Time To Bring Public Ownership Of The Telecommunications Industry Back
Posted by Tyler Kinch on August 7th, 2006
Darren Entwistle’s (Telus CEO) made 14.096 Million last year.
A minimum wage earner in Alberta made $14,560 working full time last year.
This means that the Telus CEO made 968 times the amount of money as a minimum wage earner in Alberta did. Does he really deserve it? To break it down even further, it only took the CEO of Telus nine hours to make the same amount that the minimum wage earner makes in a year. Does he really do the same amount of work in those nine hours as the minimum wage earner does in an entire year? Not to mention he makes that money even while he is sleeping, unlike the minimum wage earner.
This is corporate corruption at its worse. If the telecommunications industry were under
public ownership again, the person in charge would not be making nearly as much as this. This means that more people could get hired, which means more jobs. Also, we don’t even need to shut Telus down. The government could compete with Telus. With little or no profit margin, the government could easily offer services for a lot cheaper then Telus could ever dream of. Also think of what we could use the little profit that we could make for. I can think of tons of things, starting with fixing the roofs of many schools in Calgary.
With Telus’s poor service and lack of regard for its unions, I say it’s about time we bring public ownership back to the telecommunications industry.
August 7th, 2006 at 9:00 pm
As a Telus employee, I can tell you exactly what Darren does for his ill-gotten lucre in a years period.
He hires thugs who specialize in union-busting (AFI) to intimidate employees participating in a legal labour dispute. (We won’t even get into his insistence it was a strike, even when the CIRB ruled it a lockout).
He promises to keep offices in BC open if we just agree to close a few in Victoria, then goes back on his word.
It’s hard to try and rebuild your career and enthusiasm for your job, when you know the CEO shares morals with bottom feeders and sharks.
August 7th, 2006 at 9:00 pm
As one of the folks who spent five months on the picket line in front of Telus last year, I couldn’t agree more. I’ve left Telus both as an employee and a customer. I’ve got better phone and internet service and much less crippling stress. I was a union rep, so therefore a target of constant petty harrasment. Not that it was a treat then or from what I hear, still, to be any kind of employee there.
I actually heard managers say with a straight face that our customers needed to readjust their expectations in regards to customer service. That kind of contempt doesn’t deserve to be rewarded with our business.
August 7th, 2006 at 11:07 pm
As a current employee of Telus I must say that I agree with nationalization, especially in the utility industries.
privatization in utilities is an open Bank account for the corruption of the industries leaders which we now see, whether it is Telephone, Gas or Electric, even Transit ( BC Ferries for one ), the airport authority is answerable to no-one!!!
I am not a fan of Socialism to the extreme, but in moderation we weed out the corruption. When your employer sets the dogs on you ( AFI, as in our dispute )you know that there is something terribly wrong with society,government et al, winning at all social costs is the Corporate agenda.A shame to see in Canada, the last bastion of fairness and equality in the world today.I fear and dread the future for the generations yet to come. Not in the Philippine’s and India where the Canadian jobs are migrating to but to this country as a whole, when serfdom will be as prolific as it is in the middle east, Asia and the Pacific
Islands..
It used to be you dotted your I’s and crossed your Tee’s, if you read about the court case with Rogers and Aliant you now have to worry about your placement of comma’s.
You don’t just just need a Lawyer today, you need a grammaticist as well, but you will never see a fair minded social consciencenist in the same room( no there is no such word )
It is a shame the Unions have lost their powers as now the average Joe now has no power, not even at the Ballot box.\
Thanks for a place to put my rant..
August 8th, 2006 at 8:06 am
Darren has an interesting history that establishes a bad precedent: http://www.darrenentwistle.com