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Shaw Communications is shutting down its Freedom Mobile call centre in Windsor — putting about 130 people out of work — one year after the workers voted to unionize and only months after signing their first collective agreement.

“This is an attack on the members and this is an attack on the community of Windsor,” Lee Riggs, TWU United Steelworkers Union National Local 1944 president, said Monday. “We don’t see any reason for this.

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“A lot of the people working out of this call centre are young single moms. This completely blindsided us.”

The merged Telecommunications Workers Union (TWU) and the United Steelworkers (USW) represent the 130 workers who will lose their jobs in three separate layoffs starting Wednesday. The other layoff dates are Feb. 21 and March 28.

“This is going to have a devastating effect on the Windsor-Essex area, 130 jobs coming out of that area,” Riggs said.

Employees were told around noon either in person or by email. The call centre, at 525 Windsor Ave., was closed after lunch.