Union rejects last offer by a sliver, TELUS tries again with new agreement

Thirty votes, give or take a few. That’s 30 out of 9,027. A mere fraction, nearly negligible, but apparently a number big enough to derail a hard-breathing campaign to heal the rift between Burnaby, B.C.-based phone company TELUS Corp. and its unionized workers. On October 30 the Telecommunica-tions Workers Union (TWU) announced its members had rejected the offer TELUS had put on the table – a tentative agreement the TWU’s leaders had approved a few weeks earlier. Had 30 or so more voters opted in favour of the deal, TELUS’s workforce in Alberta and B.C. would be back on the job by now. "Out of the 9,026 people who voted of the 14,000 unionized members, all it took was a swing of 27 votes," TELUS VP of corporate affairs Drew McArthur told Network Letter last week. "There’s no clear message in there." That a hint more of the 9,000-plus TWU voters said "no" (50.3%) than "yes" (49.7%) to the TELUS deal confused industry watchers. By all accounts, the proposal was good. Why would the union slip to the nay side? But more recent events confound the issue even further. Late last weekend, TELUS and the union announced that they had reached another tentative agreement. The two sides might be back on track towards a collective contract. All signs pointed to ratification early this month, but it didn’t happen. Time will tell if this latest one is the deal that will end the strike. We have here the ragged edges of a four-month-long labour action on the part of TELUS’s unionized workforce. It’s an equally tattered end for a messy merger, five years old. TWU members have been striking since July, unimpressed with TELUS’s plan to contract-out jobs. TELUS, meanwhile, has been trying to come up with a collective agreement for its unionized staffers since 2000, just after it merged with BCTel and inherited a new set of workers. TELUS didn’t publicize details about the most recent offering. But the earlier contract included a lump-sum payment for foregone wages over the last four years at 5.25% per year, a 2 to 2.5% increase per year over the five-year life of the agreement, and a variable pay component based on corporate results. TELUS also offered three personal days off per year, which is an increase for some and a reduction for others. In B.C., for instance, employees had 12 personal days per year. "But we’re compensating them with a 45-day lump sum payment in lieu of those foregone days," said McArthur. "For TELUS, it contained the flexibility we were looking for to compete with the likes of Bell and Shaw – the ability to contract out non-core functions," he continued. "That would’ve affected about 375 jobs...things like coin collecting, fleet maintenance, janitorial services...functions that were normally performed in the monopoly environment by the TWU workers, that are best performed by people who have expertise in the business." The TWU could not be reached before press time. Of the earlier deal, the organization said by press release: "A majority of our members have voted to reject the tentative agreement. 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." TELUS said it had no plans to return to negotiations, but it seems that changed. "The bargaining committee endorsed having...officers meet with the company should the opportunity arise, which it did on Sunday, November 6," reads a notice on the TWU’s website (http://www.twu-canada.ca). "At that meeting the company responded with changes to their offer. At that time your officers were informed that the Minister of Labour was contemplating ordering a vote of the entire bargaining unit on the company’s last offer as is permitted under the Federal Labour Code. A later phone call from the Minister of Labour to the president of the TWU confirmed this. "Based on this information and the current situation your bargaining committee is recommending acceptance of the revised offer. The executive council has concurred with that recommendation and authorized a ratification vote by mail out ballot..." According to a TELUS press release, ballots are expected back for counting by November 15. If ratified, the agreement will come into effect November 17, and will last until November 16, 2010. "TELUS will, within 72 hours of a positive ratification, begin the process of bringing all team members back to work as expeditiously as possible." Iain Grant, a telecom industry analyst at SeaBoard Group, says TELUS needs its workforce back on the job. "From Entwistle’s point of view, a lot of time, effort and distraction has taken place over the last year or so. Look at the TELUS press releases. How many of them are about new business initiatives? How many are updates on labour situations?" Approximately 30% of the press releases deal with the strike. "You can’t run a phone company in a competitive age like this." The strike has been discordant at times. Over its course, Alberta and B.C. courts put restrictions on just how close strikers are allowed to stand to a vehicle entrance to TELUS’s premises. The courts also said TWU supporters must refrain from Web-publishing pictures of workers crossing the picket lines. TELUS postponed the rollout of its TV service until after the strike. TELUS said in September that 55% of its unionized workers in Alberta had gone back to their jobs. Reports said TELUS gave MP3 players to employees willing to skirt the picket line. The company made no report on B.C., where the majority of its employees work. Pressure mounted outside of the TELUS-TWU relationship too. In August, Canadian Autoworkers Union (CAW) president Buzz Hargrove sent a letter to Al Green, VP of General Motors of Canada Ltd., urging the car manufacturer to cancel a contract with TELUS, whereby the carrier would give GM IP-Centrex service for $11 million. The Pacific National Exhibition barred TELUS maintenance work on its property. The B.C. division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) announced its intention to stop purchasing telecom services from TELUS because of the labour dispute. The B.C. Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) cancelled its TELUS service contracts as a sign of solidarity with the carrier’s unionized workforce. As TELUS aims to win over a few more union members and convince them to vote for the new tentative agreement, the firm continues to operate under its emergency plan, whereby managers and other non-union employees hold the company together. It’s difficult for TELUS to move ahead under such conditions. Hopefully the latest offering satisfies the majority of union members, so the firm can get on with the job of competing against Bell, Shaw and various others. Grant seemed confident the union will ratify the most recent deal, even if only to come in from the cold. "As leaves turn and the nights get a little brisk, it gets less and less pleasant to be out there on the picket line. And with the high price of oil, standing around those barrels can get expensive too."

Union rejects last offer by a sliver, TELUS tries again with new agreement

News | 11/08/2005 5:00 am EST

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