ROCKLAND - Striking Fairpoint Communications workers have entered day five of their protest. All 800 Maine employees of the telecommunications company have joined in the strike. IBEW Local 2327, Unit 6 in Rockland stood the picket line in front of the Fairpoint Communications building at 39 Limerock Street Tuesday morning, Oct. 22, encouraging cars to honk as they drove by to show support.

Tim Mclean, picket captain, for this particular picket line said the workers want to keep their jobs in Maine.

“The company wants the right to contract out our jobs,” said Mclean. “They want to take our call centers and move them out of the state or out of the country.”

The union was in contract negotiations with the company, but Fairpoint walked away from the table, they said.

“They were what they called contract negotiations, which were a shame. They did do some negotiations, but they never budged on any of their issues,” saidMclean. “They came in with what they wanted, low balling us and taking away benefits. The contract language says they can’t contract out the jobs that we have. They want the right to out source jobs. That’s worth fighting for.”

Mclean said the company held talks until August and then walked out claiming an impasse and imposed their contract on them.

“We don’t consider it a contract, it’s an imposition,” said Mclean. “We worked for them for a month and a half and they tried to impose those impositions on us and we decided to go on strike.”

Fairpoint Communication filed for bankruptcy in 2009 and depended heavily on worker to help them come back, strikers said.

“We bailed them out in 2009 and basically they are turning around and trying to kick the legs out from under us,” said McLean.

I asked McLean how long before the strike would start affecting telephone service.

“Is it supposed to rain this afternoon?” askedMclean. “You’ll see it start to affect service then. There’s a northeaster blowing in and the management of this company doesn’t have a clue of the shape this plant is in. They have not invested nearly enough in the cabling that goes throughout the state. When it rains they’re going to realize what’s happening.’

The state also has all its 911 service through Fairpoint.

“People don’t realize this, but all the cell towers in Maine come through our backbone,” saidMclean. “When people start losing their cell phones, they’ll start having a problem with all this.”