MONTREAL – Bell Canada’s largest union says contracting out jobs to firms in India by the company has to stop.
The Canadian Telecommunications Employees’ Association issued a release today (the same day BCE released first quarter results which said, in part, that cost-cutting is helping the bottom line) "denouncing Bell Canada’s intention of cutting jobs and reducing the work hours of its employees in favor of outsourcing companies in India. The concern stems from the fact that the long term affect of this action is unknown," reads the release.
"During 2005 bargaining, Bell Canada increased the salary of most employees in the Assignment/Activation group stating they were underpaid compared with telecommunications competitors," said Line Brisson, chairman of the CTEA clerical bargaining committee.
"Today, the company alleges these employees are costing too much and announced their jobs will be eliminated. This is unacceptable. The issue here is that they are now comparing the job that is done on Canadian soil with the market wages overseas. As long companies such as Bell Canada use overseas markets as the basis of comparison for wages, the jobs will always be too expensive to perform in Canada."
The release says that CTEA members made concessions in 2005 by signing a new collective agreement then that was intended to secure their jobs.
"The CTEA is losing count of the number of decisions Bell Canada has made to the disadvantage of its employees: contracting out of residential and business client representative jobs, contracting out of account collection and repair services to Expertel, Minacs, and contractors overseas," says the release.
"Bell Canada is continually seeking to lower its costs by reducing its Canadian staff and increasing "cheap labour." The CTEA wants to know what kind of savings is Bell Canada seeing when they charge their customers rates for services that are set for the Canadian market, yet the labour behind that service is being paid at overseas market wages?"
The union also took a swipe at the company’s plans to limit the health benefits of its future pensioners
"Bell Canada continues to level down," says the union. "The CTEA bargaining committee found it even more shocking when the company who offers telephone service, shared with the them that employees taking over the Activation function in India will not be equipped with telephones themselves.
"The CTEA is opposed to outsourcing and it will take all the necessary means to promote the job security of its members," it concluded.
