© 2024 Maine Public | Registered 501(c)(3) EIN: 22-3171529
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Scroll down to see all available streams.

Maine FairPoint Workers Take Contract Concerns to Company Headquarters

FairPoint union employees from Maine took their concerns over ongoing contract negotiations to corporate headquarters today in Charlotte, North Carolina, where shareholders were convening their annual meeting. After posing a few questions to senior managers and shareholders, the employees left, saying management wants the workers to accept lower wages. But company officials say that's only part of the story. A.J. Higgins has more.

  Of the 1,700 northern New England workers represented by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Communications Workers of America, about 700 are from Maine. Peter McLaughlin, business manager of the Augusta IBEW Local 2327, says most Mainers just aren't tuned in right now to what's going on between FairPoint and its employees.

"The thing about the telephone business is that most people don't notice it -- until the dial tone doesn't work," McLaughlin says.

And the reliability of that tone, McLaughlin says, is totally dependent on the thousands of workers who keep those lines of communications open. The Maine workers and others are currently embroiled in talks with FairPoint about renewing their contract. As usual, money and benefits are proving to be challenging issues. 

McLaughlin says the management at corporate headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina listened to workers' concerns but seem to be bent on making them accept lower wages and fewer benefits.

"It's the classic story of CEOs and board of directors getting increases at the same at the bargaining table they are proposing that we freeze pensions, reduce health care, eliminate retiree benefits and actually have proposed a new wage package that violates both state and federal minimum wage laws," McLaughlin says.

"No company can pay below minimum wage," says Angie Amores. At FairPoint's Portland office, spokesperson Angie Amores says the Maine workers who showed up in North Carolina were politely received by the shareholders, who listened to their statements about salary and benefit issues. 

Amores says management and the unions are just beginning what is expected to be a protracted schedule of contract negotiations. And she says as both sides stake out their positions on financial issues, it would be wrong to suggest that FairPoint does not provide its workers with a respectable wage.

"In fact, on average, the annual wage and benefit costs for a FairPoint union-represented employee in Maine, Vermont or New Hampshire is approximately $115,000 dollars," Amores says. "That does not include the future costs of their pensions and other post-retirement benefits. And when we are done with the contract negotiations, we will still have wages and benefits that New Englanders would envy."

Negotiations are expected to continue throughout the summer in an effort to renew the contract that expires on Aug. 2. Charlotte-based FairPoint Communications is the primary landline telephone provider in Northern New England.