Expanding Broadband Top Priority In CWA, Sierra Club Partnership

Rural Virginia County May Be First to Benefit from New Alliance

CWA and Sierra Club activists and leaders met earlier this year at CWA headquarters to discuss shared goals, beginning with a joint push for expanding high-speed broadband access nationwide.

n a win-win-win proposition for workers, consumers and the environment, CWA and the Sierra Club are working together to ensure that all Americans have access to high-speed broadband networks.

The project, which has taken off in Virginia and is in the planning stages in Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio, is the first of what leaders see as a future of shared goals and actions.

“CWA stands with the Sierra Club, the NAACP and the other members of ‘One Nation’ in the fight for good jobs, economic justice, sustainable communities and bargaining rights,” CWA President Larry Cohen said. “Together, we speak with a powerful voice.”

The Sierra Club-CWA partnership is built on the common goal of creating quality jobs and sustainable communities, with the buildout of high-speed broadband critical to that effort.

A key goal is to provide one gigabyte of broadband service to anchor institutions, the schools, hospitals and public buildings in every community. Another priority is getting utility providers to use broadband for “smart grids” that allow consumers to more efficiently use power, saving energy and money.

In Virginia, state Sierra Club Director Glen Besa, left, and CWA Local 2201 EVP Richard Hatch are working with officials in Charles City County, outside Richmond, to bring broadband to the rural, largely African-American community.

 Virginia, CWA and Sierra Club leaders are working with Charles City County government officials. The county is largely rural with a predominately African-American population and a real “digital divide,” where residents don’t have access to the benefits of high speed Internet.

CWA Local 2201 Executive Vice President Richard Hatch and Virginia Sierra Club Director Glen Besa have had a series of meetings with Charles City County officials to explore ways to persuade Verizon to provide high speed broadband to public institutions and residents.

“Charles City County is the perfect example of a rural community that is right beside an urban area but is being left out while its big-city neighbors get state-of-the-art Internet access,” Hatch said. If the overtures to Verizon don’t work, he said the CWA-Sierra alliance will reach out to citizens and the media to launch a full-scale campaign.

A Charles City County leader will join Cohen, Sierra Club leaders and FCC Commissioner Julius Genachowski at a Dec. 15 news conference on the need for high speed broadband buildout.

Besa said high-speed Internet means new tools for energy efficiency and fewer cars on the road as telecommuting increases. More broadly, he said, “We have a commitment to creating good, green, union jobs with fair pay and benefits. The stronger the middle class, the better for the environment. When people are worried about where their next paycheck is coming from, the environment isn’t as important to them.”

Hatch and Besa are planning a joint training event in January for Virginia CWA and Sierra activists. “When environmentalists talk with labor, we find out how much we have in common,” Besa said. “There are differences in our specific agendas, but our opponents in the state legislature and political realm are generally the same.”