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CWA on Bell Atlantic
``` Date: Mon, 18 Sep 1995 17:34:55 -0400 From: CWA01@aol.com To: WEBMASTER@eff.org Subject: ACTION ALERT: BELL ATLANTIC MISTREATS CONSUMERS
You should be receiving an e-mail message announcing the Communications Workers of America's World Wide Web home page (if you have not received the message, the home page is at http://www.dcarolco.com/cwa/).
In conjunction with the web page, the CWA has launched an e-mail campaign against Bell Atlantic's practices that underserve consumers, mistreat workers, and red-line in lower-income areas. Because your organization deals with these issues, I am sending along a copy of our e-mail alert.
I hope you will help out the CWA and Bell Atlantic's customers by e-mailing Bell Atlantic at info@ba.com, and by forwarding this message to others in your organization and to anyone you think may be interested. If you decide to help out, CWA also requests that you forward your Bell Atlantic e-mail and any response to cwa@ix.netcom.com so we can keep a tally of how many people have spoken out.
Thanks for your help.
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TAKE ACTION NOW!!
BELL ATLANTIC LEAVES CONSUMERS BEHIND
As profits swell to over $1.4 billion, Bell Atlantic -- the nation's second largest provider of exchange telephone service -- is pursuing a business plan that systematically and willfully underserves consumers. As telephone service declines and hardware fails, Bell Atlantic pours its profits into new, non-telephone technologies in wealthy communities and foreign countries while many customers are left behind. These developments set a bad precedent for all of us who care about on-line access at a fair price.
The Communications Workers of America -- which represents 600,000 workers in public and private employment, including 500,000 workers building the information highway -- encourages consumers, workers, and concerned citizens to e-mail Bell Atlantic at info@ba.com and tell the company that must put an end to its negligent policies and plans. For more information, visit the CWA web site at http://www.dcarolco.com/cwa/.
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WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT
ACT TODAY. Bell Atlantic needs to hear that consumers will not stand for its negligent policies and plans. What you can do now:
1. EDUCATE YOURSELF ABOUT BELL ATLANTIC'S ACTIVITIES. Read the information below. If you want more information, visit the CWA's web site at http://www.dcarolco.com/cwa/.
2. E-MAIL BELL ATLANTIC AT INFO@BA.COM. Stress that consumers will not sit idly by while the company neglects maintenance of the telephone system, cuts back on service to consumers, shuts poor areas out of advanced telecommunications services, and mistreats its workers. CWA also requests that you forward your e-mail and any response to cwa@ix.netcom.com so we can keep a tally of how many people have spoken out. For details on Bell Atlantic's activities, read below.
3. FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW. Bell Atlantic is a large and powerful company. Unless it hears from concerned consumers and workers, it has no reason to change its policies -- policies that affect millions of customers and set a precedent for telecommunications companies worldwide.
4. CALL BELL ATLANTIC. The company headquarters can be reached at 215-963-6600. If you live in the Bell Atlantic service area, you can also call your state's Bell Atlantic headquarters: Washington, D.C.: 202-346-1000; Maryland: 202-954-6260; Virginia: 202-954-6212; Delaware: 302-761-6000; New Jersey: 800-287-9966; Pennsylvania: 215-571-7050; West Virginia: 304-954-6202.
5. BLOCK "900" CALLS. Protect yourself from outrageous phone bills and support CWA workers at the same time. If you live in the Bell Atlantic service area, call Bell Atlantic at the numbers listed above and request that "900" calls be blocked from your phone.
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WHY IT MATTERS TO CONSUMERS
Bell Atlantic -- once famous for its high standards -- is placing profits over customer service by excessively cutting its work force, neglecting maintenance, ignoring consumer complaints and abandoning copper wire investments needed to meet increased consumer demand for telephone lines.
INCREASING SERVICE DELAYS. Service delays are a growing problem for Bell Atlantic's customers. Company records show that the number of complaints about phone line troubles that have not been properly solved have quadrupled over the past three years.
PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT FOR SPECIAL CUSTOMERS. With repair demands at an all-time high, Bell Atlantic does not have the personnel to meet its commitments to customers. To deal with the short-handedness, the company has developed a priority customer list that gives Blue Chip corporate accounts, VIPs, and the news media priority over doctors on call and customers with repeat problems.
WATCHING THE CLOCK. There are not enough service representatives to answer customer calls within the time standards established by regulators. As a result, Bell Atlantic instructs service representatives to keep calls short and set up call-back appointments. The company reprimands service representatives who spend too much time with customers.
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WHY IT MATTERS TO ALL OF US ON-LINE
Bell Atlantic is pursuing a business plan that shuts out regions that need modern telecommunications services most desperately to foster economic development. Bell Atlantic is a market leader. If Bell Atlantic succeeds with its information redlining efforts, other companies will follow suit -- putting telephone and Internet access further out of reach for many and accelerating the growing chasm between the haves and have-nots in our society.
RURAL AREAS LEFT BEHIND. Bell Atlantic is not systematically maintaining its copper plant. This especially hurts rural areas that already suffer from aging plant. Rural areas -- where one of every four Bell Atlantic customers live -- will be excluded from advanced communication networks.
THE "HAVE-NOTS." This Bell Atlantic policy will redline poor and rural residents who are already falling behind. According to "Falling through the Net: A Survey of the 'Have-Nots' in Rural and Urban America," low-income minority households in rural areas or inner cities are least likely to have the phone line and computer hardware necessary for getting on the information highway. The Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) conducted the study.
THE "HAVES." A recent market study by EDS Management Consulting Service found that approximately one sixth of U.S. households have a computer with a modem, with the highest concentration of computer owners in households headed by college graduates under 45 years old who earned over $50,000 and who had children under 17 years old.
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WHY IT MATTERS TO WORKERS
Bell Atlantic is using pushing a low-wage, non-union competitive strategy in its current negotiations with CWA. All other Bell Companies and AT&T have all reached agreements in recent months with CWA that set the terms of a high performance, participatory workplace -- one in which competitive advantage is based on quality service delivered by experienced, union employees. Bell Atlantic is the lone renegade, pushing for drastic cuts in its work force and a blanket strategy of least cost solutions.
CUTTING RETIREE HEALTH BENEFITS. Bell Atlantic is trying to cut retirees' health benefits -- cuts that will leave retired workers struggling.
UNFAIR LABOR PROPOSALS. Bell Atlantic is the only "Baby Bell" telephone company that has agreed to give union members the right to work on the fiber optics that will pave the Information Highway. Instead, Bell Atlantic wants to subcontract work to cheaper suppliers and pay workers 40% below union wages for phone work.
MISERLY WAGE PROPOSAL. Other Bell companies and AT&T have negotiated 3-year wage improvements of at least 10.5%. Bell Atlantic, in contrast, has proposed a wage which would subtract a cash bonus from the across-the-board percentage wage increase. For the lowest paid workers, base wages would rise only 3.5% over three years.
MEAN SPIRITED. Bell Atlantic even objects to the Family and Medical Leave Act. Bell Atlantic testified before a federal commission that the law should be changed because the Company can no longer punish employees who take legitimate sick leave.
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THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT AND CONCERN -- PLEASE E-MAIL BELL ATLANTIC AT INFO@BA.COM TODAY AND FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO YOUR FRIENDS! ```
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