Unifor union, Bell Canada reach impasse on labor negotiations

(Reuters) – Talks between Canadian clerical workers and telecom services provider Bell Canada broke down after a week of negotiations, Unifor, the nation’s biggest private-sector labor union, said late on Friday.

Unifor ACL, which represents the unionized workers at Bell Canada’s Bell Aliant unit in four Atlantic provinces, declared an impasse on Friday after talks ended in Toronto, Unifor said.

“Clerical members set a deadline when they voted to strike, and despite the clarity of workers’ demands, Bell did not seriously consider the issues that matter most to its employees at the table this week,” Chris MacDonald, Unifor assistant to the national president, said in a statement

Bell Canada did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside business hours.

Workers are seeking a pay increase, the right to keep working from home and an enforceable floor of employment in the bargaining unit, the union said.

In June, more than two-thirds of Bell Clerical members voted in favor of strike action.

Unifor, representing 315,000 workers, was formed in 2013 through the merger of the Canadian Auto Workers union and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada.

(Reporting by Abinaya Vijayaraghavan and Rhea Binoy in Bengaluru; Editing by William Mallard)