Telecom News: CWA Jobs, High Speed Access Grow with Verizon FiOS

Every day, Verizon technicians are stringing and burying miles of fiber optic cable but for customers eager to have state-of-the-art Internet, phone and TV service, it can't reach their neighborhoods fast enough.

Just ask Chad Carpenter, a Verizon tech and member of CWA Local 2222 who installs the "FiOS" systems in homes in northern Virginia. The build-out has stopped for now a half mile from Carpenter's home. He can hardly wait for it to get there and says when it does, "I'm going to be the first guy on the block to sign up."

In Verizon territory, FiOS — for fiber optic service — is the future. For CWA, it means good union jobs. In Carpenter's local, FiOS has created about 300 technician jobs over the past two years and the company expects to add another 70 in early 2007.

In the Long Island area of New York, 380 jobs were added initially to Locals 1108 and 1104 and 140 of the workers have been made permanent. FiOS technicians are hired first as "term" or temporary employees but are represented by the union and receive all the contract benefits.

Demand is so high that Verizon is getting ready to hire another 150 workers for the Long Island area alone. Once work begins in New York City, hundreds more are expected to be on the payroll, represented by CWA.

Verizon Resists
Home Run Strategy

With FiOS, customers can get download connection speeds as high as 30 megabits per second (mbps) though more affordable packages have 5 and 15 mbps options — still far speedier than DSL lines of 1 to 3 mbps and cable modems of up to 5 mbps, and light years beyond dial-up.

Many customers are opting for the "triple play," which bundles Internet service, telephone and cable TV service, all through a fiber optic line that comes directly to their home. They get a single bill for services from Verizon.

CWA President Larry Cohen says Verizon could make the triple play a "home run" by adding wireless into the bundle. But that's where Verizon draws the line. No matter how much business sense it makes, Verizon has resisted union customer service reps selling service for non-union Wireless, except for two trial projects in Texas and Florida (see separate story).

Verizon has been brutal in its aggressive tactics against workers' attempts to form a union in the wireless side of the business. It appears Verizon would rather pass on a huge money-maker and risk sending customers to another provider than let the union customer service representatives sell Verizon Wireless.

Even with contract language ensuring that current FiOS work is CWA's, union leaders say Verizon has tried to sneak in contractors, particularly on work laying the fiber optic cable.

"Thank God for camera phones," said Local 2222 President Stacie Adams, explaining that CWA members on job sites have been able to snap pictures of non-union employees doing their work. A grievance/arbitration process is pending, Adams said, noting that the frequency of incidents has slowed down.

"Our members are vigilant," she said. "When they see contractors doing our work, they'll go up and confront them and tell them, 'You're not supposed to be doing that. That's our work.'"

Ron Collins, administrative assistant to District 2 Vice President Pete Catucci, said he views FiOS as "good for union jobs, but the key is that we have to hold Verizon's feet to the fire. We have to make sure they adhere to the contract language they agreed to."

Regulation Favors Cable

Because cable TV is part of the FiOS package, in most states Verizon has to go before the city councils in every city to get a cable franchise agreement, whereas competing cable companies like Comcast and Time Warner are not regulated for voice and have already gotten local franchises. Only nine states allow statewide franchises (see separate story).

CWA members and leaders have been testifying at many of the council meetings to support franchise deals for Verizon and to ensure that the company makes its fiber optic service available to every neighborhood. Too often, companies bypass rural communities and inner-city neighborhoods, figuring they won't get a high enough return on their investment.

Testifying before a New York City Council subcommittee on Verizon's application for a FiOS cable franchise, CWA District 1 Vice President Chris Shelton urged the council to give the company a green light.

"While we have had our fair share of disagreements with management… we believe that it is important to recognize that Verizon is a union employer whose market share is under sustained attack from non-union competitors," Shelton said, explaining that too many cable TV companies, which now compete in the telecom and data world as well, offer few if any of the benefits or good wages that Verizon's contract provides.

"Instead, they seek to undermine the position of the city's largest unionized telecom provider and lower the standard of living for working people," Shelton said. "Every day, Verizon is losing customers to these anti-union companies."

Verizon estimates its fiber optic lines will be available to 6 million homes by the end of this year and 18 million homes by 2010, more than half of the 33 million homes it serves in 28 states. By then, the company says it will have invested $18 billion in FiOS. However, some existing customers in rural New England and the Midwest would never get FiOS if Verizon is allowed to sell off its lines in those areas (separate story).

For CWA technicians, FiOS is labor-intensive, from placing the miles of cable itself to installing it in customers' homes. A triple play customer order requires at least two technicians and can take a full day or longer. Installing data lines alone takes a tech four to six hours on average, Local 2222's Carpenter said as he worked on a duplex in Arlington, Va., in mid-October.

But it's a gratifying day's work, especially when it comes time to demonstrate the finished installation. "The look on their faces when they've gone from dial-up to five megs — their jaws just hit the ground," Carpenter said.