FairPoint post-merger investment plan spelled out
Consolidated Communications of Illinois has agreed to spend $52.2 million on networks and facilities in Maine should it get regulators’ approval for its $1.5 billion acquisition of FairPoint Communications Inc., the Bangor Daily News reported.
The three-year investment plan calls for spending $17.4 million a year in 2018, 2019 and 2020, to build out FairPoint’s broadband networks and upgrading speeds.
The stipulation, agreed with regulators this week, follows lengthy negotiations between labor unions, FairPoint and Consolidated Communications, customer representatives and other telecommunications players.
But the three-year investment plan doesn’t specify where $55 million in annual savings through “synergies” will come from, the BDN reported.
Union leaders had a mixed response to the latest developments.
“Our unions’ intervention in the processes in Maine and New Hampshire helped to secure those spending commitments,” locals of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Communications Workers of America said in a joint press release.
“We are intervening in the process in Vermont as well, and expect the company will make similar commitments there,” they added.
But they remain worried about post-merger staffing plans and what “synergies” might entail.
“In our experience, corporate talk of synergies often presages outsourcing of good local jobs,” according to the release. “For now, our contract contains important job protections, and our unions will continue to vigorously defend them.
The unions represent a combined 1,700 FairPoint workers in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.
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