Apologies are in order for FairPoint Communications workers who, it was announced last week, are being forced to accept $30 million in contract concessions from the company.

The 3,000 employees are now in the unenviable position of paying the price for being right.

The sorry tale dates back to 2007, when the relatively tiny FairPoint Communications, based in Charlotte, N.C., offered to purchase the much larger Northern New England land-line market from Verizon.

The deal underwent lengthy and detailed scrutiny by federal and state regulators, who ultimately overcame their early objections and approved of the sale. As did this newspaper, which supported the transaction in this column.

Looking back through the Sun Journal library, there were plenty of signs things might go badly.

“Morgan Stanley concerned that potential Verizon buyer not fiscally fit,” said one headline from 2007.  The investment bank predicted that FairPoint would suffer from cash-flow problems.

“N.H. advocate advises no deal,” said another headline. New Hampshire’s consumer advocate recommended that utility regulators reject the FairPoint sale, saying customer service would suffer.

“Groups assail FairPoint purchase,” said another headline. Small business owners and politicians urged Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas to oppose the sale of Verizon’s landlines because it could not afford to roll out the next generation of technology, fiber-optic service.

But no group had more at stake than the Verizon employees, and no group protested the sale as loudly. The union prepared an extensive analysis showing that the sale would be bad for customers and employees, and that FairPoint was in no position to make the deal work.

They picketed, protested, lobbied and testified but, in the end, they lost.

“We don’t think FairPoint is big enough to run the company,” said Jim McDonald, a 32-year Verizon employee from Norway. “I think they’ll run this thing right into the ground.”

He was right.

Since the takeover, the company has been plagued by billing errors, service problems, unresponsive customer service and allegations that pre-switchover computer tests were faked. 

The credit market crisis and the business recession have also hurt the company, but its wounds have mainly been self-inflicted.

In the end, the critics, led by the employees, were right — FairPoint was just too small, too highly leveraged and too inexperienced to take over the much larger Verizon properties.

FairPoint is now seeking concessions from two unions, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Communications Workers of America, because it needs to restructure its debt and reduce costs. The company went into bankruptcy protection in October and is working on a reorganization plan.

The new agreement calls for deferring 2010 wage increases until the final year of the contract, plus restructuring compensation packages.

Former CEO Gene Johnson, who waved off a 25-percent drop in his stock price the day after the sale, is long gone, as are consultants who engineered this sale and supplied the rosy predictions. Johnson once predicted that his critics would be proven wrong and that the “proof is in the pudding.”

Well, the puccing only proved he was wrong and the employees were right.

Now, only the bankruptcy lawyers will come out ahead.

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