It looks like Unifor’s ‘Shame on Bell’ campaign, fighting back on the telecom’s recent announcement of over 6,000 job cuts in the past eight months, has triggered the company to issue a public response.
On Thursday, Bell issued a public statement outlining the facts surrounding its restructuring efforts first announced on February 8. Bell affirms its commitment to supporting affected employees, emphasizing that those impacted by the restructuring are being offered fair severance packages, career transition services, and continued access to health benefits.
Bell says its cutting of 4,800 positions across the company, comes in the face of challenging economic, competitive, and regulatory conditions. The layoffs affected less than 10% of the workforce at Bell Media, with the broader June 2023 restructuring impacting 1,300 positions “across all parts of the business.”
“We actively engaged with Unifor throughout the process – and continue to do so,” said Bell, addressing the union’s concerns directly. Bell has also confirmed it received Unifor’s consent for the voluntary severance packages offered to a majority of the unionized employees affected by the job cuts.
Approximately 800 Unifor members are impacted by the restructuring, with the majority expected to accept voluntary severance packages. Unifor says Bell’s decisions are based on “corporate greed,” despite making “fistfuls of money”.
The company said, “We worked with Unifor in advance of meeting with employees.” It continued to say, “In advance discussions with Unifor representatives, they did not raise any concerns about having virtual meetings with employees.”
“Bell is meeting all our obligations under the respective collective bargaining agreements,” it said.
Last month, Bell told iPhone in Canada in statement, “Bell announced a restructuring on February 8 at all levels of the company, and since that time, Bell has been working with Unifor and other unions on the impacts to our unionized workforce. Bell has been very transparent with Unifor leadership about the process in which these discussions would take place, having started discussions over five weeks ago, and has met all of our obligations under the respective collective bargaining agreements.”
On March 19, Unifor held a rally in Otttawa, slamming Bell’s layoffs, shouting ‘shame on Bell’. “Telecommunications and media jobs should be good jobs in our country, and we are going to fight as a union to make sure that they are,” said Unifor.
