BURLINGTON, VT — Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., stepped into the fray between FairPoint Communications and the company’s striking workers on Tuesday. At a press conference in Burlington, flanked by union members, Sanders called on FairPoint to return to the bargaining table.
But relations between the company and its workers have only become more strained since about 2,000 FairPoint employees in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine went on strike Oct. 17. The Northern New England chapters of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and Communications Workers of America called the strike about four weeks after contract negotiations broke down.
FairPoint declared an impasse and imposed its own terms of employment after contracts with the company expired Aug. 2.
“My message to FairPoint is not complicated,” Sanders said in a news release Tuesday. “Go back to the bargaining table. Negotiate in good faith. Agree to a contract that is fair to the workers, the customers and the company as soon as possible.”
Sanders said FairPoint’s efforts to slash labor costs suits the interests of the publicly traded company’s shareholders, not workers or customers. “FairPoint’s management must understand that it can’t have it all,” he said.
Through months of negotiations, FairPoint maintained its stance of freezing pensions, requiring employee contributions to health care plans, and eliminating health care benefits for future retirees. FairPoint officials say the changes would bring unionized compensation more in line with industry standards.
The Northern New England union leaders say the changes would undermine worker compensation by $700 million. They offered a counterproposal that would save the company $200 million, IBEW and CWA said.
The unions previously filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board alleging that FairPoint violated federal labor law by negotiating in bad faith. An ensuing investigation turned up insufficient evidence, the NLRB said. The unions have said they intend to appeal.
In the meantime, FairPoint has accused striking workers of vandalism and intimidation. In a press release Tuesday, company spokeswoman Angelynne Beaudry said eight incidents of vandalism had been documented in nine days since the strike began. “For the five years prior to October 17, 2014, the company investigated only one such incident,” she said.
The incidents occurred:
- in Derby, where power was intentionally shut off inside a locked equipment cabinet, causing a service disruption;
- in Newport, where equipment inside a locked cabinet that serves a hospital was damaged — parts of the equipment were pulled out of place, causing a service disruption;
- elsewhere in Vermont, where wires were cut;
- in Newport, Maine, where a technician arrived to find service wires in a cross box were moved from active terminals to inactive terminals;
- in Hudson, N.H., where a pole-mounted air dryer (which is used to keep to moisture out of equipment) and a switch were disabled;
- in Manchester, N.H., where about 150 wires at a service cabinet were cut affecting numerous customer lines, and where about 60 to 80 wires at a service cabinet were cut, affecting numerous customer lines;
- in Dover, N.H., where service cables for a housing development were cut inside a utility closest.
“Most of the strikers are exercising their legal right to stop working and to publicize their position, but it is no coincidence that these acts of vandalism are being committed during the strike,” Beaudry said. “It is not enough for strikers to deny that they are vandals. We understand that the vast majority would never vandalize. But it is time to help us stop the vandalism.”
The unions say the allegations are “bogus,” and intended by the company to distract attention from negotiations and the company’s struggle to maintain service with replacement workers.
“FairPoint has produced absolutely no evidence that any of our members have committed such acts,” said Peter McLaughlin, Chair of the IBEW System Council T9. “And we strongly condemn vandalism or any attempt to damage equipment or the network.”
Glenn Brackett, Business Manager of IBEW Local 2320 in Manchester, N.H., said in the course of “mobile picketing” (following replacement workers with picket signs), union members have witnessed replacement workers engaged in unsafe practices.
