Dozens of striking FairPoint Communications workers from across Maine showed up at picket lines in Portland on the 100th day of the strike Saturday.

With snow falling and temperatures hovering near 30, conditions contrasted with the sunny skies and high 60s of the first days of the strike. But workers rallying at the entrances of FairPoint’s offices on Davis Farm Road said they are confident that their efforts were not in vain.

“They are still talking and we are all optimistic,” said Julie Dawkins of Gray, a FairPoint administrative assistant.

Dawkins and about 1,700 other employees of FairPoint in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont walked off their jobs Oct. 17 after contract talks between FairPoint and two unions, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Communications Workers of America, broke down.

The company is asking for $700 million in contract concessions, including a pension freeze, health-care coverage reductions and future use of nonunion contract workers. The unions offered to make $200 million in contract concessions.

FairPoint, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the unions started negotiations in April. The contract expired Aug. 2. FairPoint stopped negotiating with the unions Aug. 28 and declared an impasse, which allowed it to impose terms of the contract it proposed in April.

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A meeting called by a federal mediator in Boston in November lasted about an hour.

But on Jan. 4, FairPoint and the two unions entered mediation talks in Washington at the request of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.

In Portland, about two dozen strikers have walked the picket lines at each end of Davis Farm Road in three-hour shifts daily from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Workers have also set up picket lines at other FairPoint offices throughout northern New England. About 900 of the striking workers are from Maine.

On Saturday, pickets said they were hopeful about the 3-week-old talks between federal mediator Allison Beck, FairPoint and the unions. On Friday, Beck said progress is being made in the closed-door talks. Both sides have been ordered not to talk about the negotiations.

FairPoint spokeswoman Angelynne Amores Beaudry said Saturday that the company is not commenting on anything right now.

Workers on the Davis Farm Road picket lines Saturday chanted “one day longer, one day stronger” and carried signs and took turns warming up in a heated tent dubbed “Sunuville” after FairPoint Chief Executive Officer Paul Sunu.

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Krista Jensen of Westbrook, a FairPoint service representative, said she pickets four to five days a week.

“Everybody is happier when they are here. We do a good job of motivating each other,” she said.

Tom Talbot of Portland, a FairPoint wholesale representative, said the current negotiations have buoyed strikers.

“We are all upbeat. We are feeling positive because the negotiations are continuing,” he said.

Mike Mosley of Portland, who works in directory assistance at FairPoint, said he had no idea the strike would drag on for so long.

“It has been very frustrating trying to educate the public,” he said.

The striking workers said they are feeling the economic pinch of being out of work, although they said $250,000 in donations from the public to help support the strikers has helped.

Peter Keefe of Hebron, a technician who works out of FairPoint’s Lewiston garage, said his family and friends and a series of side jobs have helped him get by.

“It has been a communal effort,” he said.


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