|
http://www.stop-the-sale.org/
Please Check out this Website!
Do not
speak to any representatives of Fairpoint!!!!
Fairpoint
is not part of the collective bargaining agreement
Call the Union Hall!!!!
3 new stories related to the sale of the Northern
States have been added to the
news
Page 11/28/2007
Headlines include:
PUC
staff: Halt Verizon sale
An advisory report cites
FairPoint's high debt if it buys deteriorated phone and
Internet lines.
ME Examiner
Recommendations - Some Highlights
Maine Panel Report Advises
Against FairPoint-Verizon Deal
Dow Jones News
Thousands of Verizon telephone workers attended a spirited
rally to protest the sale of Verizon's New England lines and
the company's union-busting campaign at Verizon Business (VZB).
Picture
from the rally are up on the web at:
Links to "YouTube" videos from the rally will be sent as
soon as it is up on the net.
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE – JUNE 28, 2007
Thousands of Union Telephone Workers, Labor
Leaders, Elected Officials Slam Verizon for Anti-Union,
Anti-Consumer Practices
Workers Rally Against Verizon Sale of New
England Network That Would Cripple Regional Telecom
Network and Union-Busting Campaign Among Former MCI
Technicians, Now Employed by Verizon Business
June
28, 2006 - New York
–
Thousands of telephone workers represented by the
Communications Workers of America (CWA) and International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) joined labor
leaders and New York City elected officials today to
protest Verizon proposed sale of its northern New England
network and Verizon Business' repeated efforts to stop
employees from forming a union.
The
proposed network sale would fracture the rural New England
telecom network, damage the economy and jeopardize 3,000
good-paying union jobs. The rally also sent a message to
Verizon management that CWA is gearing up to fight any
proposed cuts to salaries, health care and pension
benefits at the $88 billion telecommunications giant when
the workers’ contract with Verizon expires next year.
“We’ve
come to Verizon headquarters today to make it clear that
the aggressive union-busting and intimidation tactics from
Verizon will not be tolerated,” said Chris Shelton, Vice
President of CWA District 1. “It’s time for them to stop
the intimidation and stop trying to take away their
employees basic right to organize. At the same time,
their anti-consumer proposal to sell off their network
cannot go forward without endangering good-paying jobs and
telephone service quality for New England consumers.”
The
rally follows an overwhelming demonstration of support to
organize by technicians at Verizon Business—a large
majority of whom want to join CWA – and have signed union
cards to join the union. Verizon Business – a division of
Verizon formed after the company’s merger with the
remnants of MCI/Worldcom – has refused to recognize the
technicians’ organizing rights.
CWA also
warned against Verizon’s pending sale of its land line
network in Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire. The potential
buyer for the New England network, Fairpoint, is a much
smaller communications company than Verizon that is
unqualified and undercapitalized. Verizon had tried
unsuccessfully in the past to sell its network in Upstate
New York.
“The
sale of the Northern New Endgland landlines would allow
Verizon to abandon its telephone customers in these
more-rural states, putting their lifelines in case of
emergency at risk. The sale would also jeapordize the
jobs of more than 3,000 technicians, operators and service
representatives throughout Northern New England. People
need their phone to work – and this sale would make their
service less reliable,” said Myles Calvey, Business
Manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical
Workers Local 2222 in Boston. IBEW and CWA are
campaigning together against the New England line sale.
“Verizon
Business techs make less and have worse health benefits
than their peers in the rest of Verizon, even though they
do the same daily telephone installation and maintenance
work,” said Denis Hughes, President of the New York State
AFL-CIO. “It’s time Verizon Business gives its workers the
right to stand up for a fair wage and benefits.”
Verizon
CEO Ivan Seidenberg, who has been the target of
shareholder activists for excessive executive
compensation, was paid $23 million last year. Verizon
shareholders – over management’s opposition – just passed
a proposal giving them a non-binding vote on executive
pay. CWA members provided crucial support for the
resolution, which passed with just over 50% of the vote.
Verizon
Wireless, another division of Verizon, has also prevented
its workers from exercising their right to form a union.
