Frontier, CWA carve out tentative agreement in West Virginia

Frontier Communications has reached another milestone with its union work force by hammering out a tentative labor contract with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) in West Virginia.

The agreement, which was reached earlier this week, covers about 1,500 employees who work in 42 West Virginia counties and serve more than 500,000 residential and business customers. This group includes a mix of customer service technicians, network support technicians, construction technicians, call center representatives and many other employees who support service delivery in the state.

"CWA members have a rich history of supporting Mountain State customers," said CWA District 2-13 Vice President Ed Mooney in a release. "This tentative agreement allows CWA members to continue this tradition while maintaining great middle class jobs in WV."

West Virginia became one of Frontier's largest territories when it purchased Verizon's lines in 14 states in 2010. Over the past four years, the company said it increased broadband access from about 62 percent of households in the former Verizon West Virginia markets to nearly 90 percent today.

Frontier continues to make progress in hammering out new agreements with its union workers. In 2013, the telco reached an agreement with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union covering over 1,100 employees in five Midwest states after seven months of negotiations and it reached another agreement with the CWA union representing 200 of the carrier's employees in Pennsylvania.

More recently, Connecticut CWA Local 1298 President William Henderson III gave his support for Frontier's pending acquisition of AT&T's wireline network infrastructure in the state. Initially, Henderson opposed the sale because he said neither Frontier nor AT&T (NYSE: T) had issued a whole lot of information about their business plans.

For more:
- see the release

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