Telus Workers Reject Contract Proposal

1:23 am on October 31, 2005 | Category: Business, Telecom Services

Three weeks ago, on October 10, it appeared that striking workers at Telus were finally satisfied by their employer’s contract proposal. But now, after much dragging of heels, they’ve once again changed their minds.

Unionized workers voted by a razor thin 50.3% to 49.7% margin to reject the proposed five-year contract that had already been endorsed by the union’s own bargaining committee.

“This was the membership’s decision to make. We accept that decision and will resume the struggle for an agreement that better addresses their concerns,” said TWU president, Bruce Bell in a written statement.

Telus CEO, Darren Entwistle described the results as “very disappointing,” but said that there are no immediate plans to resume negotiations.

Links: , , , , , , /, , .

Related Articles:

    None Found

    4 Comments »

    RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

    1. First, I would like to say that I don’t belong to a union and have never worked for Telus or any of it’s affiliates!! Having said that I think there are a few question’s need to be answered.
      1)Why is it that up til now there has been very little media coverage on this (what should a big story) issue. The telus employee’s have been without a contract for between 4 and 5 years and have been on the picket line for 3 month’s. Is this not news worthy or are Telus advertising dollars maybe influencing what the networks report??
      2)Why did the “union”(TWU) recommend acceptance of the latest proposal by Telus, when they knew that one of the most important issues (outsourcing and temp. status of jobs) was not being addressed. Does Mr Bell maybe have a seperate agenda? I realise it may be a tough concept to grasp, but maybe the employee’s are more interested in having a “steady” job rather than a token raise with the ever looming possibility of being replaced by foreign call centre’s or temp. employee’s.
      3)Why is Telus allowed to have a virtual monopoly in the telephone (land line) business??
      My only way to show support for the telus “Employee’s” is to change service providers, and well the is possible with long distance and internet services, it is still not possible with telephone (land line)service.
      One final comment! “SHAME” on those of us who may be share holders or company executives and expect high returns no matter what the cost. I beleive “greed” has cost both sides of the equation and the sooner society get’s back to living within it’s means, the better!

      Comment by Erik Hansen — October 31, 2005 #

    2. The entire TRU bargaining committee actually seemed to believe that the contract was as “fair” as it would get. Not ideal for the workers, I’m sure, but these things are all about compromise.

      Unfortunate as it may be, job security is hard to come by in the modern telecom technology industry. In a sector that is changing so rapidly, employees need to realize that there are many variables and few guarantees.

      Which ties in with your third comment about the Telus “monopoly” of the BC and Alberta phone market. There is little question that the strike is slowly but surely eroding Telus’s market dominance (see Telus Strike Causes Surge in Vonage Subscriptions). And yes, there are numerous other options that customers can use in place of Teuls.

      As more and more customers get fed up with the strike, they will likely switch providers, causing Telus’s monopoly to gradually deteriorate (maybe a good thing for customers…). But this will make market conditions even more questionable, and job security even harder to ensure.

      So in the long term, the Telus strike is just as damaging to the employees themselves as it is to the company. Too bad 50.3% of them are incapable of seeing that…

      Comment by Jeremy — October 31, 2005 #

    3. [...] As a result of ongoing labour action by unionized Telus workers, the number of complaints about the company’s customer service has risen dramatically. [...]

      Pingback by Telus Complaints on the Rise » Telecommunications Industry News — November 4, 2005 #

    4. [...] Less than two weeks after Telus workers rejected their employer’s contract proposal, a revised offer has been proposed by the company. [...]

      Pingback by Telus Workers to Vote on Another Contract Proposal » Telecommunications Industry News — November 9, 2005 #

    Leave a comment

    XHTML: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>


    Published by TeleClick Enterprises
    Edited by Jeremy Maddock