The demands of FairPoint strikers are unreasonable and the company will not give in, CEO Paul Sunu wrote in a letter Wednesday to Gov. Peter Shumlin, in response to the governor’s recent call for an end to the 62-day standoff.
Sunu’s letter said he wants to clarify misinformation from the union and assure the governor and the public it is still servicing customers, in some cases better than before.
FairPoint workers have been on strike since mid-October because of disagreement over contract issues. It has been more than 136 days since their last contract expired. The strike was precipitated after FairPoint officials unilaterally imposed contract changes in August.
More than 1,700 members of the Communications Workers of America and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers are on strike in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
As the strike entered its third month, Shumlin waded into the standoff last week, calling for both sides to work out an agreement.
“Enough is enough,” the governor wrote.
Sunu’s open letter to Shumlin defends the company’s actions and points out ways in which it feels strikers are being unreasonable. The letter describes some details of the salary and benefits package that union members have rejected.
“I understand that your encouraging us to negotiate is borne of your hope for a reasonable resolution on behalf of the customers and communities we serve,” he wrote. “But after all our efforts to reach an agreement, urging us to negotiate is a bit like preaching to the choir.”
FairPoint has always been willing to compromise with unions and from the outset, bargained with good faith to reach a fair deal, the letter said. On April 25, 2014, the company made proposals and worked diligently through 24 formal meetings, the letter said. It provided more than 11,000 pages of documentation to respond to the unions’ various requests.
“Our good faith efforts, however, were not reciprocated,” it says.
The unions waited until August 2, the day the contract expired, to make their first proposals, according to the letter.
All of the unfair labor practice charges which the unions have filed against management, which to date have been decided, were found to be without merit by Region 1 of the National Labor Relations Board, the letter said.
Workers want unrealistic wage and benefit increases, the letter said. Instead, it outlines what the company offered and workers refused. That includes:
- No reduction in base wages for current employees.
- New employee wages that increase at six month intervals with an average annual base pay of nearly $58,000 within four years, plus overtime and bonus opportunities.
- A comprehensive medical plan with FairPoint paying almost 80 percent of premiums on average for employees and their families.
- A 401(k) plan with dollar-for-dollar company match for up to 5 percent of an employee’s eligible pay,
- Five paid sick days per calendar year, four paid personal days, 10 paid holidays and up to five weeks paid vacation depending on tenure.
The strike, Sunu said, is “really about the unions’ efforts to keep what other Vermonters don’t have,” he wrote.
“If the unions were putting customers first, they would have stayed at the table, or, at a minimum, provided reasonable notice of their intent to strike. They did neither,” he wrote.
The letter also describes the company’s attempts to mitigate service disruptions as a result of the strike by using the company’s managers and outside contractors.
Phone and internet service to FairPoint customers has suffered during the strike. Just after Thanksgiving, E-911 services in Vermont went down due to FairPoint equipment.
The number of service quality complaints to the Department of Public Service increased dramatically since the strike, according to the DPS Commissioner Chris Recchia. His department was receiving roughly 70 complaints per month over the summer, he said, and received 388 in the last two and a half months.
The interim workers are clearing more customer service work orders per person each day than the strikers cleared before they went on strike, the letter said.
But despite their efforts, a larger-than-normal backlog of work has developed, as a result of recent snowstorms. The storms’ impact is akin to two Irene-level weather events within a two-week period, the letter said.
Before the strike, FairPoint deployed 100 workers in the field. Today they deploy around 115, with more contractors on their way, according to the letter.
Sunu agrees the strike has gone on too long, but said it is the workers who decide when it will end.
Meanwhile, Vermont’s Congressional delegation sent a letter to FairPoint Tuesday, urging the company to negotiate an end to the strike.
“We are extremely disappointed that FairPoint management has not come back to the bargaining table with any meaningful concessions to end this strike,” Wrote Sens. Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy and Rep. Peter Welch.
The federal lawmakers said they are “prepared to do whatever we can to help FairPoint’s workers and management reach a compromise in these very difficult times.”