The rally came as unionized Verizon employees look ahead
to August 2008, when their Verizon core contract is set to
expire.
“As
Verizon tries to sell off networks and prevent workers
from organizing, this turnout today makes one thing clear:
we are Verizon. Verizon likes to advertise that ‘it’s the
network’. Well, we – the members of CWA and IBEW are the
network,” said Chris Shelton. “We are the reason Verizon
is the 13th largest corporation in America and
made $6 billion in profits last year. They couldn’t do
that without us. As we get closer and closer to bargaining
with Verizon, they need to know we are ready to fight for
our rights.”
The
Communications Workers of America is the largest
communications union in the country, representing more
than 700,000 men and women.
Rand Wilson, Communications Coordinator
Center for Strategic Research, AFL-CIO
Organizing Dept.
c/o IBEW Local 2222, 1137 Washington Street,
Dorchester, MA 02124
w) (617) 929-6019, f) (617) 929-6099, c)
(617) 803-0799
Wall
Street jitters…
Doubts
about Verizon sale lead to growing concerns about FairPoint’s
shaky financial position....
Click here for the Full Flyer
Subject: LETTER TO FCC ON VERIZON/FAIRPOINT
CClick HERE to read the Letter
(adobe acrobat reader required)
The
Kucinich letter has been sent today to all
members of the Maine Senate in our effort to continue to
point out the many problems with the Verizon/FairPoint
"deal." LD 1866 is still pending but due for a vote SOON!!
If you have not called your senator and asked for a "yes"
vote on LD 1866 - now is the time. See below for more
details on LD 1866.
CALL
TOLL FREE 1-800-423-6900
Be sure and leave your
name, town and telephone number when you call
KUCINICH CALLS ON FCC
Says Scheme to "Avoid
Taxes"
Would Saddle Mainers with
Rural Area Service
Congressman Dennis Kucinich has written the Federal
Communications Commission asking them to investigate the
proposed Verizon-FairPoint merger to "ensure that it would
serve the public interest, convenience and necessity" as
required by the FCC mandate.
The deal appears in large
part to be set up to "allow Verizon to avoid paying
taxes," said Kucinich who details the section of the tax
code being used for this purpose.
It appears that the new
demands by lenders to FairPoint "would be passed directly
through to customers in the form of higher rates," said
Kucinich.
And he states that the
deal "may well entrench a two tiered system: one where
urban areas will get access to technically advanced,
dependable broadband services critical to economic
vitality and another where rural areas get low quality
service or no service at all."
The complete letter is
attached.
LD
1866 - Verizon/FairPoint Sale Bill
A "yes" vote will give the
Maine Public Utilities Commission
more authority to
investigate and control the highly questionable proposed
sale of Verizon landlines to tiny FairPoint. Not just the
thousands of workers will suffer. The economic future of
three states (Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont) is
involved. Millions of consumers will suffer if this $2.7
billion deal is approved. This sale threatens the
information future of Maine.
Please Urge Senators to
vote "yes" on LD 1866 and give the Maine PUC the authority
it needs to probe and question this harmful, proposed sale
by Verizon!! Tell the Senator "Vote YES" and leave your
name, town and telephone
CALL
TOLL FREE 1-800-423-6900
Be sure and leave your
name, town and telephone number when you call
Need help
finding your Senator? Click here:
This article can be found on the web at
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070528/early
Broadband Redlining Targets
Rural America
by STEVE EARLY
[posted online at
The Nation on May 14, 2007]
Northern New
England is just emerging from its annual "mud season"--long
the bane of back-road drivers throughout the region.
Nevertheless, residents of Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire
are now worried about getting stuck in a different way. That's
because their local phone company, the corporate giant Verizon,
wants to ditch them as customers.
Labor and consumer
activists, joined by some public officials, are organizing
against this move, in a high-stakes regulatory and political
battle with consequences for the future of telecommunications
in all of rural America.
