BURNABY, B.C. – The Telecommunications Workers Union (TWU) issued a statement today saying it was “outraged over statements made by Telus’ CEO at today’s Annual General Meeting.”
According to the union, Telus’ CEO Darren Entwistle talked about their proposed offer to employees at the meeting in Edmonton.
He talked about job security for front line unionized workers and said the language Telus put forward addresses job security. "The proposed language has little or no consequence for Telus, they only have to inform the union in writing if they want to contract out our members jobs" said Hope Cumming, vice-president of the TWU. "That is what Telus currently does in Alberta and it’s unacceptable, there is no job security there," Cumming explained.
Entwistle said they needed flexibility in the scheduling of employees, said the union, paraphrasing Entwistle’s comments at the AGM. "All of the current collective agreements have provisions to schedule employees 24/7, 365 days a year. Our members are there to provide service to customers but Telus chooses to use monitoring tactics to limit the amount of time employees are allowed on the phone to provide that customer service," Cumming said.
Telus wants mandatory overtime for workers and Entwistle states they need it for their customers, says the release. Currently Telus charges some customers the overtime rate even when employees have been regularly scheduled for that time period and are not being paid for overtime. “It appears to be about corporate greed,” said the union.
“Telus was admonished recently by the Canada Labour Board for continuously exceeding the maximum hours of work under the federal labour code,” says the release.
The TWU also complained that the starting rate in Telus’ proposed offer of April 13, 2005, is a reduction of up to 18% from the year 2000 entry-level wage and that much was also made of wage parity for the Alberta workers but the union said Entwistle failed to mention some workers would have to wait until 2009 for that to be realized.
"Telus should start to negotiate a revised, respectful collective agreement for Telus’ greatest asset, their employees, and our
members," said Cumming.
The TWU has mounted a campaign for letters of intent to support workers of Telus in the case of a full-scale lockout. Members of the public can get further details about this campaign at www.anotherwrongnumber.com.
The Telus employees have been working without a contract for four years and the company recently made moves to get ready for a lockout.
The Telecommunications Workers is the second largest communications union in Canada representing over 13,700 employees of Telus and its subsidiaries for over 55 years.
