AUGUSTA, Maine — A lawyer for two labor unions said they will appeal a Gov. Paul LePage appointee’s Thursday ruling that hundreds of FairPoint Communications workers weren’t eligible for unemployment for the time they were on strike in 2014 and 2015.
A lawyer for chapters of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and Communications Workers of America blasted Jennifer Duddy, the chairwoman of the Maine Unemployment Insurance Commission, in a news release on Friday, calling it “an unprecedented decision.”
However, it doesn’t have any immediate effect on the 470 employees of the two unions who applied for unemployment benefits that have already been paid in full, said Jeff Young, the Augusta-based lawyer for Johnson, Webbert & Young who is representing the unions.
Those employees will get to keep the benefits if Duddy’s decision is reversed on appeal. Young said the unions haven’t decided whether to ask the unemployment commission for reconsideration or appeal the decision at Kennebec County Superior Court in Augusta, but they’ll fight the ruling.
“We’re not giving up,” Young said.
The case dates back to October 2014, when 1,700 FairPoint workers in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont went on strike after a long dispute over a labor contract that ended earlier that year. After months of picketing through the winter, employees went back to work in February after the sides struck an agreement that included health insurance cuts and wage increases.
In many cases, striking employees aren’t eligible for unemployment benefits under Maine law. But in June, a state hearing officer ruled that the FairPoint workers were eligible because FairPoint didn’t substantially curtail operations after the strike and therefore, no work stoppage existed. The company hired replacement workers to manage its operations after the strike.
But after a FairPoint appeal, Duddy ruled that the company wasn’t able to “maintain substantially normal operations” during the strike, saying it operated at 65 percent and 70 percent of its normal capacity during the strike, which constituted a work stoppage.
In a statement, Young called that decision “unprecedented” because Maine law discourages the use of replacement employees and that the standard Duddy applied is “far more favorable to business.”
Duddy was in the news in 2013, after the Sun Journal reported that LePage, a Republican, invited Maine Department of Labor employees to the Blaine House and told them that too many unemployment appeals cases were being decided in favor of employees.
He denied pressuring them, but a federal report said his actions could have been interpreted that way. Young called Duddy “LePage’s crony” on Friday. Department of Labor spokeswoman Julie Rabinowitz said she couldn’t comment on the case.
In a statement, FairPoint spokeswoman Angelynne Beaudry said the company is pleased with Duddy’s decision, “which supports our belief that striking workers who chose to walk off their jobs should not be entitled to unemployment benefits under Maine law.”