WINDSOR, ON — Collective agreement discussions have stalled between Freedom Mobile and the United Steelworkers (USW), which is negotiating on behalf of the wireless company’s customer care employees in its Windsor, Ont., call centre.
The 185 employees at Freedom Mobile’s call centre in Windsor joined the USW in January and bargaining talks for a first collective agreement for the employees began in late March.
Despite an intense last 19 hours of talks and the efforts of a federal labour conciliation officer, a settlement has not yet been reached, the USW announced in a press release late Thursday afternoon.
Freedom Mobile, previously known as Wind Mobile, was purchased in 2016 by Shaw Communications for $1.6 billion.
“Very soon, we’ll be holding membership meetings to arrange next steps,” said Bryan Adamczyk, USW representative, in the press release. “Freedom’s offer is just not right, especially for a business that is making such a great contribution to Shaw’s profits and bottom line. A possible strike or lockout deadline exists as of 12:01 a.m. Aug. 16, but we think a settlement can be negotiated before that.”
Lee Riggs, president of the Telecommunications Workers Union, USW National Local 1944, which represents more than 11,000 telecom sector workers across Canada, added: “Shaw’s wireless revenue for the latest quarter was up by a whopping 16.7% and Shaw says it wants to rapidly expand its share of the cell phone market. To do that, it needs to do better for these hard-working people in Windsor.”
“We are behind these members 100%,” said Ken Neumann, USW national director. “I don’t think that Shaw and Freedom want this to become a dispute that reflects poorly on the company, especially as it is trying to grow this lucrative business.”
In a joint statement, Freedom call centre employees and members of the union’s elected bargaining committee Jasen Gannon, Tanya Travis Dunn and Christian Poisson said: “The employees in this call centre work hard in jobs that can be pretty stressful. It cannot be that Freedom and Shaw don’t want to recognize those contributions.”
(Update: In a statement emailed to Cartt.ca Friday afternoon, Shaw’s vice-president of external affairs, Chethan Lakshman, acting as spokesperson for Freedom Mobile, said: “After lengthy negotiations, we have presented an offer to the union leadership that is fair to our employees and continues to allow Freedom Mobile to operate efficiently in a competitive environment. We hope the union will take the offer to the employees so they can give it serious consideration and have a vote to accept it.”)
