Canadian telecom workers denounce job outsourcing, call for legislation

An alliance of Canadian telecom workers have denounced the offshoring of telecom jobs, warning that telecom companies shipping jobs overseas will have negative impacts on Canada.

The Canadian Telecommunications Workers Alliance (CTWA) is a coalition of three of Canada’s largest unions, Unifor, CUPE, and the United Steelworkers of Canada (USW), and represents over 1.3 million workers, including 32,000 in the telecom sector.

In a release published by Unifor, the CTWA called for legislation from the federal government “to protect Canadians’ jobs, privacy, and the security of Canada’s telecommunications infrastructure.”

The CTWA said that Canadian telecoms have outsourced almost 20,000 jobs to other countries over the last decade, including to the U.S., India, the Philippines, Egypt, and more.

But while the job losses are bad, it’s not the only consequence. The alliance also warned that the offshoring jeopardizes Canadian data because the subcontractors used in other countries aren’t subject to Canada’s rules and protections. It also raised concerns about Canada’s security and sovereignty by allowing foreign access to vital communications infrastructure.

The warning comes as we’ve seen Canada’s biggest telecom players continuously shed jobs over the last few years. Just last month, Telus offered buyouts to almost 700 workers across Canada, including over 500 members of the USW. The company also offered buyouts in February 2025, and in 2023 laid off 6,000 workers.

Bell has also been laying off workers, including nearly 700 holiday layoffs. In February 2025, Bell offered voluntary separation to 1,200 union workers, and a year before that, the company cut another 4,800 jobs.

Finally, there’s Rogers. MobileSyrup reported last year that Rogers ended a contract with a company called Foundever, leading to roughly 1,000 layoffs impacting call centre employees. That builds on 400 online chat agents the company laid off in February 2025, and thousands more jobs lost because of Rogers’ merger with Shaw (despite the company signing a commitment to create 3,000 jobs in Western Canada in order to secure the merger).

Moreover, last year, Rogers forced roughly 400 technical employees to sign employment contracts with Ericsson, only for Ericsson to lay off a portion of those employees in order to transition their roles to workers in India. The layoffs came after the employees attempted to unionize, though Ericsson denied that that was a factor. Conservative ministers called for the Liberal government to halt the layoffs over national security concerns.

Header image credit: Shutterstock

Source: Unifor