Rogers Communications: The Disappearing Backbone
Where did the jobs go, and why won’t the unions talk about it?
We reached out to Unifor — Canada’s largest private-sector union and the representative voice for thousands of Rogers Communications workers — for comment on the quiet but accelerating shift of Rogers jobs out of the country. They never responded. Not after 36 hours. Not even after four days. No clarification, no denial, no “we’re looking into it.” Just silence.
And that silence speaks volumes.
A Shifting Corporate Body
On January 1, 2024, a major internal restructuring took place: Rogers Communications Canada Inc. completed an amalgamation absorbing Shaw and multiple legacy entities into a streamlined federal corporation. What followed was a rapid blurring of domestic vs offshore roles, quietly facilitated through contractor channels, third-party staffing, and remote-friendly listings outside Canada.
New postings revealed technical support roles with no clear connection to Rogers’ internal HR pipelines. Certain Concentrix jobs included duties highly similar to Rogers call centre responsibilities, while HCL Technologies appeared in job alerts tied to Canadian telecom functions. Even job titles on Rogers’ own career site hinted at cloud-based hybrid architecture and telecom network work involving AWS and Direct Connect — in other words, remote, borderless, and no longer tied to Canadian job sites.
And if you searched for Rogers Communications jobs on Glassdoor or Indeed, the results were flooded with third-party names: OSL Retail, Prime Communications, Cable Control Systems, and independent sales contractors operating under retail partnership banners. Some postings listed wages. Many didn’t. Few clarified who the actual employer was.
The backbone was dissolving, but the branding stayed intact.
The Union That Knows Better
Unifor has not been silent in the past. They’ve gone to bat over layoffs at Omni. They’ve challenged subcontracting practices. They’ve spoken loudly about the erosion of ethnic programming and the cultural consequences of broadcast consolidation.
But on the issue of outsourced telecom infrastructure jobs? Crickets.
Why? Is the offshoring too quiet? Are the deals buried under NDAs? Or is the union protecting its remaining footprint and media optics by ignoring the deeper trend? We gave them a chance to speak. They chose not to. So we press forward.
CRTC: The Toothless Overseer
We checked the CRTC site. We reviewed CLEC filings dating back to 2015. We read through telecom decisions, past rulings, license amendments, and service expansions. And we’re now preparing formal Access to Information requests to confirm the extent of regulatory awareness and involvement.
What we’ve found so far isn’t comfort. It’s regulatory fragmentation. There are no active investigations into offshore labour practices. No new oversight mechanisms addressing the dissolution of Canadian telecom support jobs. Nothing on file about HCL or Concentrix acting on Rogers’ behalf.
It’s almost like if you don’t say it out loud, you don’t have to answer for it.
Supply Chain of Silence
HCL Technologies has made deep inroads into North America. Blackstone, through structured joint ventures, is now linked to Rogers’ debt reduction strategy. Concentrix, a global outsourcing powerhouse, runs service contracts for major telecoms. This isn’t a mystery. It’s a migration.
Domestic jobs are being split, contracted, or moved offshore — but nobody in a position of influence is acknowledging it.
Not Rogers. Not the regulators. And not the unions.
Who Speaks for the Workers?
At some point, the story stops being about market trends or cost efficiencies. It becomes a story about abandonment. Who’s protecting the telecom workers whose job titles vanished without a layoff notice? Who’s keeping track of the people doing the same job under a new contractor, at half the wage, with none of the protections?
Apparently, not Unifor.
We hope to be wrong. We hope they respond. But if they don’t, this editorial will serve as a timestamp. They were asked. They were given time. They chose silence.
And the public deserves to know why.
The Old Guardian will continue following this story. If you’re a Rogers employee, contractor, or call centre worker who has seen your job change without explanation, contact us confidentially.
We’re not just chasing headlines. We’re rebuilding the record.
Email: chrisjallen32@hotmail.com