BIDDEFORD — FairPoint telecommunications workers represented by unions continue to strike in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, including a location in Biddeford.

On Oct. 17, a contract dispute led to approximately 2,000 workers in the three states, who belong to either the International Brotherhood of Electricians or Communications Workers of America, walking off the job.

The unions and the telecommunications company began negotiating a new contract in April.

When they failed to reach an agreement, FairPoint declared an impasse, and on Aug. 28, implemented a new contract that included a number of changes in employee benefits. The old contract ended Aug. 2.

Recently, the company has been appealing to the public directly.

It has run full-page ads in print publications, including the Journal Tribune.

The ads say that worker benefits were too high in the old contracts.

“The old Union contracts are holdovers from the bygone days of Ma Bell monopolies,” according to the ad, signed by the three presidents for the FairPoint subsidiaries in each of the three New England states where the company provides service.

“To best serve 21st-century customers ”¦ we want to reduce our monopoly-era telephony company costs,” stated Mike Reed, the company’s Maine president, Beth Fastiggi, the Vermont president and New Hampshire’s President Pat McHugh in the ad.

Under the old contract, the company paid 100 percent of union employees’ health care premiums; it only pays 79 percent under the new contract, said FairPoint spokeswoman Angie Beaudry.

The old contracts also included “generous” employee retirement plans, said Beaudry.

Since the new contract has been imposed, the company stopped providing retiree health care and support for child and elder care, according to fairnessatfairpoint.com, a website started by striking workers.

Days before the strike began, the company froze workers’ pension plan.

On Friday, health insurance for striking workers ended, as employees need to work so many days to qualify for insurance.

Changes in pensions and health care contributions amount to $700 million in concessions from union member employees, said Pete McLaughlin, a union official with IBEW Local 2327, representing Maine workers.

“We recognized we had a rich contract,” he said, but “we looked at that as excessive.”

“We proposed $219 million in concessions,” said McLaughlin. “That’s significant movement for us.”

But the company won’t budge, he said. “They haven’t met us half-way on anything.”

McLaughlin said the unions would like to get back to the bargaining table with FairPoint.

“We’re willing to talk, but FairPoint is not,” he said.

But health insurance and pensions aren’t the main concern. The union rejects the new contract because it includes language that would allow FairPoint to outsource jobs to foreign and out-of-state contractors, said McLaughlin.

IBEW union member Steve Bickford of Shapleigh, who was on the picket line in Biddeford Friday, said he is concerned about job security.

He said he fears some jobs will be outsourced.

“Our message is keep our jobs in our local states,” said Bickford.

In hopes of resolving some of the issues, the IBEW has filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board, said McLaughlin, although some have been dismissed.

But the strike is important to get the company back to the bargaining table, according to workers.

Right now, workers say they’re OK financially.

“We knew a strike was coming, so we saved,” said Bickford.

But you can only save so much, he said. If the strike lasts a long time, he’s not sure what will happen.

“It’s up to the union leaders,” said Bickford. “What they say we will try to follow.”

— Staff Writer Dina Mendros can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 324 or [email protected].