About 2,000 Frontier Communications employees that walked off last Friday in several California communities over a dispute involving the use of non-union subcontractors were back on the job August 25, according to the Communications Workers of America. 

The CWA members went on strike on August 19, objecting to Frontier’s use of subcontractors for buildout work they said was in violation of the collective bargaining agreement between the union and the telecom company. Under that agreement, no more than 5% of Frontier’s workforce could be subcontracted.

As part of the new agreement, the union said Frontier has committed to follow the limits of subcontracting as put forth in the collective bargaining agreement, including posting job requisitions for at least a hundred Term Cable Splicer positions; meeting regularly with CWA on the status of the postings; offering union jobs in lieu of contract workers; and utilizing the existing referral program for union members to assist the company in finding qualified applicants. According to the union, the strike ended at  11:59 p.m. PT on August 24, and all employees returned to work on or before August 25. 

“This is a huge victory for CWA members at Frontier who stayed one day longer, one day stronger on the picket line and refused to settle for the company’s excuses and empty promises. It’s proof that we can successfully fight back when we come together, mobilize and build solidarity,” said CWA Local 9510 Executive Vice President Kenny Williams in a press release. 

Frontier officials did not respond immediately to a request for comment, but in earlier press reports said that the dispute had been mainly a misunderstanding. 

“Like most companies, we’re using contractors to fill a gap as we actively recruit new talent in a tight labor market,” Frontier said in a statement to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. “Other factors have also pushed us to engage more contractors than normal, like weather-related repair issues, meeting PUC service requirements and employees not willing to meet overtime requirements.”

Telecom companies across the country have been experiencing a worker shortage as fiber build projects grow and the labor pool of skilled workers dwindles. 

Also: Equipment, Worker Shortage Could Delay Fiber Buildout

And though the CWA claimed victory in this dispute, it still is waiting for a new contract with Frontier. According to the Tribune, its previous collective bargaining agreement expired in September 2021, but workers have been without a contract since its last extension expired in April. 

“I am grateful for all of the members of the community who have been persistently supporting CWA members at Frontier and fighting alongside us to protect good jobs and the quality of service our customers receive. Although the issues relating to this grievance are resolved, we are still fighting for a new contract. I have no doubt in my mind that our members are ready, able and willing to do whatever it takes to ensure that Frontier provides quality service and good jobs for Californians,” said CWA District 9 Vice President Frank Arce in a press release.

Faced with the prospect of Connecticut expanding the state’s one-touch, make-ready (OTMR) policy for communications buildouts, the Communications Workers of America is pushing back, filing comments with the state's Public Utility Regulatory Authority arguing that OTMR threatens public safety and worker security.

In August 2018 the FCC voted unanimously, with one partial dissent by current acting chair Jessica Rosenworcel, to adopt a one-touch, make-ready (OTMR) policy for new broadband attachments on utility poles.

The idea behind OTMR is to speed broadband deployments while ensuring the pole work is done safely. For example, complex connections or ones where the safety risks are greater, such as high up on a pole, will still be subject to multi-touches.

At the time of the vote, then-FCC chairman Ajit Pai said pole attachments were one of the biggest barriers to broadband deployment, and that OTMR promises to ”substantially“ lower costs and reduce the time to attach. He likened the lack of OTMR to making separate round trips to the grocery store for each item on a shopping list.

CWA argues the “done safely” part is missing from the regime, as well as skilled CWA members when the make-ready is done by non-union workers.

“OTMR would allow telecommunication companies that want to put new equipment on utility poles to move existing equipment themselves without sufficient oversight from safety inspectors or the owners of the utility pole,” the union in its comments. “Meanwhile, these companies often use untrained third-party contractors for this work, undermining the collective bargaining agreements of the skilled telecom employees who originally installed the equipment.”

The union included photos of what it said was faulty contract work “throughout Connecticut,” including “hanging fiber cables, disconnected from the strands that hold them in the air; damaged utility poles; fiber cables left on public sidewalks and in snowbanks; lack of warning signs or cones when work is being conducted on public streets; poles improperly secured; and more.”

The Communications Workers of America is calling for "greater" regulatory scrutiny of the proposed AT&T spin-off of WarnerMedia assets into a new company partnership with Discovery.

The union said that the Biden Administration needs to look more seriously at the impact of the deal on jobs and wages. "For too long, regulators have had tunnel vision when it comes to anti-trust review," said CWA President Chris Shelton, pointing to what he said was AT&T's failure to live up to promises it made in its merger with Time Warner.

