Telus workers reject deal

CBC || November 1, 2005

Nearly 14,000 Telus employees will remain on the picket line, after members of the Telecommunications Workers Union narrowly rejected a tentative deal that would have ended a three-month labour disruption.

The union finished tallying the results Sunday night after a week-long ratification vote by its members, who mostly work in Alberta and British Columbia. Of 9,027 votes cast, 50.3 per cent opposed the agreement, the union said.

"A majority of our members have voted to reject the tentative agreement," said union president Bruce Bell. "This was the membership's decision to make.

"We accept their decision and will resume the struggle for an agreement that better addresses their concerns."

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Telus Corp. said it had no plans to return to the negotiating table, after learning that the tentative contract deal reached more than two weeks earlier had been spurned.

"The fact that the ratification process has failed to bring a positive conclusion to our labour disruption can only be described as very disappointing," Telus president and CEO Darren Entwistle said in a statement posted on the company's website.

He said the tentative deal would have made the unionized workers the "best paid telecommunications employees in Canada."

The company imposed new working conditions in late July, and since then the TWU members have been off the job in what Telus calls a strike, and what the union says is a lockout.

Telus has said it needs increased flexibility to be able to adapt to competition from companies using new technology such as Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, while the union is worried about losing jobs to outside contractors.

The company has said workers will not be laid off as a result of the changes, but the union has said "employment security" is not the same as job security. It said company proposals won't stop more jobs from being eliminated and work from being shipped overseas.

The TWU had recommended that its members accept the five-year deal. But Bell said before the final tally came in on Sunday that he expected the vote to be close.

The picket signs went up after almost five years of negotiations that began following the merger of Alberta-based Telus and B.C. Tel.

Telus is the second-largest telecommunications company in the country, behind Bell Canada.

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