FairPoint strikers win victory in Maine's business court
Maine’s Business and Consumer Court handed a pre-Labor Day victory to workers at FairPoint Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: FRP) when it canceled a decision of the Unemployment Insurance Commission that denied unemployment benefits to the striking employees during the 2014-15 labor dispute and sent the case back to the commission for further review.
In its Aug. 26 decision, the court rejected the commission’s mandate that in order to obtain benefits, the employees had to prove that the Charlotte, N.C.-based FairPoint had maintained substantially normal operations during a four-month labor dispute. The court ruled that the commission erred when it placed the burden of proof on employees, rather than FairPoint, to show that there had not been a stoppage of work.
The business court’s decision was the first time that the Maine courts have addressed who has the burden of proof in labor disputes, according to a written statement from attorneys Jeffrey Neil Young and Roberta de Araujo of the Augusta law firm Johnson, Webbert & Young, who represented the FairPoint employees. Young and de Araujo said the business court’s decision means that the case will be returned to the Unemployment Insurance Commission for reconsideration of its decision.
“FairPoint must now prove that there was a substantial curtailment of work for each and every week of the strike,” Young said in a written statement. “Workers do not strike often, and usually only strike as a last resort in the face of extreme employer conduct. The FairPoint strikers will be able, at least for the near future, to keep the unemployment benefits they received pursuant to a decision of a Department of Labor hearing officer, who found (unlike the commission) that no substantial curtailment had occurred. And, it should be easier in the future for employees involved in a labor dispute to receive unemployment benefits, particularly where, as here, the employer chooses to hire strike replacements.”
FairPoint told Mainebiz in a written response to questions about the decision that it disagrees with the court’s ruling and will reiterate in the next stage of the process its position that the strikers are not entitled to unemployment benefits.
“We continue to fundamentally believe that employees who voluntarily leave their job should not be entitled to unemployment benefits,” Angelynne Beaudry, FairPoint’s director of corporate communications, said in the written statement. “This decision not only potentially impacts FairPoint, but also any other business currently operating in or considering coming to Maine, and we intend to work with the commission to support our position.”
In February 2015, FairPoint ratified the new contract with two unions that had been striking for months, a move that allowed 1,800 members across Maine and two other states to return to work. The contract with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Communications Workers of America included a cheaper, union-administered health plan and helped protect jobs from outsourcing, Peter McLaughlin, a spokesman for Maine's IBEW chapter, said at the time of the contract’s ratification.
Editor's note: The first paragraph of this story has been revised to provide a more precise legal description of the Maine Business and Consumer Court's Aug. 26 decision.
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