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Shaw Communications is shutting down its Freedom Cellular name centre in Windsor, placing about 130 individuals out of labor a 12 months after the employees voted to unionize and solely months after signing their first collective settlement.
“There’s no financial cause for them to do that. We contemplate this to be utterly outrageous and utterly unjustified,” Lee Riggs, TWU, USW Nationwide Native 1944 president, stated Monday afternoon.
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The merged Telecommunications Employees Union and the United Metal Employees characterize the 130 employees who will lose their jobs in three layoffs starting Wednesday. The opposite layoff dates are Feb. 21 and March 28.
Workers discovered Monday at midday by e mail and the workplace at 525 Windsor Avenue was closed after lunch.
“That is going to have a devastating impact on the Windsor-Essex space, 130 jobs popping out of that space,” Riggs stated.
Shaw stated it’s shifting the decision centre to Victoria, B.C. which Riggs stated could be dearer and is unnecessary economically.
Riggs stated Shaw which owns Freedom Cellular took an antagonistic stance towards unionization in late 2016 and early 2017 and at one level threatened to lock the employees out. The beginning of the layoffs come on the one-year anniversary of the employees voting to unionize, Riggs stated. Workers narrowly voted to ratify their first collective settlement Sept. 20.
The common wage was $13.68 which acquired bumped up with the current minimal wage hike.
An worker who didn’t wish to be recognized for concern she could be laid off instantly stated employees had been in tears and in shock Monday.
By Sharon Hill, Windsor Star
shill@postmedia.com