Verizon's proposed
$2.7 billion transfer of local access lines to FairPoint
Communications--a small, largely nonunion North Carolina
firm--is part of a nationwide trend toward rural telecom
redlining. Everywhere it can, Verizon is trying to abandon
"low-value" landline customers and is focusing instead on
building its wireless customer base and investing billions of
dollars in a new "
FIOS
"
service. FIOS provides voice, video and high-speed broadband
connections on a single fiber-optic cable network, now being
extended directly to homes and businesses in big cities and
affluent suburbs.
While "high-value" customers in these areas move into the fast
lane of the information superhighway, the contested sale to
FairPoint would leave northern New Englanders far behind.
Residential customers--not to mention schools, businesses,
hospitals and emergency responders--will still be dependent on
"dirt-road dial-up" for their Internet access or, at best,
will move into the slow lane of digital subscriber line (
DSL)
service, a technology that some regard as outdated and
prohibitively expensive for rural economic development.
"FairPoint, a
highly leveraged company, will have great difficulty meeting
the big dividend and debt commitments it has made as part of
this purchase, while simultaneously investing enough to
maintain current facilities, improve service quality and
expand broadband availability," argues Kenneth Peres, research
economist for the Communications Workers of America (CWA). As
Peres points out in the union's April 27 petition to the
Federal Communications Commission opposing the sale, "FairPoint
plans to expend less capital on network infrastructure than
was previously spent by Verizon"--a $120 billion company with
$6.2 billion in net income last year and thus far deeper
pockets.
So if "small is not
beautiful" in this case--and bigger would be better (if state
and federal policy-makers compelled Verizon to continue as the
incumbent carrier and make its broadband build-out more
universal)--how did little FairPoint, worth only $630 million,
become Verizon's buyer of choice?
According to union
consultant Randy Barber, the answer to that question lies in
an obscure IRS loophole called a Reverse Morris Trust. As
Barber explains, "a parent corporation can spin off a
subsidiary into an unrelated company, tax free, if the
shareholders of the parent end up controlling more than 50
percent of the voting rights and economic value of the merged
company." So the Verizon-FairPoint deal has been structured as
just this type of "tax-driven transaction"; if approved, it
will yield $600 million in tax savings for Verizon.
But here's the
hitch--and the downside for other federal taxpayers and
adversely affected consumers (since, in northern New England,
they are one and the same). Verizon's tax avoidance is
possible only if pieces of its old copper-wire network are
chopped up and sold to a "tiny partner" rather than a more
financially stable and secure buyer, which, in this case,
would have been a larger operator of rural telephone exchanges
like Embarq, Windstream, Citizens or Century Tel.
Grassroots
resistance to this self-serving corporate scam is growing,
despite Verizon's costly push to get utility regulators in all
three states to rubber-stamp the deal by next January.
Vermont's Bernie Sanders weighed in as a vocal critic last
fall, during his successful campaign for the US Senate. Since
then, other federal office holders, state legislators and
consumer advocates have also joined the fray. In Maine, a
Public Utilities Commission hearing examiner just recommended
a $32 million annual reduction in Verizon's rates--a future
revenue loss that threatens to become a deal-breaker for
FairPoint if the full commission agrees. Meanwhile, in
Vermont, an influential Republican state Senator, Vince
Illuzzi, has attached an amendment to pending telecom
legislation that would make the "proposed sale null and void,"
according to Vermont Public Service Commissioner David
O'Brien.
Public hearings
held in Vermont and New Hampshire this month are giving many
rate-payers an opportunity to vent against the sale--just as
hundreds of telephone workers did when they rallied in
Portland, Maine, on a freezing Saturday morning in early
March. Another big "
Stop the Sale
"
event is scheduled for May 19 in Portsmouth, New
Hampshire--and this time, contestants in the state's
presidential primary are being invited to appear and take a
stand on the issue as well.
Already, former Senator John Edwards has come closest to
embracing
the "high-speed broadband for all" policy agenda that's being
promoted by CWA and the International Brotherhood of
Electrical Workers as an alternative to local-access line
sales, which threaten to make rural America roadkill on the
information superhighway. CWA has launched a website,
SpeedMatters.org
,
which publicizes telecom reform initiatives around the country
and invites users to take a "speed test"--so they can check
their own connections against world standards for high-speed
access.
