MONTPELIER, Vt. — About 200 striking FairPoint workers and their supporters rallied at the Vermont Statehouse on Thursday as many said they’re willing to stay on the picket line until they are offered a contract they consider fair.
A series of speakers said FairPoint never lived up to the promises it made after it bought the landline telephone system in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine in 2008.
Some of the workers say the strike, which began Oct. 17, is taking its toll.
“It is hard,” said Sherry Willey, of Jeffersonville, a 16-year veteran of FairPoint and its predecessors. She said the company was putting profits ahead of the needs of the workers.
“They’re causing all decent, middle-class paying jobs to become low-labor jobs, low pay, to where no one can even make it and they’re all doing it just for their greedy pockets and shame on that, shame, for shame, for shame,” Willey said while holding a sign that said, “Is my pension paying for your mansion.”
Despite concerns about how she will provide for her family during the upcoming holidays, Willey said she was willing to stay on strike.
In a statement Thursday, FairPoint said its customers could be exposed to labor actions that include “mobile picketing” in which replacement workers are followed by strikers to a job site.
Charlotte, North Carolina-based FairPoint Communications Inc. provides telephone and high-speed Internet service in northern New England. The company and the unions representing the 1,700 striking workers met in Boston earlier this week, but they failed to reach an agreement. Both sides blamed the other for failing to compromise.
FairPoint imposed its final contract offer in late August when it declared an impasse. The contract froze the old pension plan and replaced it with 401(k) plans going forward. The company also required workers to contribute to health care costs for the first time.
Other provisions allowed the company to hire contractors and eliminated retiree health care benefits for current workers.
Gov. Peter Shumlin appeared at the rally and told the workers he’d urged FairPoint officials and the union to reach an agreement.
“My message as governor is simple,” Shumlin said. “You’ve worked hard for us, you’ve worked hard for Vermonters. We desperately want everyone back at the table to resolve the issues in a fair way so that we can get our folks back to work.”
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