Frontier Turns Its Back on Customers and Workers
In contract talks with CWA, Frontier is demanding the right to replace its entire workforce in Statesboro, GA with outside contractors. Already, the highly trained union workers spend much of their time correcting mistakes made by contractors. And contract demands by Frontier will make it harder to retain skilled and experienced workers. The company wants to make workers pay $400 a month for family health care — and also have the right to change or drop health care and other benefits entirely without negotiating with the workers. It takes a skilled and stable workforce to provide quality telephone service. But Frontier doesn't seem to care anymore about its workers or its customers. What’s happening in Georgia could rapidly spread everywhere Frontier operates. Demand high quality, dependable telephone service and fair treatment of dedicated Frontier employees. Demand that Frontier bargain fairly with its Statesboro workers and show its commitment to hometown jobs and quality service. Please add your own comments to our sample letter below, then fill out your name and address information to tell Mary Agnes Wilderotter, CEO of Frontier’s parent company, Citizens Communications, to bargain fairly with CWA.
Dear [ Decision Maker ] , I am concerned about what is happening at Frontier Communications in Statesboro, GA. Community jobs and quality work are at risk because of subcontracting, stagnant wages and high-cost insurance for workers, stalling at the bargaining table in an attempt to break the union and the threat of a strike that could seriously disrupt service. Please reconsider your position and bargain fairly with CWA.
Sincerely, |
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| Background Information |
Frontier Threatens Quality Jobs and Quality Service
What's happening in Statesboro, Ga., could be coming to any of 24 states where Frontier Communications provides telephone service: exhausted workers unable to keep up with trouble reports, community jobs and quality work at risk because of subcontracting, stagnant wages and high-cost insurance for workers, stalling at the bargaining table in an attempt to break the union and the threat of a strike that could seriously disrupt service.
- Technicians, installers, cable splicers and dispatchers in Statesboro won union representation in April 2005. Yet 14 months later they still do not have a contract. Bargaining has been sporadic and the company has changed bargaining representatives three times. The latest threw out a long list of items the company and union had already agreed upon and insisted on starting again from scratch. Bargaining stalled in January. The company returned to the table for two days in April, then not again until early August. In June, frustrated workers voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike.
- Quality telephone installation and repair are at risk. Frontier's highly trained, unionized installers and technicians have been working 12-hours a day, with the summer heat index often exceeding 100º. Rather than hire and train additional workers from the community, the company has demanded it be allowed to use an unlimited number of independent contractors – whose level of training is questionable – for installation and repair. Contractor errors often delay installations or restoration of service until trained, union technicians correct contractors' mistakes. The company's demands would allow it to lay off its entire community-based workforce at any time and replace those workers with outside contractors.
- The chief executive officer of Frontier's parent company, Citizens Communications, in 2005 received compensation including stock options and other payments totaling $3.9 million. Citizens' net income for the second quarter of this year increased $56.1 million from a year ago, largely from its expansion into high-speed Internet services. Yet, wages for Frontier technicians at the top of a company-proposed progressive wage scale – most of the workers in Statesboro – remain about $3 per hour less than those earned by comparable employees of other service providers. The wage scale does nothing to address widespread disparities in pay caused by past arbitrary raises, and raises would come only through "merit pay" incentives, arbitrarily determined by management.
- Frontier in Statesboro is proposing a health insurance plan that would cost employees $400 a month plus copays to insure their family. The company proposes that it be allowed to change or even drop health care and other benefits at any time without negotiating with its workers.
