US-based Telecom network operator Verizon says they have reached an agreement with the CWA and IBEW on new contracts with the company’s 36,500 employees-mainly wireline and 165 wireless employees in the Northeast. Verizon has been in the news for the past two months ever since the operator announced massive investment plans, followed by a destructive employees strike.
Marc Reed, chief administrative officer of Verizon, said: “The agreement is consistent with our objective of creating high-quality American jobs and achieving meaningful changes and enhancements to the contracts that will better enable our wireline business unit to compete and succeed in the digital world. We look forward to having all of our employees soon back at work in their regular positions and doing what they do best – serving our customers,”
Communications Workers of America(CWA) is the largest communications and media labor union in the United States, representing about 600,000 members in both the private and public sectors. The union has 27 locals in Canada via CWA-SCA Canada (Syndicat des communications d’Amérique) representing about 8,000 members. CWA has several affiliated subsidiary labor unions bringing total membership to over 700,000. CWA is headquartered in Washington, DC, and affiliated with the AFL-CIO, the Canadian Labour Congress, and UNI Global Union.
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) is a labor union representing around 750,000 workers and retirees in the electrical industry in the United States, Canada, Panama, Guam, and Wake Island and several Caribbean island nations; particularly electricians, or Inside Wiremen, in the construction industry and linemen and other employees of public utilities. The union also represents some workers in the computer, telecommunications, broadcasting, and other fields related to electrical work. It was founded in 1891 shortly after homes and businesses in the United States began receiving electricity.
Verizon was actively deploying fiber optic cables in the United States. The fiber optic broadband service offered by Verizon, which the company named FiOS, is a bundled Internet access, telephone, and television service that operates over a fiber-optic communications network to over 5 million people in nine states. Service is offered in some areas of the United States by Verizon Communications directly.
Frontier Communications operates licensed FiOS services in former Verizon territories across six states, using a nearly identical network infrastructure. FiOS service began in 2005, and networked areas expanded through 2010, although some areas do not have service or cannot receive TV and phone service because of franchise agreements.
Verizon was one of the first major U.S. carriers to offer fiber to the home and received positive ratings from Consumer Reports among cable television and Internet service providers. Other service providers use fiber optics in the network backbone and existing copper or coax infrastructure for residential users.
The New York City head-quartered Verizon Communications has generated nearly $132 billion in 2015 revenues. Verizon has 112.6 million retail connections nationwide.
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