United Steelworkers union (USW) Local 1944, which represents approximately 4,000 members at Telus, said Wednesday the Vancouver-based telecom’s latest round of voluntary severance packages (VSPs) is part of an ongoing practice that raises concerns about the integrity of Canada’s telecommunications system.
USW Local 1944 said in a press release Telus last week issued 545 VSPs to local members, impacting workers in various “critical departments”, including outside plant construction, cable repair, network operations, and engineering.
“This follows a trend of similar packages offered over the past two years significantly reducing its Canadian workforce,” the USW release said. “The recent round of VSPs comes with the additional threat of forced relocation for workers in areas where Telus has failed to meet its desired reduction targets.”
The union said the ongoing cuts to Telus’s workforce have resulted in longer hold times for customers and slower responses to service issues.
“Telus continues to make decisions that prioritize cost-cutting over the quality of service that Canadians depend on,” Michael Phillips, USW Local 1944 president, said in the release. “These voluntary severance packages are degrading the company’s ability to maintain its network, respond to customer needs and deal with outages using in-house workers. At the same time, Telus is undermining its responsibility to Canadians to provide a reliable telecom system, all while shipping jobs overseas. It’s absolutely shameful.”
In a statement provided to Cartt, Telus said: “We’ve been on a journey to evolve our business and how we serve our customers, including significant investments in our network technology that have enhanced the efficiency and reliability of our infrastructure. To further support this technological transformation, we continue to offer generous financial voluntary packages that exceed the requirements of the Canada Labour Code and which give team members the option to retire or pursue a career outside of our organization.
“It is a standard operating practice for us to offer voluntary separation programs to a broad number of team members in an effort to be fair and equitable to those in the impacted work areas,” the statement continued. “We anticipate a very small number of the team members being canvassed will be interested in accepting a voluntary package, and reserve the right to limit the number of departures.”
