BT Faces Formal Trade Dispute After Union Rejects Pay Offer
Telecoms and broadband giant BT appears to be facing another dispute over workers pay after the Prospect union, which represents a majority of staff at management grades within the UK company, overwhelmingly rejected a “derisory” pay offer from the employer (96% of those who voted elected to reject the offer on turnout of 68%).
According to the union, which represents over 16,000 people working in UK Information Technology and Telecoms (including a significant portion of BT staff), the pay offer presented by BT reflected an “average of 1.24%, less than half the rate of inflation, with 28% getting no pay rise at all“.
The union appears to have been further irritated by yesterday’s publication of BT’s results, which saw the operator increase its dividend at the same time as being in a dispute with staff over pay.
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Rachel Curley, Deputy General Secretary of Prospect, said:
“BT’s decision to increase its dividend at the same time as giving a derisory or non-existent pay rise to managers shows the disregard they have for Prospect members.
People will be incensed that when 28% of managers are being offered a 0% pay rise, and the offer is worth 1.24% on average, the company has taken this decision to increase dividends.
The overwhelming rejection this week of the insulting pay offer shows the strength of feeling among our members. We have subsequently notified the employer that we are now in a formal trade dispute with them in the hope that BT will now offer a fair deal.
If an acceptable offer does not materialise in the coming weeks, we will be looking at all options available to us.”
A BT spokesperson said:
“The pay proposal presented to Prospect allocated the budget we had available in the fairest way possible, awarding a 3 percent increase to managers whose pay is least competitive compared to the market range for their role, with lower awards for those who are more competitively paid versus the market. We use independent third-party pay data to ensure our market ranges are up to date, and review this on an annual basis.”
Readers may recall that BT’s last big bust up with a union occurred between 2021 and 2022, when tens of thousands of related members of the Communications Workers Union (CWU) engaged in several bouts of national strike action against the company, before a deal was ultimately agreed.
At the time, some of the same managers now complaining about their pay, via Prospect, were known to toe the company line against striking CWU workers, which probably won’t win them much sympathy from the operator’s wider workforce this time around. The hope still exists that both sides can come to an agreement before things take a turn for the worst.
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.
The only question if BTs managers go on strike – Will anyone notice the difference?
Of course they will.
Things at BT will suddenly start operating smoother and more efficiently.
Along with a reduction in the number of pointless meetings and emails.
Unlikely. Anyone with a serious, impactful technical role at BT is on a manager grade. It doesn’t mean they manage any staff. The people running the Ethernet backbone, the people watching for and responding to network intrusion and disruption events? All managers.
It is worth mentioning that most people on “management grades” at BT aren’t actually managers – almost all IT/network/corporate/business role employees are on management grades despite not actually being managers. This was done historically because the non-management grades (covered by CWU) didn’t pay enough to match market rates for those roles.
(I worked for BT until recently as an IT employee with no management responsibilities)
hhhmmm interesting view you can be in a management role with you actually actually managing any people anyone who is either a band one or above will be in some form of management role
To the barricades!
so they’ve decided to let a load of managers go recently under the false pretences of voluntary paid leaver (basically asking them to volunteer or reapply for their roles with the risk they don’t get it), and then force the remaining managers to take on additional roles and responsibility to make up for the headcount reduction – all the while paying investors more on the dividend and team members edging ever closer to managers pay but without the added accountability and pressures.
This is why I was happy to take the ‘voluntary’ package, there is very little difference between the top engineering salaries and those of management with no chance of earning overtime unlike the team members. They wanted to squeeze more out of management for little to no pay increase by removing a level of management and I personally felt it should have been compensated for those that chose to stay.
This took me back, I worked at the BT Group during the last dispute which was again, over pay.
BT have two unions, the CWU for team member grade and Prospect for manager grades.
Last time around, the company spent a huge amount of time and effort trying to undermine the efforts of the CWU (which is fine, you’d expect them to) but what was disappointing is that Prospect actually joined that battle on the side of the company.
