“Disguised dismissals” denounced at Telus

Hundreds of jobs are once again under threat at Telus, according to the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE).

Telecommunications giant Telus is looking to lay off hundreds of employees in Canada and has offered voluntary severance packages to 720 employees in the country, the union says.

This is a way of carrying out disguised dismissals.complains the president of the Quebec Telus Employees Union, Luc Pouliot. It is an unfair practice, it is anti-union, it circumvents the spirit of the collective agreement.

I think we want to get rid of employees in Quebec at all costs, especially unionized employees.

According to Mr. Pouliot, at least 145 workers in Eastern Quebec have received departure offers since July, including office and call centre employees, as well as installers who work in the field.

The employer plays a lot on ambiguity, the tasks that could change, the department that could close, which pushes employees to accept the offerdeplores Mr. Pouliot, who fears repercussions in customer services and also a loss of expertise in the region.

In Rimouski, we had a head office where, for almost a hundred years, our people were in telecommunications, so there was expertise that was built, that was built by people here and suddenly we put the axe to ithe laments.

According to the union, more than 600 positions have been eliminated in Eastern Quebec over the past 10 years; several of these jobs have been transferred internationally.

Telus transforms its customer approach

Telus declined to grant us an interview to comment on the situation, but confirmed that offers have been made.

We continue to offer voluntary departure packages with generous financial compensation that exceeds the requirements of the Canada Labour Code and provides team members with the opportunity to retire or pursue a career outside our organization.the company said in an email.

Telus adds that it is engaged in a transformation of its activities that includes major investments in [son] network infrastructure and that it is to support this technological transformation that a voluntary program has been deployed on a national scale.

We estimate that a small minority of these team members will choose to accept the offerspecifies the telecommunications giant.

This wave of departures comes on top of several cutbacks that have taken place at Telus over the years. In 2015, the company announced the elimination of 1,500 positions, while by 2023, 6,000 jobs had been eliminated in order to reduce the payroll.