Using creative
online networking, aggressive legal intervention in state
regulatory proceedings, alliances with nonlabor groups and a
legislative push for a broadband build-out that would benefit
all Americans, telephone unionists hope to thwart the Verizon
strategy, which amounts to "dump the lines, dump the
customers," according to CWA president Larry Cohen.
In Virginia, Cohen
notes, Verizon just lost a bid to eliminate all state
regulatory oversight over the sale of local telephone
lines--thanks to union lobbying and a gubernatorial veto. In
northern New England, where the tradition of pro-consumer
regulation is much stronger, state governments need to go even
further--and veto any sale.
Steve Early is a Boston-based freelance journalist who spent
twenty-seven years working for the Communications Workers of
America. As a CWA staffer, he was involved in many union
disputes with Verizon, including the ongoing
Stop-the-Sale
campaign in northern New
England.
more...
Fairpoint deal unpopular
By CLYNTON NAMUO
New Hampshire Union Leader Correspondent
EXETER –
Foes of a planned sale of Verizon's New Hampshire land lines
to FairPoint Communications sounded off at a Public
Utilities Commission hearing attended by close to 300 people
last night.
The crowd at the Lincoln Street School gym was decidedly
against the deal, with huge applause erupting after each
public speaker voiced their concerns over the impending
sale. Nearly every single person who spoke was against the
sale.
Verizon plans to sell its land lines in New Hampshire,
Vermont and Maine to FairPoint in a $2.7 billion deal. The
New Hampshire PUC is in the midst of statewide public
hearings on the sale with last night's being the third of
five.
The biggest concerns were over FairPoint's quality of
service, which many said they expect to be far lower than
that of the much larger Verizon.
Based in Charlotte, N.C., FairPoint is a rural telephone
operator with about 900 employees. In comparison, Verizon
Telecom alone has about 135,800 employees with additional
workers in their Verizon business and wireless divisions.
FairPoint officials said the sale will bring 600 jobs to the
three states involved and that the company plans to honor
all union contracts and pensions, but none of that mattered
to people on hand last night, many of whom were concerned
about their service.
Many said last night that Verizon's resources are far
greater and that anything FairPoint plans to provide will
fall short. Even with those resources on hand, last month's
flooding cut phone service to many communities and several
people said that should a similar situation occur in the
future, FairPoint would be overwhelmed.
"There's nothing scarier to the firefighters and paramedics
in this state than to pick up a phone and hear nothing on
the other end," said David Lang, a 27-year veteran of the
Hampton Fire Department.
State Rep. Susi Nord said many businesses she represents
were severely hurt by the loss of phone service following
the floods because customers could not reach shops. She
questioned whether FairPoint would have been able to fix the
land lines faster than Verizon, which in some cases took
weeks, she said.
Others were critical of FairPoint's ability to upgrade
infrastructure and said the company will not be able to
provide the fiber optic internet service that Verizon is in
the midst of expanding, but will instead really on the far
slower DSL internet that is already in place. Fiber optic
internet service is the fastest available, outpacing even
cable internet, and is far faster than DSL.
"I don't see how FairPoint can be good for New Hampshire,"
said Elaine Sallie, of East Hampstead, who recently wired
her house for fiber optic internet. "This is taking us
backwards, not forwards."
A Letter from our Local President
Brothers and Sisters,
ACT NOW! We need this Bill to pass. It needs to be co-sponsored
by your legislators by this Tuesday April 10, 2007.
Contact these committee members and the Public Advocate's office
to encourage support for this bill - let them know that
Fairpoint Communications' plans in the State of Maine will leave
all of us far behind on the technical information highway !
The Maine bill is LR-93 and is called “An Act to Revise Maine’s
Utilities Reorganization Laws”
Maine members should call their legislators an ask them to sign
on as co-sponsors before Tuesday April 10th in the State Senate
President’s office. Other members should ask friends and
relatives in Maine to make similar calls. Attached is a list
of the members of the key committees (Labor & Utilities).
People can also go to:
http://janus.state.me.us/legis/ to look
up the contact information for all members of the Maine House
and Senate. Anyone needing help or more information can contact
Ralph (all his info is below). He will be available all weekend.
