Talks operating under federal labour conciliation
Negotiations for a first collective agreement between the United Steelworkers (USW) and Freedom Mobile for its call centre employees in Windsor, Ont., have stalled, said the union.
Despite an intense last 19 hours of talks and the efforts of a federal labour conciliation officer, there is not yet a settlement.
Freedom Mobile — previously known as Wind Mobile — was purchased in 2015 by Shaw Communications. The 185 customer-care employees at Freedom Mobile's Windsor call centre joined the USW in January and bargaining began in late March.
"Very soon, we'll be holding membership meetings to arrange next steps," said Bryan Adamczyk, USW representative. "Freedom's offer is just not right, especially for a business that is making such a great contribution to Shaw's profits and bottom line. A possible strike or lockout deadline exists as of 12:01 a.m., Aug. 16, but we think a settlement can be negotiated before that."
"Shaw's wireless revenue for the latest quarter was up by a whopping 16.7 per cent and Shaw says it wants to rapidly expand its share of the cell phone market. To do that, it needs to do better for these hard-working people in Windsor," said Lee Riggs, president of the Telecommunications Workers Union, USW National Local 1944, which represents more than 11,000 telecommunications sector workers across Canada.
