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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Those employees should find better, high-paid jobs. Glad I don’t use Freedom! Their service sucks anyway.
Not as easy to find jobs these days. Show some empathy!
How much do the “Freedom” call center people make in comparison to the Shaw Call centre people? This would be a better comparison than the CEO salary.
According to glassdoor, Shaw Callcenter CSR’s average at $16.12/hour. So $2.44 more per hour.
According to glassdoor, Shaw Callcenter CSR’s average at $16.12/hour. So $2.44 more per hour.
They are where they are. It’s a low skill, low education job. They can work crap night shift factory jobs or plunging toilets or call centres or retail or flipping burgers. Options aren’t great for the bottom rung. That’s why it’s the bottom rung.
Bringing up the CEOs pay is just dumb though. Someone should as the union what their president makes compared to the janitor or secretary.
“Freedom Mobile has threatened to lock out all of its call centre employees in Windsor ” Not giving their employees much “freedom” if they’re locking them out. Must be using the same dictionary that defines “unlimited” as 6GB.
CSR jobs don’t pay well. And what was the reason for bringing up the CEOs pay? EVERY CEO makes a lot more than the CSRs….
DRAFT
QUOTE:
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)
Comment:
that was a silly statement!
as well as members of staff employed and paid by the company, CEOs also need to afford paying additional staff that is relevant to a CEO position only ( most often consulting companies that are employed for researches that are relevant to a CEO only position. )
It is just a non – sense to compare directors salaries and employees’, directors are often paid for their contacts ( networking ) and often for trust relationships established with banks and insurers, supporting a business with essential credit and credit would not be available unless a trustworthy and valuable CEO is in place and well paid.
marc
Taken from CTV which is owned by Bell 🙂
Paying your employee’s enough to live should not be a controversial issue.
Generally speaking, you’re paid what you’re worth. If the position doesn’t justify higher compensation, then it would be a losing proposition for the business to just pad their salaries.
All positions in this country should justify a wage high enough to live. It quite frankly sickens me that people advocate in favour of inflicting poverty on working class people.
I’d like a job picking flowers for 1/2 hour per day, 3 days a week. Can you please pay me a living wage for that? You’d pay me a living wage for that position, right?
I wonder, how much of your own personal income you provide to the less fortunate to ensure they are above the poverty line. Because that’s what you are righteously demanding of others.
Full time work.
Your response is petty and childish and only exemplifies your lack of insight. How old are you?
Old enough to know that most self-righteous pricks that act sanctimonious and live to be judgemental are hypocrites that avoid even simple questions about how they live their principles.
It’s easy to preach principles when it doesn’t cost you anything. Platitudes are nice and I’m sure they make you feel good, but they really are otherwise pretty useless.
What was the simple question?
Read. You’re old enough to do that on your own without assistance. Stop asking for help for what you are able to do on your own.
Read. You’re old enough to do that on your own without assistance. Stop asking for help for what you are able to do on your own.
If you’re referring to your assertion that I should personally support all those who are unemployed, are you actually ignorant enough to expect a legitimate response to that? As I’ve said, you are only showing your lack of insight and demonstrating the intellectual level of your thinking. Not sure why anyone would follow such childish, unresearched and inexperienced drivel.
No, read it again. I never asked if you’d support all. I asked how much of your personal income you use to ensure others aren’t in poverty.
So, how much? Why do you expect others to sacrifice but not you? Hypocrite much?
Not an argument
You’re an adult and what you are willing to work for, monetarily speaking, is your business. Maybe you’re the sole breadwinner in your house, just a teenager starting out looking to get some extra spending money, a housewife looking to supplement the family’s income, who knows? Regardless, the term “living wage” is meaningless.
It’s not meaningless at all. It’s a number representative of the cost of living. These are all statistics that are tracked and can be looked up. Again, we are taking about an hourly wage and full time work. A teen-ager starting out or a house wife working part time aren’t going to be working full time, but if they were they should be paid enough to be self sufficient regardless.
In my opinion, a teenager or a house wife doesn’t need to be self sufficient. Teens can move in with friends, live at home, etc. a housewife has a husband making an income. Of course, it’s none of my business since they are adults and their earning power is a sum total of the decisions they’ve made in their lives.
So your saying an employer should be able to pay you less based on the income of other members of your household?
Your employer should pay you whatever he/she wants. You can choose not to work there.
Not everyone has the option to walk away from work. Particularly those who are the lowest earners. Are you advocating the abolition of the minimum wage?
yes
Many different issues, all of which your employer doesn’t nor shouldn’t need to care about, unless he values you and wants to become involved in your world. Once again, you don’t want to work for the money offered, there’s the door.
comparing a CEO or top executive’s salary to an entry level position is a false equivalency. Please stop doing it.
I feel for these call centre workers, really I do. But it’s disingenuous to them to compare their salaries to the CEO’s.
A better comparison would be against the median salary for the service industry as a whole.