Is Windsor's IT Dream Over

Windsor's IT dream is over. You better believe it!

There is no way that Sandra Pupatello will ever be able to convince a call centre company to move to Windsor after the Windsor Star and CAW got through with Sutherland! And why should she bother after she got shafted royally!

Is the CAW leadership that hard-pressed for members? I guess they are after the auto companies had reduced their numbers.

Is the CAW leadership that dumb to believe that a company that pays minimum wages for jobs with high turnover is going to allow unionization resulting in salaries approaching that of auto and Casino workers so that they become uncompetitive in the call center marketplace? Get real.

One wonders why the Liberals would want Buzz Hargrove as a "partner" after the actions that CAW tried in Windsor.

• "Canadian Auto Workers president Buzz Hargrove encouraged the workers to support McGuinty and bashed the federal government for refusing to meet with the union to discuss the auto industry's woes.
  
  "Dalton McGuinty is, I believe, the only political leader in the country that's got it right in terms of investment jobs and the environment," said Hargrove.
  
  "Dalton McGuinty is saying, 'look we're all for saving the environment but we can't do that at the expense of the workers who work in the auto industry.' "
  
  Hargrove, who was thrown out of the New Democratic Party for supporting Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin's failed re-election bid in 2006, encouraged the auto workers to support Ontario's Liberal premier in the Oct. 10 election."

The Star and CAW have virtually killed Windsor's call centre chances. And then we saw the damage control trying to stuff the genie back into the bottle. The question now is whether it is too late?

We saw first 2 stories from the Star detailing complaints against Sutherland:

• "Call centre conditions poor, say workers; Cancelled lunch breaks, payroll shortfalls alleged" and "Agency voids call centre deal; Ministry of Labour cites violence at troubled Sutherland Global"

We saw the real reason for the negativity in a following story:

• "CAW EYES SUTHERLAND
  
  The CAW is tryng to recruit workers at Sutherland.
  
  "We've been getting phone calls over a number of months from disgruntled workers not happy with how the place operated," said Colette Hooson, the union's national representative.
  
  The CAW handed out information pamphlets last Friday to workers. Some were ripped up when discovered by management, Hooson alleged."

Then the people who helped bring the company here saw all of their efforts turning to dust. They obviously got upset and realized what the CAW's actions could do to Sutherland. After all, the City itself built a nice new parking lot for them too at a cost equivalent to Super Bowl and Grand Prix sponsorships.

• "MPP Sandra Pupatello and Mayor Eddie Francis, who played a key role in using subsidies and incentives to bring Sutherland to Windsor, have acknowledged problems, but labelled them "growing pains."

We then saw a Henderson column with an interesting title don't you think. It put the CAW on the spot...Back off or kill a thousand jobs

• "Growing pains
  
  This week I met with senior Sutherland Global executives in the company's 10th floor operations centre at 500 Ouellette Ave. They included Phil Madden, vice-president and head of operations in Canada, and Thomas R. Stuewe, senior vice-president based in Rochester, N.Y. And good grief, was the mood ever different. We're talking contrition over past glitches and a commitment to do things differently.
  
  They still believe they've been slagged unfairly by vengeful former employees who either didn't measure up or couldn't hack the work environment, and don't speak for the entire workforce. But they concede, flat out, that the start-up process was flawed and mistakes were made in the pell-mell race to service clients.
  
  "If we're honest with ourselves, did we launch perfectly? Absolutely not. We could have and we should have done certain things differently," conceded Stuewe. He said the company, in retrospect, made a serious mistake in not bringing in a large crew of experienced Sutherland Global staff to help get the operation up and running...
  
  The bottom line, said Madden, is that the company wants to put these growing pains behind it because it intends to double in size, hiring as many as 1,200 more Windsor workers to meet client needs...
  
  But, and there's always a but, Stuewe and Madden were adamant the company will pack it in if the Windsor operation becomes unionized. "There's only one event that could precipitate that decision (to leave) and make no mistake. That would happen," said Stuewe. He said the company is "performance-based" and could not survive being organized, given that it services clients trying to "get out from under" such constraints.
  
  The mea culpa has been issued. And the hiring sign is out from a company that says it can and will do better in its drive to become one of Windsor's largest employers.
  
  Give them a second chance? That sure beats adding a thousand names to the Windsor unemployment and welfare rolls."

Now if that was not a threat to the CAW, then I do not know what is! Just in case anyone thinks they are kidding, the Star reported:

• "About 170 call-centre employees in Windsor will soon lose their jobs to Utah and India...
  
  The call-centre jobs serving Chrysler customers will temporarily remain in the same building at Giles and McDougall streets. But they will leave Windsor in about a year for Convergys call centres in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Pune, India -- known as the "Detroit of India" with a booming IT industry...
  
  "I'm wondering where the mayor (Eddie Francis) and (Windsor-West MPP) Sandra Pupatello are," said customer service representative Chantal Couvillon. "I mean, all of the concern is focused on Sutherland," a taxpayer subsidized call centre being investigated by the Ministry of Labour.
  
  "But we've got a call centre here that pays more, we're established, our customer service is proven -- and yet our jobs are leaving. What about the call centres like DMG that are going by the wayside?"

And then to prove the point, just weeks after Sutherland said how well Dell and others liked Windsor workers "best-in-class" performance:

• "Sutherland shifts work out of city
  
  "Troubled call centre Sutherland Global Services has announced it will relocate several dozen jobs out of Windsor when it moves its Dell technical support operation outside Canada.
  
  Although the company did not reveal Tuesday the exact number of jobs affected, documents obtained recently indicated there were at least 70 workers affiliated with Sutherland’s local Dell support program, working at its College Avenue location...
  
  Although top company officials have said Sutherland will leave Windsor if a union is formed, they insisted Tuesday that moving the Dell jobs out of the city was unrelated to the union threat or workers’ allegations.
  
  “Dell has made a business decision to shift volumes from all Sutherland Canadian locations to another location within the Sutherland global footprint,” said Phil Madden, vicepresident and head of the company’s Canadian operations."

Finally, we saw the bizarre correction, clarification, "ON THE RECORD" piece in Henderson's Saturday column which was clearly a reaction to the Chris Schnurr BLOG [Anti-Union Intimidation? Sutherland Global will pack it in if unionized]

• "As I said at the time the $20 million we have invested here is a measure of our commitment to the community. We do not intend to close our Windsor operation because of union organizing. We believe we are best able to work with our employees and respond to our customers -- and to their customers -- if we retain the union-free advantage we enjoy over other operations. I apologize if my remarks conveyed anything other than that."

The threat was out there already. There was no need for Sutherland to have a Labour Relations Board fiasco as well.

Can't Buzz control his locals? Doesn't he understand that Windsor has the highest unemployment rate in Canada and needs jobs, any jobs, right now to bring the percentage down? If not, then what does it matter if he throws his support behind the Provincial Liberals?

No one, it seems, is listening to him in his own union. Or perhaps Buzz is a double-agent, getting people so mad at the CAW and its Liberal connections that they will vote NDP instead.

As for our economy, who is going to invest here with a militant union around that seems to have no sense. So much for the "Our Jobs, Our Community, Our Future" labour rally for jobs!