Kathaleen Neufeld

Dear Editor,

I am one of those subscribers that was denied access to the Voices for Change website by Telus my internet provider. I will disclose that I am the spouse of a Telus employee so that you can judge for yourself if I am coming from a biased position on this matter.

I had never visited Voices for Change website, but when it was made public that I was being blocked because I was a Telus subscriber I did try and access the site and found that I could not. Telus has made the case that information about their employees was being displayed on the site and this was making it dangerous for their employees. I went to the site and could not find such information although I do not doubt it was there. Maybe I would have to be a member to have that access I do not know?

I have two things to say about this. First, if I was not living in a remote area of Canada I could and would immediately change providers. It was not to my understanding that Telus could censor my access to information on the internet when I subscribed. And second, my husband has worked for BCTel/Telus for 30 years and when we married 27 years ago he had one of the best jobs, working for one of the best companies in BC and maybe Canada. People would comment when they found out who he worked for, "They're a good company to work for, you have a good job", and we agreed. BCTel fostered loyalty from their employees AND more importantly from their customers. The employees were proud of their company and proud of the quality of service and care BCTel provided. I even found myself siding with BCTel over the union when negotiations came around at contract time.In the few short years since BCTel merged with Telus I have taken calls in my home from hostile customers and found myself being an apologist for their cutbacks and centralizing of services that should never have been centralized. Because of the poor quality of service now being provided by Telus, through someone's poor understanding of customer care, me and my husband are on the front lines for abuse daily. While putting employees names, addresses, and pictures up without their consent is not something I condone, it must be stated that all of the Telus employees that have chosen to walk the picket line are also being confronted by unhappy Telus customers.

I know things change, but the one thing that I do not believe ever will is you must have happy employees and happy customers to succeed in business. It obviously takes more than a CEO making $6M plus a year to understand that.

Yours truly,
Kathaleen Neufeld