SaskTel alleges union plugging up phone lines at call centres

Bad feelings are growing with no end in sight to the Crown strike in Saskatchewan.

SaskTel said in a media release Tuesday that Unifor has been directing members to flood call centres with fictitious complaints, resulting in customers facing longer than normal hold times.

“Customers are having trouble getting through for legitimate reasons when they want to make service changes or when they want to report service outages,” said SaskTel spokesperson Michelle Englot, who described the incidents as sporadic.

According to Englot, the company has video from a picket line allegedly showing union leadership giving the direction to members.

Unifor’s Chis MacDonald said he hadn’t seen the video, and only became aware of the activity on Tuesday. Nonetheless he wasn’t surprised to hear it was happening.

“You know there’s no question that people are wanting to take things into their own hands. Managers are in people’s call centres taking work from our members while they’re out walking the picket line and fighting for a fair contract,” said MacDonald.

“People are getting frustrated.”

Over Thanksgiving, union members were reportedly picketing outside the private homes of Sask. Party MLA Ken Cheveldayoff, and SaskTel board chair Grant Kook in Saskatoon.

MacDonald said the union doesn’t endorse those tactics and has spoken to members involved. However, he said there is no guarantee it will stop.

“I think as strikes go on, and lockouts go on, you can expect to see those things to happen,” he said.

SaskTel reports vandalism

Since the strike began, SaskTel said some of its infrastructure has been the target of vandals.

Three times, cabinets were broken into with the vandals cutting and removing cables. The most serious, it said, involved a power meter being removed from a Saskatoon cabinet leaving live connectors exposed.

The incidents occurred from Oct. 6 to Oct. 13 and knocked out TV, internet and land line service to more than 200 customers in Saskatoon and Moose Jaw, the Crown said.

“We are concerned these outages may have impacted our customers’ ability to communicate in the event of an emergency situation,” said a release.

SaskTel doesn’t have any leads as to who is responsible and is asking the public to come forward to police with information.