CWA supported that merger based on assurances the new company would not interfere with efforts to unionize its workers. "AT&T did not keep its promise to the workers," CWA said. "Instead of honoring CWA’s long standing voluntary union recognition agreement, the company launched a court battle to dodge their contractual commitments to respect workers’ organizing rights."

Also Read: CWA Applauds AT&T for Scrapping Stock Buyback

At the time, Shelton also said CWA backed the merger because it would provide "much-needed" competition to Google, Facebook and Amazon, which were all non-union.

The union was also leery of AT&T's touting this week of the $3 billion in synergies the Discovery deal will produce. "Synergies are almost always another way of saying job cuts, and in the absence of union representation and collective bargaining agreements, consolidation is likely to result in lower wages across the industry as workers have fewer options for employment," said CWA.

Count the Communications Workers of America among those rooting for President-elect Joe Biden to name senior FCC Democrat Jessica Rosenworcel to chair his FCC.

CWA President Christopher Shelton sent a letter to Biden asking both for Rosenworcel as chair and for Debbie Goldman to be the third Democratic commissioner after current chairman Ajit Pai gives up his commissioner's seat Jan. 20.

Shelton said Rosenworcel had fought for greater access to telecom for all Americans, rather than accepting "marketing pitches" from telecom lobbyists. "Jessica digs for the truth behind the numbers and understand[s] the needs and concerns of the people who are most affected by FCC decisions--teachers and students, healthcare workers, and patients, first responders and small businesses," plus the tens of thousands of CWA members.

CWA has a big rooting interest in Goldman, who was a 22-year veteran of CWA and most recently director of research and telecom policy director.

Shelton said that the pair would be "extremely effective in advancing [the President-elect's] agenda to get America back on track."

Rosenworcel, who has a lot of fans on the Hill and in the Valley (Silicon), is considered a leading candidate for the FCC's center seat.

Communications workers and their employers apparently have a difference of opinion over the alleged shortage of skilled workers to handle the nation's burgeoning broadband buildouts.

The Federal Communications Commission’s Broadband Deployment Advisory Council (BDAC) working group on Broadband Infrastructure Deployment Job Skills and Training Opportunities plans to offer up a report at the council’s meeting Oct. 29, saying there needs to be more federal funding for broadband job training, according to the Communications Workers of America.

RELATED: Cell Tower Training Bill Introduced

According to CWA, that working group is being steered by infrastructure companies and contractors who are arguing, without evidence, that there is a shortage of skilled workers that impedes needed buildouts, while at the same time those same companies are undervaluing or getting rid of the skilled workers they have.

CWA points to an Economic Policy Institute report published this month that shows no evidence of either a labor or skills shortage. Instead, says CWA, what has been lacking is decent wages, while major telecoms lay off workers.

“The BDAC working group’s recommendations are based on the assumption that there is a lack of workers available, leading the working group to boost technical training programs rather than wage increases for workers,” a CWA spokesperson said. “This orientation could point to telecom giants’ desire to continue outsourcing jobs and skirting union membership for the workforce — under the guise of a ‘skill gap.’ ”

WASHINGTON — The Communications Workers of America has tentatively struck a new contract with AT&T covering 500 DirecTV service center employees.

The contract, which still needs to be ratified by members, covers workers in Alabama, California, Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota and Tennessee.

The CWA represents a total of 150,000 AT&T workers. With the new contract, that includes 2,000 DirecTV workers.

“Our objective in bargaining is to reach fair agreements that will allow us to provide solid union-represented careers with excellent wages and benefits, and we believe this agreement does that,” AT&T said in a statement.

“In 2015 and 2016, we successfully reached, and our union-represented employees ratified, 25 different labor agreements covering over 102,000 employees across the country. That includes 15 different labor agreements in 2016 collectively covering nearly 61,000 employees. The 2016 agreements include nine agreements covering nearly 7,300 former DirecTV employees.”

Altice USA, the domestic arm of European telecom firm Altice N.V., is creating a separate company — Altice Technical Services USA — to house all its technical workers, a move it says is aimed at providing better training and top-notch customer service but one the union representing some of its employees sees as a means to reduce its workforce at will.

Altice USA is in the midst of an aggressive fiber buildout plan across its footprint that it hopes will differentiate it further in its markets; its parent company has used a similar structure in other countries where it is upgrading its network.

But tech workers are, perhaps understandably, suspicious that Altice USA felt the need to create a separate entity just for them.

