FairPoint Communications workers continued their strike for a fourth day Monday.

There were no reports of incidents at the picket lines at the company’s major office on Davis Farm Road in Portland or the various other company locations throughout the state, according to a union representative and Portland police.

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Ann Nora Murphy, who has worked for FairPoint for 28 years, pickets outside the company’s 5 Davis Farm Road location in Portland for a fourth day Monday. Whitney Hayward/Staff Photographer

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Roughly 800 FairPoint workers in Maine went on strike at midnight Thursday because, the unions claim, the company has failed to negotiate in good faith since labor contract negotiations began in April. They are among more than 1,900 unionized workers in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont who went on strike. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers represents roughly 1,700 of those workers, while the Communication Workers of America represents another nearly 300.

Peter McLaughlin, business manager for IBEW Local 2327 in Augusta, said all union members are participating in the strike and no union members have crossed the picket line.

“The energy is great on the picket lines and everybody is in it together,” McLaughlin said Monday.

The IBEW doesn’t have a strike fund to support the striking workers, but McLaughlin said most members have been creating their own strike funds for months.

Asked how long the striking employees will be able to hold out, McLaughlin suggested the strike could go on for months. He pointed to the last major strike the telecom workers launched in 1989 when the company was Nynex Corp. That strike lasted 16 weeks, he said.

“We knew this was going to be rough,” he said.

While FairPoint has brought in workers to replace the striking employees, McLaughlin said there haven’t been many of those workers crossing picket lines in Maine. He said reports from fellow strikers in New Hampshire suggest the company is staging trucks at a hub in Merrimack, New Hampshire, where replacement workers gather, pick up their trucks and then disseminate to jobs in the three-state area from there.

Portland police reported no incidents at the picket lines at the company’s facilities Monday.

FairPoint spokeswoman Angelynne Beaudry declined to provide further details about the company’s replacement workers, including how many there are or what type of training they have. But she reassured customers that the company has put its contingency plans in motion.

“We appreciate customers’ patience as we remain focused on executing our contingency plans and ensuring continuity of service for our customers,” she said Monday.

The company and unions began meeting in April to negotiate new contracts, but the talks fell apart in late August when FairPoint’s representatives walked away from the negotiating table, claiming the parties had reached an impasse – a term in labor law that allows the company to impose the conditions of its final contract offer on its employees.

FairPoint says it needs to cut labor costs to remain competitive. According to the company, under the previous union 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 (though this is contested by the unions), a defined-benefit pension plan with no employee contributions, and a 401(k) plan with a company match.

In the negotiations, it asked for $700 million in contract concessions, including elimination of the pension for future hires, a freeze on contributions to existing pensions, requiring employees to contribute to their health care coverage, and the ability to use nonunion contract workers.

The company claims the average wage and benefits cost per worker is $115,000, excluding future pension costs and post-retirement benefits.

“At no point in the negotiation did FairPoint propose to reduce base wages for existing employees,” Beaudry has said. “We sought instead to bring the existing health care and pension benefits in line with what we believe are mainstream for employees in the region, and transition union-represented employees to the same or similar benefit plans as offered to other FairPoint employees, including management. We believe these changes are fair to our employees while enabling the company to provide modern telecommunication products and services to our customers, communities and states at a competitive price.”

Jenn Nappi, assistant business manager for IBEW Local 2327 in Augusta, disputed a few of the company’s claims. She said there are no such things as “sick days” in their existing contracts. She said under the prior contract if employees take too many days off for health reasons without getting prior approval, then they can be terminated.

“They have terminated many people for attendance, so ‘unlimited’ would be a stretch,” she said.

She also disagreed with the $115,000 figure.

“I sure wish I made that,” Nappi said. “I’m not a financial expert, but I think that’s an inflated number.”

She said median annual wages for a FairPoint union employee in Northern New England are between $50,000 and $60,000, with the technicians who work on the lines making the most. She did not know what the average wage for a technician was, but estimated it was slightly more than $60,000.

Nappi said the unions have made several counterproposals that would save the company more than $200 million, but would not allow the use of nonunion workers.

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