[F]airPoint Communications is laying off 110 people in northern New England, and 20 of those are in Vermont.
The job cuts come in response to a sharp decline in landline telephone accounts in the past year, according to The Associated Press.
FairPoint is publicly traded on NASDAQ as FRP with a market capitalization of $446 million. The company is based in North Carolina but most of its customers and workforce are in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont.
“We do not make these decisions lightly, and we understand the personal impact these actions have, but we must take what are often difficult steps to address the reality of a decline in landline usage,” said Angelynne Beaudry, the company’s spokesperson.
“We are in a highly competitive industry and have seen a decline in the past twelve months,” Beaudry said. “As any prudent business would, we need to align the size of our workforce to meet the needs of the business.”
Peter McLaughlin, from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and Don Trementozzi, from the Communications Workers of America, issued a joint statement saying they were “disheartened” to learn of the layoffs “just one week before Thanksgiving.” The company announced them last week.
“This latest attack on FairPoint workers is just one more example of the company’s complete disregard for its workforce and its customers,” McLaughlin and Trementozzi said. “These same workers helped bring the company back from bankruptcy in 2011 after a disastrous acquisition in 2008” when FairPoint acquired Verizon Communications.
“Since the major layoff in 2015, those workers who remained have been asked to do more with less time and time again, and our customers are the ones who suffer,” they said. “But the Wall Street owners of this company have always had one strategy, to cut costs and maximize their profits no matter the impact on our communities.”
The company has approximately 3,300 employees, according to its website.
