Cable / Telecom News

Bell unions approve merger


MONTREAL – An overwhelming majority of members of the Canadian Telecommunications Employees Association (CTEA) have approved the merger agreement with the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP).

Eighty-seven percent of the CTEA’s 12,000 members voted for the merger in a phone ballot conducted over the last two weeks. The agreement between the two unions was reached at the end of September.

"We are naturally very happy about the result. It shows even more that this merger is a step in the right direction," said Brenda Knight, CTEA’s president, in a release. Over the next months, the two organizations will have to adapt their respective structures in order to achieve the full merger.

"CTEA members have approved one of the largest union mergers in Canada and certainly the largest ever in the telecommunications sector," added John Edwards, CEP Administrative Vice-President, Ontario Region.

"And after numerous years of cohabitation, the time had come to join together as one union," added Ms. Knight.

The CTEA represents 12,000 clerical and sales employees in Québec and in Ontario working directly at Bell or in companies controlled by Bell. CEP represents more than 12,000 technicians, operators and clerical employees at Bell and its related companies, in addition to 35,000 communications employees throughout Canada. The union now has a total of 47,000 members in this sector, making it by far the largest communications’ union in Canada.