TELUS recently announced that it plans to offer an increased number of Voluntary Separation Packages (VSPs) to members in Alberta (AB), British Columbia (BC) and Ontario (ON).

These announcements took place on May 14th and 15th.

“We do not agree with TELUS’s plans to increase the number of VSPs being offered to certain business units,” says John Carpenter, Telecommunications Workers Union (TWU), National Vice-President. “They continue to decrease the size of the workforce in Canada while increasing their off-shoring activities. If jobs aren’t being created in Canada where TELUS is making massive profits, they are directly contributing to the unemployment problem and should be transparent to the public about the fact that their bottom line is more important to them than employing people from the communities who buy their products, thus allowing them to reap benefits.”

More specifically, the following areas will be affected:

-    Eleven members from Business Solutions Client Care in Scarborough, ON, will see their work outsourced while eight members will remain in their current role.

-    VSPs will be offered to AB and BC sales groups. The breakdown for AB is: 34 Account Representatives, five Administrative Assistants, and 18 Client Care Representatives. The breakdown for BC is: 23 Account Representatives, 3 Administrative Assistants, and 14 Sales Account Representatives. Members will be offered to choose between a VSP or to stay in their current role.

-    In National Service Assurance, all 150 Network Technicians will be offered a VSP. Twenty-two of those jobs will go to Tech Mahindra in India.

-    In Design, Assignment and Test (DAT), 131 positions will be going to Tech Mahindra. VSPs will be offered to members whose jobs are affected and the remaining members will be placed where jobs are available.

-    562 packages will be offered in AB and BC. (Network Technicians, Engineering Technicians, Access Technicians).

-    109 Craft Employees from Burnaby and Calgary (mostly Network Technicians, Service Technicians, Engineering Technicians and Engineering Technologists) will be declared surplus. They will be offered a choice between a VSP or redeployment.

The TWU encourages everyone to visit the new Keep Jobs in Canada Awareness Campaign website at www.keepjobsincanada.ca and add their voice to the growing number of Canadians who are against off shoring and want to see large corporations like TELUS who make their profits in Canada, hire Canadians.