Labor

A complaint filed with the Pennsylvania public utilities commission has driven a Verizon-Communications Workers of America copper settlement involving maintenance of the company’s traditional landline network infrastructure. Verizon union workers represented by the CWA argued that the company was in violation of statutory obligations to provide adequate service to customers and that public and worker safety were endangered.

CWA filed the complaint in October 2015 and the PUC opened a proceeding to investigate the complaint in April 2016, according to a CWA press release. CWA said it submitted “exhaustive testimony” documenting inadequate maintenance on Verizon’s part. “For nearly two years, CWA documented Verizon’s failure to repair the copper network and equipment in areas where Verizon has chosen not to build out its FiOS fiber network,” said a CWA district vice president said.The Pennsylvania PUC action suggests, however, that some of the biggest challenges in phasing out copper may be more on the policy side than the regulatory side.

In March, the Women’s Media Center released “The Status of Women in US Media 2017,” its annual report to assess “how a diversity of females fare across all media platforms.” The study found that men outnumber women both in bylines and as sources in stories. Journalism’s gender problem, however, looks a bit different outside male-dominated print and TV news. Online-only news outlets have come much closer to achieving gender balance, and a few journalism fellowships have made strides to better support female journalists. Women fared better in print news, according to the report, but not by much: men produced 62 percent of content.