Verizon is not being up front with its customers—and that could leave you behind.

Verizon is conducting a sneak attack on Virginia’s telephone customers—discreetly pushing two bills through the Virginia Legislature that would take away the State Corporation Commission’s ability to protect customers from rate hikes and bad service.

If these bills pass, there will be nobody to provide oversight and stop Verizon from abandoning its customers and selling off service to smaller companies that don’t have the resources to provide quality service.

Verizon will be able to do whatever it wants and customers will be helpless to stop them.

Virginia officials need to make sure that all Virginians have access to quality service and high speed networks—the information infrastructure of the future that is the basis for economic growth and jobs.

Call your state legislator at 800-889-0229 and tell them to support quality, universal service in our Commonwealth and to stop Verizon’s sneak attack.

The CPS Award is $784.00, for Plan year 2006. The award will be pro-rated for part-time employees and those employees who participated for more than three (3) months but less than twelve (12) months in the plan year.

The Company’s results have been finalized using the performance criteria described in the Technician’s Incentive Pay Plan for the period of July 1, 2006 through December 31, 2006. The amount of the award for each currently active technician who was on the payroll on or before July 1, 2006 through December 31, 2006 is as follows:

District		Payout
BMET		$1,275.00
WMET		$ 850.00
VA		$ 975.00

Technicians will see the payout as a line item in their February 23, 2007 regular paycheck.

The Union and Company Bargaining Committees met on February 12, 2007 to continue bargaining on the Company’s proposed changes to the Regional Attendance Plan.

The Company rejected the Union’s proposal and declared impasse with the intention of implementing their new RAP plan by March 1, 2007.

The Union responded by filing and presenting a board charge to Verizon before the company bargaining committee left the building. Further, the Union is of the opinion that Verizon has not bargained in good faith and they were simply conducting surface bargaining.

We will keep the membership informed of the board charges that were filed.

Black History Month

Edward W. Brooke

(1919 - )

When Massachusetts voters elected Edward W. Brooke to the U.S. Senate in 1966, they voted on his record, not his race. If race had been a determining factor, Brooke would never have become the first elected Black U.S. senator in our history. In Massachusetts, Blacks accounted for less than five percent of the voters.

Born in 1919, in Washington, D.C., Edward Brooke was named after his father, a Veterans Administration lawyer for 50 years and his grandfather. His mother, Helen Seldon Brooke, influenced her son with her religious faith and spirited determination. He graduated in 1941 from Howard University and was immediately called to World War II duty as a Second Lieutenant. As a member of the all-black 366^th Combat Infantry Regiment, his duties included legally defending enlisted men in court. Brooke soon found himself drawn to his father’s profession, law. His regiment was shipped overseas and into combat duty. Brooke’s regiment invaded Italy and he won a Bronze Star for heroism. Because of his light skin and knowledge of the Italian language, he masqueraded as an Italian and infiltrated enemy lines.

After the victory in Europe and before Brooke was sent back home, he took a seaside vacation on a beach near Naples, Italy. There he met Remigia Ferrari Scacco, daughter of an Italian paper merchant. Their two-year correspondence later led to marriage and two daughters.

Brooke graduated from Boston University Law School in 1948 and was convinced by friends to run for the Massachusetts state legislature. In 1960, Brooke ran for Massachusetts Secretary of State. Once again he lost. But he became chairman of the Boston Finance Commission and made a name for himself as a crusader against corruption. Finally, in 1962 he became State Attorney General. His work as an effective crime-buster continued and he was re-elected. In 1966 Brooke became the first Black to sit in the U.S. Senate in this century.

From his Senate seat, Brooke fought for an end to housing bias and for the passage of the 1968 Civil Rights Act. He served on President Johnson’s commission on Civil Disorders, as a result of the 1967 ghetto riots. He was part of the successful fight against two U.S. Supreme Court nominees by President Richard Nixon. He was also the first Republican senator to call for Nixon’s resignation.

Since leaving the Senate in 1979, Brooke has practiced law and received over 30 honorary degrees. When he accepted the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal in 1967, Brooke said, "Those of us who serve in the Congress have a duty to lead, not simply to follow public reaction. We must do more than mirror the present fears and antagonisms of the electorate. We must do what we believe to be legally and morally right."