BT Faces Major 4 Day UK Strike and 999 Call Handlers Join Them UPDATE
The Communications Workers Union has just upped the ante in its pay dispute with broadband and telecoms giant BT (including Openreach) by announcing a third round of national strikes, which have been staggered to hit the operator over four days. But worryingly, the next strike will include hundreds of 999 emergency call handlers.
Up to 38,000 of BT and Openreach’s unionised workers have already participated in two national strike events over the past couple of months, each of which impacted just two working days. But so far this appears to have had only a very limited impact upon the operator and, perhaps inevitably, that meant the CWU would go further.
Last night the union proceeded to do just that by serving notice on BT and Openreach of further strike action, which will take place on Thursday 6th October, Monday 10th October, Thursday 20th October and Monday 24th October. But this time the strike will also be joined by “approximately” 500 workers who work as 999 emergency call operators, which may cause concerns about an impact upon the population’s health and safety.
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In previous strikes, it was agreed between the union and BT Group that 999 workers would be exempt from the strike, and that a certain number of workers would be available to work at any given time. “But after widespread outrage at the company’s refusal to negotiate with union representatives, these workers will now be joining their company colleagues,” said the CWU’s statement.
Dave Ward, CWU General Secretary, said:
“This dispute is modern Britain in a nutshell: lives are at risk because a company’s top brass won’t listen to workers. This decision was not taken lightly, but our union’s repeated attempts to initiate discussions was declined by a management who clearly believe they are above negotiating a fair deal for people who make massive profits for them.
999 operators are using foodbanks, they’re worried about the bills and are being stretched to the limit. It’s no surprise that the goodwill of workers has run dry, and that services will now be hampered.
BT management clearly has no appreciation of their workers’ value – but this union does, and we will keep on fighting this company’s attempt to plunge its workers into even further hardship.”
A BT Group spokesperson told ISPreview.co.uk:
“We will do whatever it takes to protect 999 services – redeploying our people to the most important priority is a normal part of BT operations. We are profoundly disappointed that CWU is prepared to take this reckless course of action, but we respect the right of colleagues to strike.”
The core issue reflects a dispute over pay. BT previously announced that they planned to award workers a £1,500 consolidated pay increase to their annual salaries (up from an original offer of £1,200). The operator said this would be the “largest [pay rise] … in over 20-years” for 58,000 of their UK frontline and Team Member colleagues – representing an increase of up to 8% for some colleagues and more than 3% for even the highest paid frontline workers.
However, the Deputy General Secretary (Telecoms and Financial Services) of the CWU, Andy Kerr, who had previously called for a pay rise of 10% to recognise the “contribution our members have made to the business”, rejected the offer and warned that, given the surging level of inflation, it would have represented a “relative pay cut“. Kerr also noted that BT’s CEO had awarded himself a 32% pay increase.
On the flip side, BT still faces challenges and has been trying to cut costs. The operator may also be mindful of the fact that the current surging rate of inflation will not last. Indeed, the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 9.9% in the 12 months to August 2022, which is down from 10.1% in July. The government’s proposed discount to energy prices may well fuel further falls as the year progresses. But we should add that RPI has increased to 12.3%.
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BT will no doubt say the same as before – that they have the necessary processes in place for tackling large-scale colleague absences, which they’ve previously said would “minimise any disruption for our customers” and “keep the country connected“. Indeed, that is what happened during the previous strikes.
Nevertheless, the more strikes that occur, the greater the disruption. Eventually delays to new provisions, repairs, customer support and other work could start to become more than a mere short-term annoyance. This would be true not only for the telecoms giant, but also their customers – both end-users and network operators / ISPs alike etc.
UPDATE 8:43am
We’ve added BT’s comment above.
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Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Disgusting the way at BT & Openreach are being treated by their Chief Executive . Given todays energy prices and seeing how other companies have been supporting their staff . This is an absolute disgrace by BTs management for not laying out a better off . Shame on you BT!
For the person that thinks wages fuel price rises think again greed fuels the increases the prices will go up again at rpi plus 3% regardless because they can filling the pockets of rich investors stipping the company and the country of what should be reinvested into the company and the company’s workers .
