CWA: VZ Deal is Good for Wall Street, Bad for West Virginia

Nearly 100 CWA members turned out for Lobby Day in Charleston, W.Va., and spent the day making sure that legislators realize that the proposed sale of Verizon's telephone lines to Frontier Communications is a bad deal for West Virginia. 

CWA District 2 VP Ron Collins talks about key ssues in the proposed Verizon-Frontier with activists at Lobby Day in Charleston, WVa.

CWA District 2 Vice President Ron Collins briefed the legislature’s Labor Caucus and the legislature's Joint Standing Committee on Judiciary on how the deal could jeopardize economic development in the state.

Verizon wants to sell its 617,000 lines to Frontier in a deal that would give Verizon a tax free profit of $3.3 billion while Frontier would take on a staggering amount of debt and West Virginians would face declining service and little or no access to high speed communications.

The track record on these sales isn't good. Last year Verizon sold its telephone lines in northern New England to FairPoint Communications in a similar tax-free (for Verizon) deal. Now, FairPoint is on the verge of filing for bankruptcy.

CWA's print, radio and television ads are alerting consumers to what the deal is all about: big bucks for Verizon while consumers lose out on high-speed broadband and other telecommunications advances.

Watch CWA's television ad attacking corporate greed.

CWA's petition campaign points out why the deal is "good for Wall Street and bad for you" and is reaching out to consumers, unions and other organizations to make sure the Public Service Commission gets the message. Sign the petition and get more information at www.verizonfrontierdeal.org. The campaign is a project of the Verizon SIF.