On May 16th, the New York Public Service Commission held a hearing on Verizon’s attempt to abandon landlines in New York. Verizon attempted to amend its tariff so that the company could abandon copper wire in favor of a wireless alternative, called Voice Link. While Verizon focused on the west end of Fire Island, its amended tariff would have applied to all of New York State.

The PSC granted limited approval that will apply to Fire Island only, while they continue to review the issue and weigh public comment.

We cannot let Verizon successfully change the law in New York State that will do away with your work and do away with you!  We will be in Albany over the next month working to get laws passed to protect our work and your jobs!

Please handwrite a letter using the following text and give it to your chief steward as soon as possible.

<Date>

Dear Governor Cuomo and Commissioner Brown:

Verizon is currently deploying VoiceLink, a wireless-only substitute for traditional landline service. This work is already underway on the western part of Fire Island. But it is part of Verizon’s larger strategy to replace landline service with wireless in areas where there is no FiOS network, and to slash more jobs.

Replacing wireline service with VoiceLink will mean the loss of good-paying jobs for Verizon technicians, whose numbers have already been cut by more than half in the last seven years. We can’t afford to lose any more.

We urge you to stop Verizon from abandoning the copper network in non-FiOS areas and replacing it with VoiceLink. In addition to speeding up the loss of jobs for Verizon technicians, VoiceLink will endanger service quality and be a public safety hazard during a disaster.

We urge you to conduct a full investigation into the impact of these proposed changes. Do not let Verizon continue destroying good jobs. We urge you not to allow Verizon to deploy VoiceLink statewide.

Sincerely,

<Your name>