As an engineer at Openreach, I understand where we are at the moment with the inflation rate at 10% and fuel and food prices rocketing, but I also understand that all companies are affected by this and have extra costs to, and all the unions are doing are damaging the company, as an engineer, I am paid above the average wage and I’m willing to accept the £1500 wage rise for this year. knowing that my job is secure for at least the next 5 years, the war in Russia and inflation are not the fault of big companies yes if the companies are making fast profits and only paying shareholders and directors (which Openreach engineers are plenty) but BT Openreach are investing billions in fiber and employing thousands of apprentice’s we tend to want to destroy our British companies allowing foreign companies to come in and buy them up on the cheap, this is why the country is in such a mess,
we should be as employees supporting our companies when times are hard and then reaping the benefits when times are good.
Thousands being forced into redundancy due to the better workplace program which is the culmination in the groups 15 year plan to force long service staff out of the business. The likes of Clive Selley pretending they have a track record of finding alternative roles when the reality is te business will not lift a finger to help staff, and at the same time squeezing pay to levels far below I flatiron, after years of pay freezes.
No wonder they have trouble retaining new recruits.
I think the total opposite, who do you think is going to pay if a bigger wage increase is given? yes the paying public and I don’t think the workers deserve it!
Now the union is withdrawing some 999 call handlers, this is blackmail and risking people’s life’s lets hope no one you know needs emergency assistance on those strike days.
It is difficult to know what to say or do, in one way people need to have a decent wage to live, certainly now with the way prices are rising and I also agree with you, if people get better pay than the services and goods prices have to rise to pay for them.
Jason saying other companies, I think he needs to look closer at some of them, they may seem to be getting something, but it is not as much as he thinks. We are getting a pay rise, the second in one year, but it will come off what we will have got next year, and we will lose some perks.
I suppose you could say we will get 6 to 8 months of more pay than what we would have got. Not that I am not grateful, but sometimes people just gets the headlines.
I have never been a fan of unions and was only in one once because I had no choice in the matter, many years ago and I certainly don’t agree with the withdrawing of 999 callers.
I have no idea how much any of them earn to be honest, Openreach, 999 call handlers or BT people.
Well one thing, the work that Openreach is going to do up here soon will be put behind again, so more delay for FTTP from openreach.
Worth noting that 999 call centres are a mix of employee types.
Team Members will go on strike, Management will be expected to provide additional support and Agency staff will be expected to attend shift.
Calls will be answered, staff will be stretched.
But yet there are still huge profits. Why do you hate yourself so much? Why do you not want your hard work to be rewarded in the same way directors and shareholders are? Are you so incredibly bad at your job but have such a strict moral compass where you agree you don’t need to be properly compensated and rewarded for that work? I genuinely pity you not having the self awareness to understand the need, and right, for industrial action.
Why do you not think they deserve it? Do you have any idea what they do or the skills involved?
@Chris
Fully understand what they do, there is little skill to it as its mainly dumbed down.
Do you really believe this comment bt managed to pay its foreign shareholders hundreds of millions in dividends it paid its chief executive an extra 1 million yet it can’t pay its workers a living wage maybe do some research before placing comments
Probably could have been avoided if a “Cost of Living” payment was included in the pay offer 2 or 3 months back. Whilst it’s not a consolidated pay increase it could have been more beneficial for the company to take a short term hit on cash flow to help out staff and show a level of care.
Jansen’s position probably looked good to the markets (be strong, in control) at first but the longer this goes on the more arrogant/uncaring it appears.
ON another note, CWU are making Prospect look amateur now. They really need to step up.
I doubt ‘Jansen’s position probably looked good to the markets’
When Jansen took over BT shares were trading at around 230 now they are trading at around 130. Jansen has delivered big losses to BT investors. He has clearly failed them. Now he has lost the dressing room too.
@mark how well does BT pay compared to other companies like Virgin Media?
The subject of “pay” is always a tricky one to quantify as a simplistic comparison between different operators, as you don’t always know details of how the jobs and their requirements differ between staff. Likewise, there’s also an element of bespoke negotiation.
In order to do a fair assessment we’d need to avoid requesting an official line (company’s like to inflate such things) and attempt to assess based on independent data from job listings etc., but that’s a lot of work and probably only a few people would read the end result. It also falls a bit too far outside ISPreview’s focus on networks and consumer service. We aren’t accountants.
