We have to stand up and fight for union jobs and labor standards that protect our communities.

Our Broadband Brigade, made up of telecom workers from CWA Locals throughout New York and Connecticut, has been preparing for a huge opportunity to make sure our communities have access to affordable broadband and to create good union jobs through the federally-funded Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program.

The Brigade has had major successes along the way – we passed legislation to ensure this work is subject to strong labor standards, pays prevailing wage, and preferences fiber technology; we won labor-friendly language in the BEAD scoring process (which is how the office determines which companies win the bids); and we secured 21 letters of support for our employers from 21 county governments across New York.

But this program is now at risk — and we need to fight right now to protect it, and the funding that states are counting on. The current administration has been critical of the BEAD program, and satellite company CEOs like Elon Musk have been pushing to funnel more of the public dollars meant for fiber buildout to unreliable satellite internet service. Satellite is not an acceptable alternative to fiber, and it threatens our work and our efforts to create more good union jobs.

CWAers across the country have been mobilizing to protect the BEAD program and this funding!

Sign the petition to tell the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to stand up to pressure to redirect funds to unreliable satellite internet service and continue to create good, union jobs by investing in reliable, high-speed fiber internet:

https://action.cwa.org/petitions/we-need-reliable-internet-service-and-good-jobs?source=direct_link&