Essentially ATS will house all of Altice USA’s field service, construction & fiber, design, outside plant maintenance, inside plant and field-based employees serving commercial accounts. Altice has not released just how many employees that might involve; the union estimates it could be more than 4,500. Altice USA has about 17,000 workers across the country, according to its website.

JOB COMMITMENTS IN N.Y.

In New York State, where Altice USA has its greatest concentration of customers — about 1.9 million of its 4.3 million total subscribers, according to the New York State Public Service Commission — the company agreed not to lay off customer-facing workers for four years as part of a franchise renewal.

Some workers and officials at the Communications Workers of America union, which represents about 200 Altice USA technicians in Brooklyn, N.Y., are worried the new structure could be a way around those conditions.

“We’re very concerned,” CWA District 1 assistant to the vice president Robert Master said. “But we haven’t fully unpacked it yet. We don’t know what they have in mind.”

CWA District 1 organizer Tim Dubnau said the moves seem to be in conflict with the New York PSC order, which gave Altice the final regulatory nod to close its $17.7 billion purchase of Cablevision Systems in June. Altice bought the former Suddenlink Communications in December 2015 for $9.1 billion. “We definitely smell a rat,” Dubnau said.

Altice USA countered that it believes it has been transparent in dealings with the union and employees, and that it suspects the CWA has its own agenda.

“The CWA is being misleading and mischaracterizing the facts in an effort to scare employees and advance its own interests,” Altice said in a statement.

“As we have communicated with our employees, both companies will honor all the regulatory commitments agreed to with the states, and we believe this model will provide employees with career growth and advancement opportunities as we build our fiber network,” Altice added.

The New York PSC said it is aware of Altice’s plans for ATS. “The order prohibits Altice from reducing its customer-facing workforce for four years, excluding normal attrition,” the PSC said in a statement. “There is no indication that Altice is forcing its customer-facing workforce to take positions in the new unit or is otherwise reducing its customer-facing workforce. The PSC is monitoring Altice’s compliance with the order.”

Altice early on told investors it believed it could extract more than $900 million in expenses from Cablevision over time.

The company cut costs by laying off about 600 workers at its Connecticut call center in November. Spinning off nearly a third of its workforce into a separate company could go a long way to further meeting that goal.

In memos obtained by Multichannel News that were sent to employees over the past few weeks, Altice USA executives said the company would begin staffing ATS between February and April with existing workers who volunteer to switch with an offer of cash incentives. Workers who make the switch will retain the same health and welfare benefits, seniority and vacation time.

The new unit promises to retrain workers in more modern technologies and give them more marketable skills. The company said it plans to transition its entire tech force over to the new unit within five years.

Altice’s ambitious fiber buildout aims to upgrade the bulk of its U.S. footprint to fiber-to-the-premises architecture over the next five years, delivering broadband speeds of up to 10 Gigabits per second.

CWA’s Dubnau said Altice is currently giving workers three options: Stay with Altice USA (which the union says the company is strongly discouraging); sign on with ATS and get a one-time signing bonus equal to 2% of the worker’s annual salary; or agree to take a 10% pay cut, receive an 8% signing bonus and agree to incentive pay, which based on undisclosed metrics could increase pay by up to 20% based on the amount of work done. Workers at ATS would essentially be contract workers, the union said.

Altice has created similar structures in its operations in France and Portugal as it builds out a new fiber network. The company has come under fire outside of the U.S., fined $88.5 million by French regulators in November for seeking takeover deals before obtaining regulatory clearance and battling with unions over job cuts at its SFR wireless unit.

The CWA said Altice USA communications to employees hint at ominous consequences. “Beginning now and over the next five years, we will fully migrate all technical services, from our transmission points in our head ends through to the homes of our customers, to ATS,” head of Optimum operations Pragash Pillai and chief technology officer Terry Cordova said in a memo to employees. “As always, we believe in providing full transparency so that each of you can make the best decision for your career and family.”

LABOR LAWYERS’ VIEWS

Jeffrey Englander, a partner specializing in labor and employment law for New York law firm Morrison Cohen LLP, said there is usually little incentive to set up a separate entity like ATS other than to cut costs.

“They can dress it up anyway they wish to,” Englander said, adding, “But it sounds to me — to the extent there is either an increase in need for manpower or alternatively a reduction in that need — they could take the position [that] as a separate entity they are not obligated in any way to comply with that condition.”