VM have gone back to the table, they are making payments to support the cost of living crisis. Pay increases vary and are up to 17% for those on under 35k.
https://www.cwu.org/news/cwu-welcomes-vmo2-moves-to-address-cost-of-living-crisis/
Sky are giving around 70% of staff £1k cost of living payment.
If Sky and VMO2 can afford cost of living payments to their staff then BT who gave their CEO a 32% pay rise can most certainly easily afford to do better by their own staff and follow suit.
The real villains here are not the front line staff who struggle to make ends meet but the management who are more interested in profits and giving themselves obscene pay rises.
As to the ridiculous claim by #Ad47uk that he was forced into a union, that is pure ridiculous as you do have a choice to join a union or not.
I worked in a workplace where majority of my colleagues were in the union, I and a few others didn’t join as it wasn’t something we wanted to do, at no point were we “forced” to join the union.
We always had the option to join IF we wanted to and the union respected that.
I don’t have to remind you what happened with the miners? Those that didn’t strike are still shouted at and called scabs even to this day.
Re @Guest’s statement “As to the ridiculous claim by #Ad47uk that he was forced into a union, that is pure ridiculous as you do have a choice to join a union or not.”
Here, I suspect you have a generational issue. I suggest @Guest does some research on the UK unions and the “closed shop”, which was outlawed in the UK sometime around the late 1980s to early 1990s. I too worked in an industry where closed shop practices operated. It was a widespread practice in the 1970s.
The 999 handlers are some of the lowest pay workers in bt they around 20k the CEO gave him self a 32% pay plus share bonus
People can keep quoting the CEO’s pay rise but its simply not relevant.
But it is. You can’t say we can afford to pay you more but you scabs at the bottom can go take a hike. As others have said VM and Sky are making cost of living payments. If you need my labour you bloody well pay for it. If you can afford for me to strike, then you don’t need me. If it cripples your business then you need to pay me more. There will come a point where you are paying me too much that it’s more cost effective for you to employ someone else. And if that is the case, you bloody go for it mate. But until then don’t give yourself a massive pay rise and then say you can’t afford to pay me more. Because frankly, you are full of horse shit and we all know it.
“But it is.”
Actually it isn’t, comparing a CEO’s pay to a call centre operator is on par with comparing a Footballer to the guy who cuts the grass on the pitch; Why not pay Aircraft cabin cleaners the same as pilots? Maybe it’s because anyone can clean the cabin.
As far as these strikes are concerned, the workers on £20k will lose 4 days pay next month, and even if the union won a 10% pay rise it would take the lower paid staff years to recover lost pay from striking. I don’t see BT giving into the Union, all that’ll happen is the lower paid workers will end up well out of pocket with nothing to show for it.
left predecessor of CWU back in 1986 after being on strike for 3 days and ending up with 3 non pensionable days on my extensive service — and worse off than the deal offered originally , got told by union rep think about bigger picture — resigned from union on the spto (that was 1986)
@ETE
‘ the workers on £20k will lose 4 days pay next month, and even if the union won a 10% pay rise it would take the lower paid staff years to recover lost pay from striking.’
£20k is £77/day. (5×52 days/year). 10% is £2000. Ok for 26 days.
“£20k is £77/day. (5×52 days/year). 10% is £2000. Ok for 26 days.”
£20,000 is £337 take home a week
£21,500 is £356 take home a week
£22,000 is £363 take home a week
Counting the 4 strike days already gone, then adding Octobers 4 strike days will add up to 8 days on strike. Since they’ve already recieved a pay rise of £1500, the weekly take home difference would be £363 – £356 = £7 a week, or £364 a year.
8 strike days adds up to £569 loss of pay, so by the end of October it would take someone earning £20,000 before the £1500 pay rise,now on £21,500, over 19 months to break even should the union win and their pay is increased by the extra £500 to £22,000. Obviously the more days on strike, the longer to catch up, which I suspect they wont. Non of this takes account of pension contributions, etc.
You do know how a percentage works right? It’s relative to whatever you earn. Plus a pay rise reaps benefits year on year. Striking may reduce your pay this year but it won’t next year if you receive a pay rise. And with every year the effect of compound interest makes the benefit even greater.