Expect more updates to follow.
Ralph J. Montefusco
172 Woodbury Road
Burlington, VT 05408
802-862-4085 (home phone)
802-598-5613 (cell phone)
Fraternally,
Cheryl Ahern
President – CWA 1400
(603) 436-4388
ME Labor Utilities Committees
A Petition to Stop the Sale of
Verizon
Dear Legislator (Example
letter to your legislator)
Letter as an employee (Example
letter)
Utilities and Energy Committee in Maine (rep
email and/or contact info)
added 4-6-2006
Silent show of solidarity
Sunday, March 18
IBEW/CWA “Stop-the-Sale” campaigners march
in
St. Patrick’s Day parade
Manchester, NH
Contact: Glenn Brackett, 603-669-8657
Click Here:
to see
the mobilization flyer for 02-22-2007
Northern States
update 02-08-2007
Calendar
of Upcoming Stop-the-Sale Events
(Please send corrections/additions to
emorneau@cwa-union.org
or call Steve Early at 617-930-7327)
Tuesday, Jan. 30, 6 pm
Stop-the Sale Informational Meeting
For Portland-area Local 1400 Members
VFW Forest Ave in Portland
Contact: Anne Mussenden, 207-653-5735
Paul Bouchard,
508-284-4928
Thursday, Feb. 1, 10 am
IBEW T-6 Council/CWA Stop-the-Sale
Strategy Meeting
Local 2320
46 3rd Street
Contact: Myles Calvey, 617-929-6000
6 pm, Local 2320 Stewards Meeting
Contact: Glen Brackett, 603-669-8657
Monday, Feb. 5, 6 pm
Burlington Vt. Local 1400 stewards meeting
Report back from Darlene Stone/scheduling
Of Vt/Maine/NH Stop-the-Sale steward
Campaign fund
Contact: Mike O’Day, 802-233-1501
Ralph Montefusco,
802-598-5613
Tuesday, Feb 6, 8:30 to 3 pm
Vermont Workers Center/JWJ
Cross-Union Mobilization Training (will
include
Stop-the-Sale component)
Burlington, Vermont
Contact: James Haslem, 802-272-0882
Thursday, Feb. 8, 4 to 6 p.m.
NH Senate Democratic Caucus reception
Holiday Inn
Concord, NH
Contact: Glen Brackett, 603-669-8657
*Sunday, Feb. 11, 4 pm
Eastern Maine Labor Council
20 Ivers St.
Brewer, Maine
Stop-the-Sale Forum with local
legislators, CWA/IBEW activists, and
community members
Contact: Jack McKay, CLC President, 207-989-4141
Wednesday, Feb. 14, 10 am
T-6 Council Meeting
Local 2222
Dorchester, Mass.(or in Manchester if there
is N.H. legislative event that evening.)
Agenda: Stop-the-Sale/VZB
Tech Support/
2007-8 VZ contract campaign strategy
discussion with Chris Shelton, CWA D-1
Contact: Myles Calvey, 617-929-6000
Thursday, Feb. 15, 3 to 6 pm
IBEW-CWA Maine Legislative
briefing/reception in Augusta
At State House Welcome Center
Hosted by legislative leaders, state fed,
Locals 2327 and 1400, featuring anti-Fairpoint
presentation
by Ken Peres, CWA Research—Economist
Contact: Pete McLaughlin, 207-623-2901
Monday, Feb. 12, 6:30 pm
Vermont Workers Rights Board Hearing:
“Vermonters Facing The Race to the Bottom”
Contois Auditorium
Burlington, Vermont
Chaired: Senator Bernie Sanders
Stop-the-Sale campaign activists from CWA
and IBEW are
Invited to testify about sale-related
threat to good jobs
in the state.
Contact: James Haslem, 802-272-0882
Ralph Montefusco,
802-598-5613
Saturday, March 3, 12 noon
Monument Square
Portland, Maine
Sponsored by IBEW/CWA, state fed, Portland
CLC,
other locals and unions, community groups,
with
Legislators and busload of IBEW/CWA members
coming up from Mass to show their support.
