The Telus logo on a phone.
The Telus logo on a phone. Credit: Alpha Photo / Flickr Credit: Alpha Photo / Flickr

Nearly 700 workers for Telus in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec have received voluntary severance packages in what the United Steelworkers (USW) is calling a “New Year gut punch.” 

Voluntary severance packages (VSPs) offer money for workers to leave their jobs. This recent round of workforce adjustment efforts target Telus positions that provide services to businesses. United Steelworkers members received 527 VSPs, as well as 171 members from two Quebec locals of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

Michael Phillips, president of the USW local 1944, said past rounds of VSPs saw about 10 to 20 per cent of people accept the offer. While the delivery of almost 700 VSPs does not mean these 700 jobs are immediately cut, Phillips said workers often will still experience some pressure to leave their positions.

“If somebody doesn’t take a voluntary severance package in this round, they’re being told that sales will become a greater portion of their role… There’s also the possibility that you might be redeployed to another job if not enough people take the package,” Phillips said. “All of those things are made very clear to folks who are being offered the package.” 

Making sales a bigger part of a workers role has already had an impact on some Telus technicians, Phillips said. Many of these workers were hired to do repairs and installation but are now expected to make sales while they work. He said some technicians are feeling the pressures from management to hit a certain sales quota and the expectation that technicians do sales has led to an increase in workload. 

“Folks are expected to do sales with no significant extra time to do that,” Phillips said. “They’re just loaded up with more duties than they had before and their wage rate is the same.” 

Being redeployed can create a serious disruption in the lives of workers and their families, Phillips said. In one instance, a group of USW members were relocated from Ottawa to Montreal despite some of the workers not being able to speak French. 

“Sometimes those kinds of redeployment decisions can be made in a way that really doesn’t work for a member or their family,” Philipps said. 

Telus’ third quarter report of 2025 reflected growth for the corporation. The company’s net income and basic earnings per share both increased by 68 per cent. However, Telus’ debt is currently 3.5 times its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. 

Phillips said the USW is monitoring Telus’ financial situation closely and many workers are feeling resentment for becoming the punching bag for their employers’ financial pressures. He said there are other ways to address financial concerns and cutting jobs will only harm the quality of service. 

“It doesn’t suit shareholders in the long run to have the business not be able to provide the kind of quality of service that businesses and consumers expect,” he said. “It’s not good for Canadians in general to not be able to rely on their telecoms.” 

Despite the frustrations Phillips and other Telus workers have with these VSPs, the collective agreement between the union and the company gives the employer a right to deliver these packages. The current agreement will expire in March 2027 and Phillips said the union is planning on fighting for more job security in the next agreement. 

“We’re definitely going to be trying to build bridges between ourselves and consumers because really, our interests are the same,” he said. “We want to keep our jobs. We want to be able to provide quality service to Canadians. Canadians want that as well.” 

Gabriela Calugay-Casuga

Gabriela “Gabby” Calugay-Casuga (she/they) is a writer and activist based in so-called “Ottawa.” They began writing for Migrante Ottawa’s radio show, Talakayang Bayan, in 2017. Since then, she...