Contracts with unions representing approximately 1,700 of FairPoint’s 2,550 northern New England employees expired at midnight on August 2, according to a statement released Sunday by FairPoint. With no strike as yet called by the unions, for now work will continue under most terms of the expired contracts. The unions said that they could still strike at any moment and have put forward proposals that would save the company $180 million, while FairPoint maintains the unions have not addressed the key benefit changes that it needs.
“To date, the unions have rejected company proposals on most of the core issues in these negotiations,” said FairPoint spokeswoman Ange Amores Beaudry. “There has been little or no movement on pensions, retiree medical for active employees or subcontracting, issues which are key to reaching new contracts.”
Beaudry continued, “The unions have dug in on almost all of their current benefits under contracts from a bygone era,” which she says “results in no movement toward an agreement which will be fair to our employees while enabling the Company to provide modern telecommunication products and services successfully to our customers, communities and states.”
Beaudry concluded by noting, “In the meantime, FairPoint will focus on meeting the product and service needs of our customers.”
FairPoint has stated it wants to bring the union benefits into alignment with non-union workers, which would restructure the system for retirement benefits and health insurance. Meanwhile, the union wants to curb the ability of the company to bring in non-union workers to do the same job as unionized workers.
Representatives of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 1400 and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Locals 2320, 2326, and 2327 have been in negotiations with company management since late April. The contracts of approximately 1,700 union employees in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont expired at midnight August 2. There are about 450 Vermont workers in the bargaining unit. FairPoint has about 2,550 total workers in norther New England.
“This company is attempting to bully us into agreeing to their outrageous proposals,” said Mike Spillane, Business Manager of IBEW Local 2326 in Colchester, VT. “We’ve made it clear, we won’t be bullied. We’re going to keep right on fighting for our families and our communities as long as it takes.”
Union negotiators said they have put forward several proposals that would save the company over $180 million. The company, the unions state, has rejected these and every other cost-saving proposal that the unions have made.
Union leaders say they are deeply concerned about management’s demand to be able to replace local, well-trained workers with low-wage, out-of-state contractors. “Most of the current employees have been working for the phone company for decades and we know our customers and our systems better than any outside contractor ever will,” said Peter McLaughlin, Business Manager of IBEW Local 2327 in Augusta, Maine. “Customers will suffer if the company gets its way. But management cares more about cutting costs and giving that money to their hedge fund owners than in investing in our communities.”
“Our unions have shown a willingness to compromise from the start,” said Don Trementozzi, President of CWA Local 1400. “But it looks to us like the company’s strategy from the beginning has been to lock out workers so they can replace them with out-of-town contractors. It’s a blatant attempt to gut good jobs in this region. Our members are unified and have the support of many allies and community members. We will not stand by and let this corporation and its Wall Street cronies get away with it.”
RELATED: Unions OK strike authorization in Vermont and Maine, wait on NH
Source: FairPoint Portland, ME – 8.3.2014; IBEW Local 2326 in Colchester, VT, 8.5.2014