Contact: Pete McLaughlin,
207-623-2901
T-6 Mobe Coordinator
Dave Reardon, 978-729-6944
Sunday, March 18
IBEW/CWA “Stop-the-Sale” campaigners march
in
St. Patrick’s Day parade
Manchester, NH
Contact: Glenn Brackett, 603-669-8657
*Also to be scheduled in mid-March:
IBEW-CWA Merrimack Valley membership
meeting re Stop-the-Sale campaign
Lawrence Elks
(Date and time to be announced)
Contact: Eddie Starr, 978-683-2321
Sarah Rotcavich,
603-436-4388
Northern States
update 01-29-2007
Sale to Fairpoint flyer
CLICK HERE
Northern States
update 01-29-2007
Dear Brothers and Sisters in IBEW-CWA Stop-the-Sale campaign:
Here are a few dates for upcoming public and membership meetings
(both
confirmed and still tentative*).
In the interest of inter-union coordination and info-sharing,
see short-term
campaign schedule below that has taken shape since last
Wednesday's post-sale
conference call:
Wednesday, Jan. 24
In Augusta, 10:30 am, IBEW-CWA meeting with Baldacci
Administration team
working on VZ/FP sale issue (Dick Davies, Jack Cashman, and
Steve Ward from the
Office of Public Advocate). Contact person: Pete McLaughlin at
207-623-2901
In Montpelier, 4:30 to 7:30, IBEW-CWA briefing of state reps and
senators at
State House cafeteria. CWA Research-Economist Ken Peres, Mike
Spillane, Mike
O'Day and othes will speak. All Democratic, Republican, and Prog
friends and
allies, past, present, or future, are invited.
For more info, contact Ralph Montefusco (802-598-5613)
In Hooksett, NH, 5:30pm, Cordinators Meeting at the NH AFL-CIO.
Discussion on
lobbying and legislation. For more info contact: Sarah Rotcavich
(603-436-4388)
Thursday, January 25:
In Montpelier, 1 p.m. House Commerce Committee initial hearing
on the sale.
Ken Peres will again raise union questions and concerns about
Fairpoint,
based on new fact sheet/critique available for distribution in
all three states on
Tuesday, He will be joined
by others from both unions.
On Thursday, there will also be more local radio opportunities,
an interview
with Seven Days, etc.
In Augusta, at 3 and 4 p.m. , IBEW-CWA reps, joined by state
AFL-CIO, will
meet with both Republican and Democratic legislative leaders in
Maine--the
second meeting being with Senate President Beth Edmonds and her
staff.
Sunday, January 28,
10 am--in Berlin, Ct. at Suzanna's Restaurant,--Vt.
COPE/Legislative
conference
CWA and IBEW members will attend to leaflet and button-hole
state and federal
elected officials ranging, including Senator Bernie Sanders,
Congressman
Peter Welch, Gov. Jim Douglas, Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie, etc.
Tuesday, January 30*
CWA membership meeting, after work, in Portland, being set up by
V-P Anne
Mussenden and assisted by CWA Rep. Paul Bouchard. Further
details to be
announced. Topics will include arranging Portland CLC-(and CWA
and IBEW)sponsored forum
on the sale in February. For more info on time and place (and
confirmation of
date) call Anne at 207-653-5735)
Sunday, February 11
Bangor-area CLC will sponsor public forum with local legislators
on labor and
community objections to the VZ sale to Fairpoint. For more
details, contact
jack McKay (at 207-949-0708)
Also during second week in February: legislative
briefing/reception in
Concord. Still being planned. For more info, call Glenn Brackett
at 603-669-8842.
This affects all CWA Local
1400 Members!!!
Please visit
www.stop-the-sale.org
CWA Has Hard Questions about Verizon New England Deal
A proposed deal to sell off Verizon's wireline business in three
New England states
to a minor player in the telecom industry poses serious concerns
about both
customer service and jobs, CWA President Larry Cohen said.
