Freedom Mobile Threatens to Lockout Workers in Windsor on September 22

Freedom Mobile has threatened to lock out all of its call centre employees in Windsor starting on Friday, September 22.

The news comes on the heels of its refusal to improve a collective agreement offer, which was rejected by these call centre employees on August 10. After a meeting in Toronto on Thursday with the federal labour board, the carrier refused to improve its offer.

Many of the workers in Windsor earn wages that are close to the poverty line, while parent-company Shaw’s corporate executives are compensated with lavish benefits. Just for a comparison, workers in the Windsor location are making $13.68 an hour while Shaw CEO Bradley Shaw is making $13.1 million a year (equivalent of $6,718 an hour).

In a statement the President of TWU, USW National Local 1944, Lee Riggs said:

“This company is choosing the low road and the public should know it. Freedom told us that it wants to remain a low-cost operator. Yet its top executives rake in tremendous incomes.”

In a statement, USW National Director Ken Neumann said:

“Comfortable Shaw executives in Calgary are menacing low-paid Windsor employees with a threatened lockout – it is outrageous. Freedom is building a bad name for itself in the eyes of hard-working people in Canada. Windsor deserves better treatment than this.”

Over the next several days, the union will consider various options and determine the next steps and action.

[via CTV News]

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