CWA & IBEW Call For National Telecom Policy And Closing Of Destructive Tax Loophole

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/node/12713

Submitted by Doug Cunningham on January 7, 2010 - 4:50pm
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By Doug Cunningham

The CWA and IBEW say customers and taxpayers got a bad deal with Verizon’s proposed sale of its rural phone landlines in 14 states. Both unions say Verizon used a tax loophole called the Reverse Morris Trust to dodge $600 million in taxes while saddling Frontier Communications with $3.3 billion in debt. And because the smaller company couldn’t handle the number of phone lines and the debt both phone quality and broadband internet service will suffer. The unions want to close the tax loophole. CWA President Larry Cohen.

: “The real issue here is when are we gonna have good telecom policy in the United States with our eyes wide open rather than getting backed into real bad policy like psending federal money – which is what we’re really doing here – for a bad nerger.”

Verizon engineered a similar deal in New England, IBEW President Ed Hill says it hurt both consumers and workers.

: “We believe that it has a lasting and residual effect that it has on the consumers and quite frankly will be quite devastating. With the broadband deployment, the service quality, the economic development and jobs that are all at risk. Not only that, but the interruption that they had on the 911.”

Legislation is being introduced in Congress to close the Reverse Morris Trust tax loophole.