Participation in the Online Bargaining Support Kit Part 1 – Awards was fantastic. We filled the social media and inboxes of many organizations that have given Telus awards recently, and we hope that this makes them reconsider the ethical aspect of who they choose to honour in the future. It’s apparent that members are wanting to do what they can to make Telus act fairly towards its workforce.
Continuing with our multi-part Kit, we’re pleased to announce Online Bargaining Support Kit Part 2 – Media.
Telus advertises itself as an employer that leads the way when it comes to ethics and a healthy workplace culture. Employees of Telus get to see the actual character of the organization, its lip-service to ideals, its pressurization, and how it reduces you and our customers to a mere number. You’re in a unique position to reveal this hypocrisy to the media as part of this campaign. We’re aiming to have Telus face the consequences of its actions, which requires public exposure of its practices.
At the bottom of this message is a link to a list of media newsrooms’ contact information across Canada, and even internationally. We are encouraging members to go through this list, contact these news agencies, and to provide them one of these five scripts below expressing facts about Telus’ behaviour. Choose whichever script you believe in most or which may be most appropriate for that news agency.
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1. Hello, I work at Telus and I’m writing to you to voice concern over the fact that Telus has positioned itself as an authority in the health and wellbeing field (Telus Health, Telus MyCare etc.) and yet we, as their employees, know what an unhealthy work environment Telus is as an employer. Dozens of us have made video clips with our Union to reveal the deterioration of the work culture at Telus in recent years, in a YouTube campaign called “Telus, How You’ve Changed”. Here are a few clips in particular that deal with the health and wellbeing struggles we’re facing, although there are many more on the Channel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulMM5BA_BKo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru-rAlPPm7k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSAFTMNXjiU
I thought your organization might want to look into this, if so, please contact our United Steelworkers Local 1944 President Donna Hokiro at donna.hokiro@usw1944.ca for more information. Thanks.
2. Hello, I work at Telus and I’m writing to you about an instance where I feel that Telus is acting hypocritically regarding honouring Indigenous Truth & Reconciliation. On many occasions I’ve heard Telus express a desire that we all prioritize recognizing Canada’s history of colonialism and dispossession regarding Indigenous peoples, and yet when we who work at Telus are asking the company to honour Truth & Reconciliation Day in BC and Alberta, the company says they will only do so if we give up Easter Monday in exchange. A company that truly honours the spirit of Truth & Reconciliation wouldn’t consider that it needs to be ‘cost-neutral’ to them before granting the holiday, and it’s an indignity to First Peoples that they be paid lip-service to in this way and be asked to give up something yet again. This kind of behavior is unacceptable and flies in the face of our indigenous team members and our members who stand with them in true reconciliation. This is the kind of garbage that makes workers distrust corporations. I thought your organization might want to look into this, if so, please contact our United Steelworkers Local 1944 President Donna Hokiro at donna.hokiro@usw1944.ca for more information. Thanks.
3. Hello, I work at Telus and I’m writing to you about the trouble that we’re having dealing with the company in bargaining, in case you wanted to follow up on this. Telus is making record profits right now and for some time – quarter over quarter in recent years; and yet we’ve been in bargaining for 15 months, facing concessions including no wage increase throughout 2022 (the most inflationary year since the 80’s), subpar wage increases in each year thereafter, and many other concessions. We’ve conducted 30 Practice Pickets across the country because we’re not going to take another concessionary Agreement like the last three (3) bargaining rounds. Please take a look at some clips of our recent actions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUXHb_QkQ2s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN-wh0TsEVA
I thought your organization might want to look into this, if so, please contact our United Steelworkers Local 1944 President Donna Hokiro at donna.hokiro@usw1944.ca for more information. Thanks.
4. Hello, I work at Telus and I’m writing to you about the fact that a lot of us employees are tired of seeing customer service get worse and worse due to the company cutting corners for ‘efficiency’ (profit) and sending jobs and whole departments overseas (11,000 jobs since 2005). We’ve even been filming dozens of clips on Youtube with our Union, about this issue and many others, under a campaign called “Telus, How You’ve Changed”. We want to be able to make customers happy, as anyone would in their job, but we’re increasingly prevented from doing so by Telus’ practices.
Here’s a couple clips on this subject:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/mmyzH-SOS9E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs0zNqf-8oA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KndVS8pMWro
I thought your organization might want to look into this, if so, please contact our United Steelworkers Local 1944 President Donna Hokiro at donna.hokiro@usw1944.ca for more information. Thanks.
5. Hello, I work at Telus and I’m writing to you because I think the public would be interested to know just how sales-oriented Telus has become at the expense of customer service. Over the last few years, both non-sales call-centre jobs, and tech jobs seem like they’ve become mainly dedicated to sales. It’s as if we are sales people first, and customer service after the fact as customers naturally think of us as being a ‘service rep’ or ‘repair person’ but that is just used by the company as a way to be able to sell from a position of authority and trust. Not only phone reps, but even techs that make house calls have sales quotas, and I doubt the public is aware of this or would approve of this. A bunch of us workers have even participated in a clip campaign on YouTube with our Union to highlight this issue to the public, so that pressure might cause the company to refocus on putting customers first since they claim to. Here’s a couple clips on this issue:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4-dKCjaXbfY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_tAqYfRoQg
I thought your organization might want to look into this, if so, please contact our United Steelworkers Local 1944 President Donna Hokiro at donna.hokiro@usw1944.ca for more information. Thanks.
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Here is a PDF of contact information for various newsrooms across Canada and internationally that you can reach to get the word out that Telus’ behaviours towards their employees and customers are not as advertised. We're not able to list all the smaller, local news media outlets on this list, so feel free to also email your own local news media with these messages.
In Strength and Solidarity
USW Local 1944
