Frontier’s pay dispute on the Navajo Nation remains unresolved as Verizon merger looms
WINDOW ROCK
Frontier Communications’ compensation practices on the Navajo Nation have drawn criticism since 2021. As the company moves toward Verizon’s acquisition in Arizona, the unresolved pay dispute has resurfaced alongside renewed pressure from U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) over a contract that expired earlier in 2025.
In 2021, 33 Frontier technicians on Navajo and Hopi lands voted to join the Communications Workers of America, or CWA. The union sought parity – the same pay as technicians elsewhere in Arizona – and a guaranteed 40-hour work week.
According to the CWA, Frontier declined at the time.
Under the company’s proposal, Navajo workers would have been paid nearly two dollars less per hour than counterparts in other parts of the state, with no guarantee of full-time hours. Because no formal contract was in place, those workers also missed a 1.75 percent wage increase given elsewhere during the pandemic – an adjustment management said would have cost just over forty thousand dollars.
Arizona regulators, including Commissioners Sandra Kennedy and Ann Tovar, flagged the disparity, questioning why tribal technicians were treated differently and warning that such gaps could undermine broadband deployment to chapter communities where more than half of the 110 Navajo chapters reportedly lacked in home service.
That controversy appears unresolved by mid 2025.
To read the full article, please see the Oct. 2, 2025, edition of the Navajo Times.
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