale incentives if they support union representation and otherwise harassing and threatening them; dragging out the arbitration process; and generally blocking in every possible way the legitimate efforts of workers to choose union representation, CWA said.
"Besides being illegal, these actions violate the neutrality agreement reached by CWA and Verizon last fall," CWA pointed out.
In the past, CWA has supported the applications by some Bell operating companies to provide long distance services. Verizon's track record, however, cannot permit such support, and CWA calls on the FCC to reject the company's application to provide long distance services in Pennsylvania.
Click here for the full FCC filing.
In a filing made today to the FCC, CWA stressed that "Verizon does not have a good track record for honest data reporting to regulators." The union cited the company's failure to meet performance standards in New York and CWA's documentation of a consistent and persistent pattern of Verizon management practices that resulted in the under-reporting and misreporting of service quality problems to the New York State Public Service Commission.
[Details of the CWA Report on Service Quality and Service Quality Reporting at Verizon-N.Y. are included in the full filing, which is available with this release at ga.cwa-union.org.]
Verizon also has failed to comply with agreements made with regulators and CWA, the union pointed out. Verizon-Pennsylvania hasn't fully met the market-opening requirements of Section 271 of the Communications Act, as indicated by a June 2001 report by the state Public Utility Commission that indicated deficiencies in Verizon-Pennsylvania's wholesale electronic billing system.
Two Pennsylvania commissioners have found Verizon's actions in this area troubling, with one calling the current system "unreliable" and another, Commissioner Nora Mead Brownell, expressing a real lack of confidence "in a company which has apparently misled this Commission on the record."
Verizon is promising full compliance with these and other requirements in the future, but CWA's experience with Verizon is further proof that Verizon doesn't keep its promises. Over the past 10 months, Verizon has engaged in flagrant and consistent violation of the collective bargaining agreement negotiated with CWA, rejecting the certification of CWA by the neutral third party American Arbitration Association for Verizon Information Services workers in New York and filing a federal lawsuit to further delay the issue; threatening workers with the loss of sale incentives if they support union representation and otherwise harassing and threatening them; dragging out the arbitration process; and generally blocking in every possible way the legitimate efforts of workers to choose union representation, CWA said.
"Besides being illegal, these actions violate the neutrality agreement reached by CWA and Verizon last fall," CWA pointed out.
In the past, CWA has supported the applications by some Bell operating companies to provide long distance services. Verizon's track record, however, cannot permit such support, and CWA calls on the FCC to reject the company's application to provide long distance services in Pennsylvania.
Click here for the full FCC filing.