TELUS not telling whole story in labour dispute with TWU, charges union boss

The Telecommunications Workers Union says comments made by TELUS Corp. chief executive Darren Entwhistle during the company’s second quarter conference call on August 5 don’t tell the whole story of the four and-a-half-year dispute. In an interview with Network Letter, TWU president Bruce Bell cites cases where the Canadian Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) found TELUS to be bargaining in bad faith. Bell also noted that it’s not only the union that has harsh words for the company and its management team: the CIRB once described the company as an insidious employer that has undermined the union’s bargaining committee to the extent that it was unable to conclude a collective agreement. The following is an edited excerpt of the interview with Bruce Bell. They never negotiated with us in four and half years. They’ve been caught bargaining in bad faith twice and interference with the trade union twice. Entwhistle has just spent five weeks in Alberta enticing our members to cross the picket lines. He’s offered them iPods and that didn’t work, so he’s offered them $9,000. As well, there’s a bounty on our members. Every manager that convinces an employee to cross the picket line and go back to work gets $2,500… The 50% figure quoted by Entwhistle isn’t accurate based on our records. I would say it’s 25%. It has risen from 10%, and the company keeps at it. I’ve got to give them A for effort. But they’re putting more effort into non-bargaining than bargaining… We’ve asked the CIRB to appoint a special mediator. Comments on this proposal are to be submitted to the Board on September 1 and we expect to hear something back in September. While a decision by a special mediator isn’t binding, it puts pressure on both sides to come to a resolution. It’s a public process and everybody gets to know about it… TELUS put an offer on the table that isn’t any good. It’s dreadful. Do you think if the offer was anywhere near being half-decent, we’d be on the street? But they won’t move. There’s no bargaining offer, it’s a final offer that is carefully crafted by the company. It’s a conjunctive offer, so clauses fit with each. The minute you start tweaking one clause you throw the whole apple cart off-kilter. This is how you impose an offer… The contracting-out language is possibly where TELUS has an issue. There’s a whole process to get a determination on whether a job can be contracted out or not and that can take up to two months. The contracting out language says work that’s normally and regularly performed by unionized employees can’t be contracted out. When I say normally and regularly performed, this refers to customer service reps, which is almost half the union. That’s call centre work and that can be done in Manila. By the way, TELUS has a 70% ownership stake in a call centre located there. But under our contract that job is normally and regularly performed and therefore can’t be contracted out. Number 2: operators. You can’t contract out operators for the same reason. That’s what this is really about: those two jobs… TELUS doesn’t want to contract out the tech jobs because they have to be there: the guy in Manila can’t get in his truck and drive over to your home or your place of business to fix your phone or your Internet. Those are the guys they are paying the most money to; those are the guys they are really trying to entice across the lines. Why? Because they can’t replace them. What the company is telling investors and others is the union won’t let it contract out 350 jobs, but that’s not right. We could come to terms on 350 jobs… The issue of the 350 jobs isn’t the problem. The contracting-out language that TELUS wants states that they can contract out any job they want. It’s not about 350 jobs that they say the union won’t move on. It’s no one will lose a job as a direct result of contracting out – lose "a" job, not "the" job. So after they contract out 5,000 jobs to Manila, those people will all keep a job. But guess what? You get to be demoted. And guess what? You get to be moved. And guess what? They’ll let attrition happen. That’s why this agreement is a 10-year deal… Are we willing to talk about the 350? You bet. These jobs are people that collect coins out of payphone booths. Yes that’s a normally and regularly performed job. But I would ask you for how many more years? How long are payphones going to take coins? Are people even using payphones anymore? So, are we going to have a labour dispute over people that collect coins? I don’t think so. There are a lot of jobs that aren’t part of the core, but I’m telling you this is about the call centre type jobs.

TELUS not telling whole story in labour dispute with TWU, charges union boss

News | 09/01/2005 4:00 am EDT

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