TELUS Employees Protest against Advantage Given to Verizon

By: Talha Bhatti  |   August 26th, 2013   |   News, O Canada

Last Thursday, about 500 TELUS employees protested outside Industry Minister, James Moore’s office in British Columbia. This protest was held because US wireless provider, Verizon is trying to enter the Canadian market and is being given advantage so as to promote competition in Canada.

This has led to a huge outcry by stakeholders of TELUS as they realize how much the company might be disadvantaged because of Verizon’s entry into the Canadian market and the way it is being offered everything on a golden plate. “It appears incumbents have continued to ramp up their efforts to pressure Ottawa to change their wireless rules which have been accused of favouring American wireless carrier Verizon.”

TELUS spokesman Shawn Hall, told the paper the following: “[It’s] a foreign company getting a two-for-one advantage over Canadian firms and that’s just not right” Hall also emphasized on the fact that this will lead to a great loss of jobs in Ottawa because of the undue advantage that he thinks is being given to Verizon over Canadian wireless providers and he believes that they should not be treated better or given more opportunities than Canadian companies. He also talked about how investments may suffer as Verizon continues to take over.

Previously, TELUS, Bell and Rogers, the three large wireless providers in Canada protested against Verizon entering Canada and led a massive campaign for this but this failed in front of the government who wants to promote competition.

 

iPhone In Canada states that, “Some TELUS employees who reside in the Minister’s riding, such as Jennifer Connors said : “We’re hoping we’ll change his [Moore’s] mind, or at least change some policies that allow it to be more of a level playing field for the Canadian companies.” She went on to say 600 TELUS employees live in the Tri-Cities (Port Moody, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam). This is a large number of employees and they expect Ottawa to form such policies that do not harm any company or its employees.”

It has been seen that TELUS is trying to get its employees and other stakeholders to speak out against Ottawa’s policies and these stakeholders including distributors have been pretty vocal about their opinion against Verizon being given advantage.

iPhone in Canda also adds that, “Industry Minister James Moore is currently on a cross country media tour to reiterate the Federal government’s plans, which are the wireless spectrum auction will take place as planned without any rule changes, despite ongoing ads by incumbents which have been classified as “dishonest” by the Minister.”

Source: iPhone In Canada