Jane Lauer Barker, a partner specializing in labor and employment law at New York law firm Pitta & Giblin, said cost-cutting is usually the primary driver in such moves. “This wouldn’t be an unheard-of situation,” she said.

“This is something that always comes to mind in these firms — that they can cut down on their costs by spinning off this group of workers, setting up a new company that’s a new employer and shedding themselves of the obligation that the old employer might have.”

Agreeing with the Altice perspective, though, Fisher Phillips regional managing partner Steven Bernstein said cost cutting is likely not the driving reason. Factors like technology and increasing efficiency can play a greater role: “There are a lot of these entities that are trying to get increasingly nimble, increasingly agile, to compete in this global marketplace. And I’m guessing in that industry, that’s certainly the case.”

With workers nervous, the union is stepping up organizing efforts at Altice USA’s Bronx, N.Y., operations, which pushed back an organizing effort in 2012. The only location where Altice can’t force the ATS transition is in Brooklyn, because the contract prohibits it.

“It’s starting to dawn on people that if you have a union card in your back pocket, you’re protected,” Dubnau said.

SIDEBAR: The Altice Way

After acquiring Cablevision Systems in June for $17.7 billion and Suddenlink Communications for $9.1 billion in December 2015, Altice USA has a considerable presence.

Employees: 17,000-plus

Service Area: 20 states

2015 Revenue: $8.93 billion

Residential Customers: 4.3 million

Business Customers: 350,000

SOURCE : Altice USA

Cablevision Systems has filed a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court, Nassau County against a former employee, Local 1109 of the Communications Workers of America, and senior union official Christopher Shelton, claiming the union representing technicians and dispatchers at its Brooklyn, New York location knowingly and repeatedly made false statements about the cable company.

The union denies the claims.

“This is just another in a string of baseless and frivolous lawsuits from Cablevision, which, like all the earlier ones, will be dismissed,” Shelton, Vice President of Communications Workers of America District 1, said in a statement. “Rather than stop the outrageous behavior at Cablevision and pay Brooklyn workers the same wages as other Cablevision employees, [CEO] James Dolan is again turning to expensive lawyers to try to intimidate workers and their allies. It's time for him to sit down and negotiate in good faith with Cablevision workers.”

According to the suit, Cablevision claims Local 1109 made “a series of false and malicious statements” about the company in connection to the termination of Jerome Thompson, a former Cablevision technician who was terminated by the company on Aug. 20. Cablevision claims Thompson was terminated due to “a years-long history of deliberate disregard for company policies,” and was not racially motivated, as the CWA has claimed.

The lawsuit is the latest salvo in what has been an ongoing battle between Cablevision and the union, ever since workers at the Brooklyn office voted for representation in 2012.  Earlier this month, Cablevision held an informal vote that it claimed showed a majority of workers in Brooklyn don’t want the union any more. The CWA countered that Cablevision has used strong-arm tactics to try to persuade workers to drop the union and claims the majority of workers continue to want representation.

According to the most recent suit, Cablevision claimed Thompson violated company policies in a number of instances, including showing up for work improperly dressed, refusing to accept a new company headset and throwing it on a desk in an aggressive manner, hitting a Cablevision building with a company vehicle and denting its garage doors with his ladder, sideswiping another Company vehicle in an avoidable accident. After being issued a final warning in March, Thompson continued to violate policy, Cablevision claimed, including using a company phone for personal use – he allegedly racked up charges 25 times more than the average worker and used 4,303 minutes of talk time in April 2014, compared to the average worker’s 184 minutes of usage. Thompson also is accused of playing loud music in his car and disrupting company events, and referring to the company’s treatment of employees to “America’s historical treatment of slaves” at a company branding and marketing meeting.

After Thompson was terminated, Cablevision claims the union passed out flyers during an event on Sept. 18 hosted by Dolan – most likely a concert at Madison Square Garden on Sept. 18, where his band – JD & The Straight Shot – was opening for The Eagles. According to the suit, the flyers stated that Cablevision had fired an employee for “talking about slavery” and had rewarded another employee for using a racially insensitive term.    

 “The CWA union is knowingly disseminating false and defamatory statements in an attempt to negatively impact Cablevision’s business and damage the reputation of the company and its employees,” Cablevision said in a statement. “The CWA’s desperate campaign is designed to spread lies and misinformation to Cablevision’s customers, elected officials and the public at large. It is clear that the CWA will stop at nothing to advance its selfish interests and we are asking the Court to put an immediate halt to their unlawful and malicious activities.”