TORONTO – Following the Rogers/Shaw merger, and the announcement by TELUS that they are cutting Canadian jobs, the United Steelworkers union (USW) is calling on the federal government to stop handing millions of Canadian dollars to TELUS through procurement contracts without any required benefit to the country or workers. Voluntary Severance Packages have been the impetus for the loss of many thousands of Canadian jobs at TELUS over the last decade.
“While your government often justifies millions and even billions in corporate subsidies to create jobs in Canada, what possible justification can there be for subsidizing a corporation that is cutting Canadian jobs, moving offshore and demonstrating a growing propensity for draining our economy?” wrote USW National Director Marty Warren and USW Local 1944 President Donna Hokiro in a June 5 letter to the Prime Minister.
“In the context of increasing concern over foreign interference, it is counterintuitive to ignore the increased security threat that is raised by the immense quantity of sensitive Canadian information housed in overseas TELUS servers.”
USW Local 1944 represents close to 7,000 members who work at Rogers/Shaw, TELUS and other telecommunications-related companies.
“TELUS has essentially become a foreign telecom company,” the letter continued. “We are calling on your government to undertake and support efforts to publicly investigate TELUS’s latest schemes surrounding Canadian jobs, and to enact policies that will keep Canadians answering calls from the customers in their communities.”
This letter follows previous correspondence by the USW, warning the Prime Minister that approving the Rogers-Shaw deal would result in Canadian job losses at TELUS. For their part, Rogers/Shaw is going in the opposite direction and onshoring jobs to ensure that all their workers are based in Canada.
“Should TELUS fail to commit to Canadian jobs, we are calling on your government to suspend government contracts with the company,” the USW leaders wrote. “Canadians should not be paying to eliminate domestic jobs.”
The USW represents 225,000 members in nearly every economic sector across Canada and is the largest private-sector union in North America, with 850,000 members in Canada, the United States and the Caribbean.
Each year, thousands of workers choose to join the USW because of our strong track record in creating healthier, safer and more respectful workplaces and negotiating better working conditions and fairer compensation – including good wages, benefits and pensions.
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