Cable repair crews in benefits fight

out in the field itself and if that goes down it will impact customers,” said Derek Jordan, business agent with International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 3.

“If there are outages, troubles with modems, things like that, our workers are usually the ones who fix things,” he added.

Charter Communications Inc., which owns Spectrum-TWC, has approximately 2.5 million subscribers across New York. The striking workers also service Bergen County in New Jersey.

The workers on strike range from warehouse and service technicians to the members of the engineering department, whom Jordan described as “the brains” of the Spectrum system.

The dispute between the union and Time Warner Cable — which was recently bought out by Spectrum — goes back to 2013, the last time IBEW Local 3 workers had a contract with the company.

The two sides have tried for nearly four years to come to an accord after the last deal fell through at the final moment — but Jordan said the company won’t budge on the main sticking points.

“They want to stop all contributions into the workers pension and medical plans. They want to eliminate their contributions,” he said.

The union also accused Spectrum of punishing workers for its own outdated equipment in the field.

“They’ve been disciplining the workers over repeat service calls to customers, when the problem is their faulty equipment and unrealistic promises to customers,” said Jordan.

A spokesman for the company denied the IBEW’s allegation that Charter didn’t want to pay into the existing pension fund — but said the company thought greater compensation for the workers was better than shoring up the “failing” union-managed benefits program.

“Spectrum’s primary objective is to provide great service to our

customers and we believe fairly compensated field technicians are critical to that objective,” said Charter spokesman John Bonomo.

“This is why Spectrum is offering our field technicians an even larger pay increase than the union has demanded along with competitive and robust health care and retirement benefits. Spectrum made this offer on Feb. 12 and didn’t receive a counterproposal from Local 3 until March 26,” he added.

As for possible disruptions in repairs to customers, Bonomo said the company had a “solid contingency plan in place.”

This February, state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a lawsuit against Charter Communications and its subsidiary Spectrum-TWC for allegedly defrauding and misleading New Yorkers by promising internet service the company knew it could not deliver.

The complaint alleged that Spectrum-TWC’s marketing promised subscribers who signed up for its internet service that they would get a “fast, reliable connection.”

A 16-month investigation by the AG found Spectrum-TWC subscribers were getting shortchanged on speed and reliability.