EDMONTON and VANCOUVER – The Telecommunications Workers Union (TWU) has launched a public awareness campaign encouraging Canadians to ask the government to “stop the outrage” of Canadian companies outsourcing jobs to other countries.
TWU president George Doubt spoke to the media in Edmonton on Thursday to address Telus’ recent announcement to expand its newly opened facility in the Philippines from 900 workers to 3000 workers. TWU represents Telus employees.
“We’re concerned about jobs and resources that are being outsourced,” he said in a telephone interview with Cartt.ca. “Companies that earn their revenue in Canadian communities have a duty to reinvest in those communities. It’s a reasonable thing (to expect) to help Canada grow.”
Telus spokesperson Shawn Hall told Cartt.ca that the company employs approximately 29,000 people in Canada and continues to hire in Canada for what he describes as “growth areas of the company” such as wireless and Telus TV.
Hall said no one in Canada is losing their jobs because of the new call centres overseas, and that it’s “not practical” to create these jobs in Canada.
“We couldn’t maintain the same cost structure and remain competitive. We have to compete for the hearts and minds of our customers,” Hall said.
Telus provides customer care, IT and business process outsourcing solutions for various companies and industries through a separate division of the company called Telus International. The Vancouver-based firm currently employs approximately 8,000 workers in four facilities in the Philippines, has sites in South Korea and Central America, and recently opened a facility in Las Vegas to cater to Spanish speaking customers.
Hall called the Telus International unit “a significant growth area for our company”, and a key part of Telus’ future success. He noted that the company, which was founded on providing residential phone lines, now loses about 7% of that business every year, classifying it as “an area of decline”.
Admitting that the company has had to “re-deploy” some staff from its shrinking areas of business, he said that affected employees are offered training for new positions in a growth area of the company with the same salary and geographic location, or a “generous departure package” if they’d prefer.
The TWU appears to take issue with that practice, too. In a message to its members in March, Doubt said that the union is “challenging the actions of Telus in unilaterally offering buyout packages without negotiating those with the Union”.
But it’s not just Telus that is feeling the ire of the TWU. Doubt says that outsourcing is also prevalent in other industries such as certain areas of the oil sands projects in Alberta, and parts of the logging process in BC.
The union has posted a template letter on its website encouraging members and the public to contact their local Member of Parliament and the Prime Minister to enact legislation to stop the practice of outsourcing.
“Canadian employees are losing their jobs while the country slides further into economic hardship,” the letter reads. “It would appear that all jobs that can be performed remotely are at serious risk of being sent off shore.”
“It is also important to consider how many jobs are not being created in Canada as a result of the fact that companies selling their services here are expanding their workforces abroad. We need to promote the creation of jobs in Canada instead of exporting them.”
