Hundreds of Verizon workers and supporters rallied in Burlington’s Waterfront Park on June 2 to send a message to Vermont’s Public Service Board that the proposed sale of Verizon’s landlines to FairPoint Communications will leave northern New England residents stranded on the information super-highway. Pictures from the rally may be seen at: http://picasaweb.google.com/wilsonforworkingfamilies/BurlingtonVTStopTheSaleRally
The Vermont Public Service Board -- along with its counterparts in New Hampshire and Maine, and the Federal Communications Commission -- is currently considering whether to approve Verizon’s proposed $2.7 billion sale to FairPoint. If all three states and the FCC approve it, Verizon will be allowed to abandon all its “low-value” customers, while keeping its more profitable big business and wireless ones.
Approval would mean that residential telephone customers -- not to mention schools, businesses, hospitals and emergency responders -- will be dependent on FairPoint, a small, highly-leveraged North Carolina based firm that is worth only $630 million. FairPoint has only announced plans to provide dial-up for Internet access or at best, digital subscriber line (DSL) service, a technology that is widely regarded as already outdated and inadequate for rural economic development.
“The Verizon-FairPoint sale is a bad deal for hundreds of thousands of telephone consumers. It won’t lead to better service quality, more investment, or the high-speed Internet access everyone wants,” said IBEW System Council T-6 Chair Myles Calvey. “It also threatens the pay, benefits, decent working conditions and job security of 2,800 union members employed by Verizon throughout northern New England.”
The sale would leave Vermont even further behind on the information super-highway -- to the detriment of its overall economic development and job creation efforts.
In a statement read at the rally, Senator Bernie Sanders said, “…It is absolutely imperative for the economic future of this state that every area of Vermont has the highest quality broadband service at a cost that Vermonters can afford. Vermont is now behind much of America in that regard, and America is behind much of the world.”
Verizon particularly benefits from the sale by exploiting an obscure tax loophole called a “Reverse Morris Trust.” It would allow Verizon to save $600 million in taxes, as long as its infrastructure is sold in pieces to a small firm, as opposed to larger, more stable companies that have the capacity to invest in improved service.
“Verizon picked tiny FairPoint because it allows Verizon shareholders to end up controlling more than 50 percent of the newly merged company’s voting rights and economic value – while Verizon reaps huge tax savings!” said Mike Spillane, Business Manager of IBEW Local 2326.
“Let’s not be fooled by the idea that a company worth only $630 million, which is borrowing heavily to buy Verizon properties three times its present size, is going to be an improvement over a firm worth $100 billion,” said James Haslam from the Vermont Workers Center.
“I understand why some customers are unhappy with Verizon. Even though it’s one of the richest telecom firms in the world, Verizon has failed to include much of Vermont in its plans to build a high-speed broadband network,” said Meg Collins, an 18-year Verizon Service Rep and Executive VP of CWA Local 1400. “But if this sale goes through, Vermont and all of Northern New England’s citizens will be ‘road kill’ on the information super highway.”
IBEW and CWA recently submitted expert testimony to the Vermont Public Service Board with data showing why the board should deny the proposed transaction between Verizon and FairPoint. The full testimony is available at:
http://files.cwa-union.org/national/verizon/20070524_VTPSB_KenPeres.pdf
http://files.cwa-union.org/national/verizon/20070524_VTPSB_RandyBarber.pdf
A growing coalition of labor and consumer groups is fighting the sale as a first step toward securing a broadband build-out that would guarantee “High Speed Internet For All.” The regional economy, schools, hospitals, and public safety systems would all benefit. To prevent companies like Verizon -- which have the deepest pockets and best technology -- from abandoning markets like northern New England, there must be fundamental changes in state and federal regulatory policies.
For details on these policy proposals, see www.SpeedMatters.org, a website that also lets Internet users check their own access speeds against world standards. More arguments against the sale can be found on: www.verizonvsfairpoint.com, www.no-deal.org, and www.stop-the-sale.org
Participants left the rally with leaflets to educate the public about the importance of contacting their state legislators and Vermont Public Service Board. Organizers also distributed lawn signs and stickers to give the campaign more visibility with the public.
For copies of a special report on the why the proposed FairPoint purchase of Verizon’s properties would place consumers, workers and communities at risk, contact Rand Wilson at (617) 803-0799 or rwilson@aflcio.org
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1 comment:
Interesting to know.
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