With sunny skies and temperatures in the 60s, spirits were high Saturday among striking workers walking a picket line outside FairPoint Communications’ Maine headquarters on Davis Farm Road in Portland.
About 100 striking workers picketed at both ends of the road and a party atmosphere reigned as passing motorists honked their horns while strikers chanted and waved signs during the second day of a strike over contract concessions. Picket lines were also set up at FairPoint’s other Maine locations – in Kennebunk, Brunswick, Lewiston, Augusta, Waterville, Bangor, Ellsworth, Machias, Houlton, Presque Isle and Millinocket.
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FairPoint officials and striking workers said Saturday that there had been no progress in negotiations in the labor dispute.
About 2,000 employees of FairPoint in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont walked off their jobs early Friday after FairPoint and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represents 1,700 employees in the three states, and the Communication Workers of America, which represents 300 workers in the three states, failed to negotiate a new contract.
FairPoint 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 say they have offered to make $200 million in contract concessions.
FairPoint says it needs to cut labor costs to remain competitive.
Under the previous contracts that expired in August, the company paid 100 percent of all health care premiums for its unionized workforce in Northern New England, provided unlimited paid sick days, a defined benefit pension plan with no employee contributions, and a 401(k) plan with a company match, FairPoint spokeswoman Angelynn Amores Beaudry said. All of that adds up to make the average wage and benefits costs per worker in Northern New England to be $115,000 a year, not including future pension costs and post-retirement benefits.
On Saturday, Peter McLaughlin, spokesman for the two unions, said the $115,000 figure was too high but he conceded that FairPoint union employees are well compensated, which is why they are willing to make $200 million in concessions.
“We understand we have a very rich contract. I admit we have the best contract in the country and we have acknowledged that fact,” McLaughlin said.
He said the 900 union members striking in Maine had been warned during the past two years of the need to financially prepare for a possible strike. There isn’t a strike fund for union members and some FairPoint employees have taken second jobs and are living on savings, McLaughlin said.
Susan Collins of Portland, who works as a service representative in FairPoint’s business office, said she picked up two part-time jobs, at Hannaford supermarkets and Big Lots, to get her through the strike.
Not all striking employees had a fall-back plan. Jouleyanne Campbell of Portland, an outside technician who works on FairPoint’s telephone poles, said she has no savings or second job to support her two children as a single mother.
“I don’t have two nickels to rub together,” Campbell said.
It was unclear Saturday whether the strike had affected service for FairPoint customers. Strikers said a customer reported to them that she had been unable to get through to FairPoint by telephone. Beaudry said the strike would probably create some level of disruption. She did not know if the company was experiencing any problems delivering its services or whether customers had made any complaints about service.
“We appreciate people’s patience and we hope they understand,” Beaudry said.
She declined to say how many people have been hired to fill in for the striking workers. She said the “contingency” workforce was mobilized immediately after the union workers went on strike.
Those walking the picket line Saturday in Portland said they had strict rules for what to do if someone tried to drive through the line to get to work. If the strikers determine that a sympathetic nonstriking worker was trying to get through the picket to get to work, they would exercise their right to complete the picket circuit before letting the driver through. They said if the nonstriking worker was unsympathetic, they would continue to march until one of the police officers parked at each end of the road ordered them to move away.
FairPoint, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the unions have been negotiating since April. The contract expired Aug. 2. FairPoint stopped negotiating with the unions on Aug. 28 and declared an impasse, which allowed the company to impose terms of the contract it proposed in April. The unions have since filed three complaints with the National Labor Relations Board, which dismissed two and continues to investigate the third.
FairPoint bought the Northern New England landline business from Verizon in 2007. Eighteen months later, it filed for bankruptcy. It emerged from bankruptcy in 2011 and has struggled to become profitable since. It lost $54.9 million in the first half of 2014, according to its financial statements.
Union officials believe company officials are seeking major concessions from workers to try to make the company more attractive, and then will try to sell it.
“The top five shareholders are hedge funds,” McLaughlin told The Associated Press. “They’re not here to run a telephone business. They’re here to make money. If they can pretty this thing up and sell it, then they’ll try to do it.”
Staff Writers Whit Richardson and Edward D. Murphy contributed to this report.
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