It was a pay dispute, voted on by CWU members, and Prospect actually wrote to their members to say they disagreed with it and actually advised their members to do all they could to mitigate the impacts (including cover team member roles). I cancelled my membership (of Prospect) over this as a did a lot of my colleagues.
I’ve never heard of a union before actually writing to its members to actively undermine another union and its pay dispute with the company. Ironically, which was ultimately won and both CWU and Prospect members benefited from the outcome.
I can’t imagine this dispute will play out the same way as the last one. There were a lot of managers (especially in the contact centres) who made life difficult for the CWU strikers last time around. I can’t imagine them ever being stood on the picket lines whilst their agents come into work.
Let’s see…
So, shock horror, Prospect have proven themself to be as useless as expected.
After doing the national ballot and getting the 96%. It turns out it was a total waste of time. They don’t actually have the power to negotiate pay on a national level so that’s the end of that. As far as BT is concerned, there is no pay dispute. They’ll be speaking to their own staff direct.
BT have, out of politeness, had two exceptional meetings with Prospect. But have concluded, given lack of process and the fact they have completed two exceptional meetings, the collective bargaining process is over.
Who could have predicted that Prospect would be even more useless than first expected!!
Prospect do have the power to negotiate national pay deals for all C, D and E grades within the company. Just because the company wants to ride roughshod over its managers whilst constantly disrespecting them, threatening reorgs and gaslighting them on their pay “reward”, doesn’t mean there isn’t a dispute or that they can unilaterally end the dispute. Prospect have strongly rejected BT’s stance on this and the membership have voted overwhelmingly to allow a mandate to do whatever it takes
If after that the company doesn’t change course, what happens next is down to members and many of them are angry that shareholders bag themselves a 2% increase in returns on the profits delivered by the strategy these grades worked tirelessly for, whilst those in the company get nothing but the crumbs – or nothing at all
This doesn’t just go away because the company decided that they didn’t want to negotiate or want to continuously disrespect the people who work for it. Prospect has Collective Bargaining rights on pay and have done for several years – whether via the partnership agreement or otherwise, the union has solid rights to do what it needs, for as long as the membership want until it is resolved
Prospect will demand the company renegotiate or else they will write a strongly worded letter.
Pushover blackleg union, happy to steal members from and actively undermine other unions.
was in th CWU forrunner in 1986 for about a year till i decided it was pointless never joined prospect for the same reason
Ahh, divide and conquer of the non (board) executives, let alone a lack of macheavellian ‘corporate’ pay scommincation spin eh? And who or what receives 0% I wonder, those in the bottome median of ‘performers’, how to generate positive motivation rather than a work house culture, jeez modern management practices, devolution in as evolution deception.
BT Pay Dispute Update 5 June 2025
Last week we wrote to you updating you on developments following your union declaring a formal pay dispute with BT. We also updated you on a meeting your representatives held with the company’s Head of Reward and noted that a follow up meeting had been arranged with the incoming HR Director, Alison Wilcox. This second meeting had been proposed by the company and your pay team approached it in good faith, believing that the company were prepared to improve their derisory and insulting offer to managers.
Unfortunately, despite both the willingness of your pay team to meet the company at short notice and their best efforts at exposing the unfairness of the offer, the company have now signalled they are not prepared to improve the offer they made to Prospect back in March. You can read the letter we have received from the BT Employee Relations Director here.
Far from seeking to address members’ concerns over pay, the letter from BT appears to exacerbate them. For example, the commitment to deal with pay compression, between managers and the team members they managed, highlights the unfair and disproportionate approach the company has chosen to take with manager pay. The letter also states that the collective bargaining process is at an end. Prospect do not accept this and will be reminding BT that we expect them to honour the partnership agreement both parties have signed. The spirit of the agreement demands that both parties continue to negotiate and find a way to resolve the dispute.