But facts clearly don’t appeal to you. You are an ideologue that thinks poor people should be paid a pittance and millionaires should have inflation busting pay rises. People like you are the scourge of humanity and an absolute disgrace to human kind. You literally disgust me with your wilful ignorance to the cost of living crisis and how it disproportionately affects the lower paid compared to CEOs. I pray that not only you are a heartless moron, that you also earn jack shit so you suffer just as much as everyone else is.
“People like you are the scourge of humanity and an absolute disgrace to human kind. You literally disgust me with your wilful ignorance”
I’ll take that as a compliment, since it comes from someone with your view of the world. I’m retired and rely on BT dividends to top up up my £20k pension. People like you seem to think shareholders are all rich, whereas many rely on dividends to supplement their meagre pensions. You should take some reality medicine and climb off your socialist pedestal, that way you may get a clearer view of the World.
@Bob
You’ve got a big chip on those shoulders of yours. Just take a second to read the various comments you have made to others just because they disagree with your views.
You’d be really unlucky if you were on strike every single day of action.
Ah now it makes sense. He’s a pensioner protected by the triple lock. He’s far more protected than most workers. And a £20k pension? Some of the people you are moaning about don’t even earn that in a year…
@Bob
Do you feel a big hard man now? stop being a lazy arse and get to work.
I’m not striking. Fortunately for me I am in a comfortable enough position for the current crisis to not impact my finances too much. I’m just not so cold and callous that I cannot sympathise with people in a worse position than me, like yourself for that matter as it turns out.
@Bob it sounds like guilt is keeping you awake at night for treading on people to get your comfortable lifestyle while still working, whereas pensioners deserve better from people like you.
Last few rounds of strikes didn’t have any significant impact on their rollout, hopefully with 4 days they cause some delays this time around
depends on actually how many CWU members they actually have and it many not be that many really
Don’t have to be a cwu member to join the strike
Full support to the workers
I remember sitting in a HQ looking at the 999 board and there were 53 operators on and 91 calls in the QUEUE! and that was back in the day we had the numbers on the streets.
God knows what it’s like now. World’s gone mad
From personal experience the BT operators are still always quick to respond to 999.
Now if only the police round here actually picked up in good time the operator would be a lot less busy. On two occasions I’ve had the operator apologise for the delay as the police were not answering. (We live near a derelict building which attracts break-ins)
Thatcher made it a legal requirement for privatised companies to pay shareholders dividends, a requirement not scrapped by successive governments.
@Serf. I am not sure why you think that.
There is no requirement for privatised companies to pay dividends and there have been occasions when this has not occurred.
Good for them going out on stroke.
Time for the real workers to stand up and get paid for a days work.
No more benefits or migrants.
It’s time the workers bring this country to it’s knees.
The fact of it is that the workers are taking an effective pay cut. The money they paid everyone last year has not risen in line of inflation, they promised to take care of workers during lockdown when Key Worker status was enforced, holding off on giving us all a payrise during the “uncertain times”, BT recorded record profits over lockdown.
I work for openreach and I’m paid what I would say is a fair wage, but ive only got to that fair wage after 8+ years of poor pay and horrendous high pressure job roles. Many of my colleagues and friends within BT Group are not as fortunate to have moved roles and are still paid poorly, I’ll stand by them 100% because im not a selfish individual.
BT have been happy to hike customer bills and get their rise in profits in line with inflation, but simply won’t pay their staff at the same ratio.
Openreach used to be in the top 100 companies to work for in the UK, the atmosphere in the offices has dropped drastically since Phil Jansen and Clive Selley have started laying people off due to a huge property sell off and the work has become less customer focused and more focused on Key Performance Indicators (Statistics and percentages). Its just pure greed from BT and they are putting the guise on that they are using the profits to invest in UK infrastructure, when the fact is the profits are still being syphoned off to the investors, often outside of the UK.
I’m now seeing an active drain of skilled workers looking to move out of Openreach and BT and go to competitors like City Fibre and Hyperoptic, I’m also thinking of doing the same, I’ve bent over backwards for BT Group and spent 10 years working my way up and actively learning and helping others learn, but the way we have been treated recently makes me feel like I owe them no loyalty at all.