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The agreement would allow Verizon to raise telephone rates for residential customers while letting the company do next to nothing about service quality complaints from thousands of Maryland customers.

"This is one of the worst settlement agreements we have seen," said District 2 Vice President Ron Collins. "It practically rewards Verizon for poor performance. Our hope is that the PSC will either amend it or reject it altogether." Collins said the agreement limits Verizon's liability to customers who receive poor service.  The union has intervened in the settlement hearings.

CWA is mobilizing consumers and workers to contact the Maryland PSC and urge that the proposal be scrapped and that negotiations reopen on a new plan that supports quality service.

The proposed settlement, which grew out of complaints that Verizon routinely failed to provide satisfactory service, allows Verizon to keep its service failures a secret from the public, avoid service standards altogether and raise rates. 

This deal tries to block state regulators from looking into service quality issues until 2012, more than three years from now. 

Verizon's service performance is being challenged in many states as it abandons the traditional copper wire network and deploys its non-regulated fiber network while seeking rate increases. Regulators and legislators have been under growing pressure to address Verizon's deteriorating network; Verizon has called the copper network that serves millions of customers nationwide "yesterday's network."

"Our members are trained professionals, capable of providing world class service. Verizon's service deficiencies are the direct result of management decisions and they hurt our jobs as well as the public we serve," Collins said, adding "we support quality service."

To support the struggle of CWA, sign the on-line petition at www.contactmdPSC.org