Kentucky PSC Orders Review of Windstream Job Pledge

Thanks to CWA's intervention in public service commission proceedings, Windstream Communications may face a stay in its efforts to lay off 46 workers in Kentucky. The State PSC has ordered Windstream to respond within 20 days to a complaint filed by CWA, the IBEW and the state's attorney general, stating that the company has violated a no-layoff agreement it made in December 2005.

In December 2005, Alltel Communications set out to shed its wireline properties. The company announced it would purchase wireline provider Valor Communications for $9.1 billion, merge Valor with its own wireline operation and spin off the new wireline entity as Windstream, leaving Alltel as a strictly wireless provider.

CWA, representing 1,200 Alltel employees in eight states, intervened with public service commissions in Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Nebraska to protect members' jobs, making certain that the deal was structured so that if the new company, Windstream, failed, creditors could not come after its holdings to repay debt.

In May 2006, the Kentucky PSC approved Alltel's spinoff of Windstream based on the company's assertion that, "There are no plans to change either the number or types of employees currently working (for the company) if the transaction is approved."

CWA, IBEW and the attorney general filed their complaint seeking enforcement of the agreement on Feb. 12, following Winstream's January announcement it would lay off members of CWA Locals 3371 and 3372, and other workers.