Week in Review: September 29th – October 5th 2025

Other Unions’ picket lines – There’s lots of strikes currently, but shamefully, federal labour law doesn’t grant members the blanket right not to cross other Unions’ picket lines. However, if your work duties would require you to cross a picket line, the Local will try to prevent you from being required to cross, so please speak to your Local Union Representative here or email contact@usw1944.ca if you’re asked to do so. Also let management know if you feel unsafe at work if asked to cross a picket line.

Paid medical leave grievance – When members attempt to get paid time off from work for a medical appointment, which is a right under the Canada Labour Code in most instances, Telus is saying that this is what PDOs are for, or even vacation. The Union is grieving this. If you're denied such a request, report this to your shop steward to investigate filing a grievance.

GPS Deep-Dive grievance – Sometimes company GPS deep-dives on craft members turn up serious provable wrongdoing, but sometimes it seems Telus is just throwing a mass of data at the wall to see what sticks. We’re in the middle of an arbitration on such a case, and intend to win it. Please know that we do our own deep-dive on any company deep-dive discipline because a mountain of accusations doesn't always equal a mountain of evidence.

Abbotsford Strike Online Ad – We just hit 1.3M views on our latest online ad about our Rogers Abbotsford Strike here. All our employers should take note of the lengths we’re willing to go to get our views out there when we feel members are under attack.

Our SPOC – For any questions to your Union, you can always email contact@usw1944.ca . Often it’ll be more effective to speak to your shop steward or Local Rep, but if you’re not familiar with them, or just want to talk to the Union office generally, use that main inbox which is monitored in real-time during office hours. It’s like our SPOC but onshore.

In Solidarity,

Michael Phillips

President

USW Local 1944