PORTLAND, Maine — The unions representing FairPoint workers in northern New England said the company froze employee pensions on Tuesday, a step that comes as part of the company’s imposition of work terms to which the unions did not agree.
The local chapters of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and Communications Workers of America announced that the pension freeze took effect on Tuesday. It was one of the many changes the company outlined after declaring an impasse in negotiations with the unions in late August.
Peter McLaughlin, a lead negotiator for the IBEW, said that the imposition of those terms raise the pressure on workers as they try to put pressure on FairPoint’s investors to force the company back to the bargaining table.
“Since they imposed the terms, they’re really pushing our buttons,” McLaughlin said.
The pension freeze comes as union officials said the company also is opening enrollment for a new health care plan that would take effect Jan. 1. McLaughlin said that plan raises health care costs for employees.
“There’s a bad plan and there’s a worse plan,” McLaughlin said. “Depending on which plan you take and if you had a [medical] event, it could be up to $25,000 out of pocket for a member.”
The new work terms also cut health coverage for retirees.
Before the union contract expired in early August and the company declared an impasse in negotiations later that month, union members had approved a strike. McLaughlin declined to say just how the union leaders would make the call to go on strike, but that there is a strategy in place.
“It’s getting to the point where probably there is going to have to be a decision made, but I can’t share when or what the parameters are,” McLaughlin said. “We’ll have to see how things play out.”
The public advocate with the Maine Public Utilities Commission has said previously that he has concern about the impacts of a strike on service quality along FairPoint’s network, which is the telecommunications backbone for the state. The company also manages Maine’s 911 emergency network.
A company representative did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday. A spokeswoman said in August that FairPoint management sought to “modernize” the agreement with workers, including a provision that gives the company more latitude in hiring contract workers.
The company said in August that it had prepared for a strike by hiring contract workers, but McLaughlin said they have not had any of those contract workers on the job next to union members.
The unions also have filed four complaints against the company with the National Labor Relations Board, including a complaint that the company did not have grounds to halt negotiations because the union continued to bargain in good faith. The regional office of the National Labor Relations Board earlier this month dismissed two of the complaints, one alleging the company was withholding corporate information during the bargaining process and another that company management was doing the work of the bargaining unit.
McLaughlin said the union plans to appeal both of those dismissals at the regional level to the national board.
Another complaint alleges a premature impasse declaration, and a fourth accuses the company of limiting social media and text message communication at the workplace as a way to stifle union organization efforts.
McLaughlin said there have been no official bargaining meetings since the company on Aug. 28 imposed the last contract it offered to workers.
The unions have held informational pickets in addition to their National Labor Relations Board complaints. They also have sought to put pressure on Angelo, Gordon & Co., the hedge fund that owns about 20 percent of the North Carolina-based FairPoint Communications. Union officials continued that effort during the Annual Employee Benefits Conference in Boston, advising administrators of public pension funds to place their money elsewhere.
“Angelo, Gordon [& Co.] wants to have it both ways,” said Jenn Nappi, business manager for International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2327 based in Augusta. “It wants to continue to profit from managing the retirement investments of working people from all across the country, while it allows FairPoint, a company in which it controls one-fifth of all shares and has a designee on the board of directors, to freeze the pensions of 2,000 workers in northern New England.”
The unions got support in September from New York state’s chief financial officer, who wrote to Angelo, Gordon & Co. that he was concerned about allegations that FairPoint was not bargaining in good faith.
McLaughlin said that strategy will continue.
“We’re going to continue to ratchet up the pressure on investors in FairPoint to get back to the table,” McLaughlin said. “We just picked on the biggest one [Angelo, Gordon & Co.] first.”
The unions together represent about 800 of FairPoint’s workers in Maine.