He told reporters on a conference call Wednesday that CWA will
be asking tough questions of the companies and state regulators
in Maine, New Hampshire and
Vermont as the $2.7 billion sale to North Carolina-based
FairPoint Communications
is scrutinized.
"Transferring those lines and customers to FairPoint is
relegating those states
to the basement in terms of Internet access," he said, pointing
out that FairPoint
is
heavily debt-laden and "doesn't have the capital structure to
offer 21st century network services. It takes $100 billion
companies to roll out FIOS," he said,
referring to Verizon's fiber to the premise Internet service.
CWA will be asking both companies and public service
commissioners about specific commitments to investment in
services and jobs, he said. CWA and IBEW represent
about 3,000 Verizon workers in the three states, whose
bargaining agreement expires next year.
While FairPoint has said it will maintain existing union jobs
and add 600 positions,
the company's track record is troubling. It recently closed
several dozen call
centers in 17 states, consolidating the jobs in Maine and
Washington. CWA leaders
want
to know what FairPoint plans to do with the 350 CWA-represented
Verizon customer service workers now employed in the three
states.
FairPoint currently has about 250,000 access lines among its 28
rural telephone operations. The Verizon deal would jump
FairPoint to the 8th largest U.S. telecom company, adding 1.5
million residential and business lines, 234,000 high-speed data
subscribers and 600,000 long distance customers.
Excerpts from CWA Communications
Department
Schedule of upcoming IBEW-CWA Stop-the-Sale Activities.....
Dear Brothers and Sisters in IBEW-CWA Stop-the-Sale campaign:
Here are a few
dates for upcoming public and membership meetings (both
confirmed and
still tentative*) that some may be aware of and others are
not.
Please call 781-937-9600 tomorrow, Jan. 22, if you have any
further additions
or changes you'd like publicized). We need to start moving in
the direction
of public posting of this info on website,
whenever possible
In the interest of inter-union coordination and info-sharing,
see short-term
campaign schedule below that has taken shape since last
Wednesday's post-sale
In Augusta, 10:30 am, IBEW-CWA meeting with Baldacci
Administration team
working on VZ/FP sale issue (Dick Davies, Jack Cashman, and
Steve Ward from the
Office of Public Advocate). Contact person: Pete McLaughlin at
207-623-2901
In Montpelier, 4:30 to 7:30, IBEW-CWA briefing of state reps
and senators at
State House cafeteria. CWA Research-Economist Ken Peres, Mike
Spillane, Mike
O'Day and othes will speak. All Democratic, Republican, and
Prog friends and
allies, past, present, or future, are invited.
For more info, contact Ralph Montefusco (802-598-5613)
In Montpelier, 1 p.m. House Commerce Committee initial hearing
on the sale.
Ken Peres will again raise union questions and concerns about
Fairpoint,
based on new fact sheet/critique available for distribution in
all three states on
Tuesday, He will be joined
by others from both unions.
On Thursday, there will also be more local radio
opportunities, an interview
In Augusta, at 3 and 4 p.m. , IBEW-CWA reps, joined by state
AFL-CIO, will
meet with both Republican and Democratic legislative leaders
in Maine--the
second meeting being with Senate President Beth Edmonds and
her staff.
10 am--in Berlin, Ct. at Suzanna's Restaurant,--Vt.
COPE/Legislative
CWA and IBEW members will attend to leaflet and button-hole
state and federal
elected officials ranging, including Senator Bernie Sanders,
Congressman
Peter Welch, Gov. Jim Douglas, Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie, etc.
CWA membership meeting, after work, in Portland, being set up
by V-P Anne
Mussenden and assisted by CWA Rep. Paul Bouchard. Further
details to be
announced. Topics will include arranging Portland CLC-(and CWA
and IBEW)sponsored forum
on the sale in February. For more info on time and place (and
confirmation of
date) call Anne at 207-653-5735)
Bangor-area CLC will sponsor public forum with local
legislators on labor and
community objections to the VZ sale to Fairpoint. For more
details, contact
jack McKay (at 207-949-0708)
Also during second week in February: legislative
briefing/reception in
Concord. Still being planned. For more info, call Glenn
Brackett at 603-669-8842.
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