BRATTLEBORO — Contracts with unions representing approximately 1,700 of FairPoint Communication's 2,550 northern New England employees expired at midnight on Aug. 2 after negotiators last week failed to achieve an agreement on a new labor contract.
Workers from the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represent about 450 workers in Vermont, voted last month to authorize a strike, but union leaders have not given the go-ahead for a work stoppage.
For now, both FairPoint and the unions said Sunday that employees will continue to work under most of the terms of the six-year contract that expired Aug. 2.
In a statement posted by the CWA and IBEW at its “Fairness at FairPoint” Facebook page (www.facebook.com/fairnessatfairpoint), leaders said the negotiation process “has been long and grueling, and the company has been unresponsive to major proposals that the union has made. They have continued to be antagonistic and dismissive of all attempts to reach a fair and equitable agreement.”
The statement continues: “We retain the right to strike and to do so without notice. Make no mistake, this fight is not over and it is essential we continue to mobilize our membership.”
FairPoint is putting the blame for the impasse on the unions.
“To date, the unions have rejected company proposals on most of the core issues in these negotiations,” said FairPoint Corporate Communications Director Angelynn Amores Beaudry in a news release.
She continued: “There has been little or no movement on pensions, retiree medical for active employees or subcontracting, issues which are key to reaching new contracts.”
Union negotiators say FairPoint wants to substantially change their health benefits, freeze their pension benefits, and have greater flexibility to use non-union workers.
FairPoint, which bought Verizon's landline telephone operations in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine in 2008, says it wants to bring pay and benefits in line with what other telecommunications companies are offering.
Beaudry says unionized workers at FairPoint make on average $115,000 a year, including benefits, and that 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 be competitive.”
Beaudry says should a strike be called the company has contingency plans to continue delivering telephone and Internet service.