BT staff vote for first national strike in 35 years as industrial action spreads across sectors
BT staff have voted for their first national strike in 35 years, joining swathes of workers from other sectors taking industrial action as the cost-of-living crisis deepens.
The UK’s largest telecoms company has been locked in a fierce dispute with the Communication Workers Union (CWU), which represents about 40,000 of the company’s 100,000-strong workforce.
The CWU accuses management at BT of bringing in a low flat-rate pay despite inflation hitting a 40-year-high.
Around 30,000 Openreach engineers and 9,000 BT call centre workers overwhelmingly backed industrial action, although a vote by CWU members at EE failed by just eight votes to reach the legal threshold.
Openreach members voted by 95% in favour of strikes on a 74% turnout and BT workers by 91% on a 58% turnout. The strike could affect customers having broadband services installed or getting faults fixed.
As ITV News Business and Economics Editor Joel Hills notes, BT awarded a pay rise of £1,500 to all its 60,000 staff earlier this year.
However, the CWU, which is calling for a 10% rise at BT, said this offer amounted to a relative pay cut, and has argued that the telecoms company can afford to pay employees more.
CWU General Secretary Dave Ward said he expected BT to offer a “significantly improved” pay rise by next week or strike dates will be set.
BT reportedly made almost £2 billion in profits for the year to the end of March.
The union says BT has until the end of next week to make a better offer or it will announce strikes, as Business Editor Joel Hills reports
Mr Ward said: “Our membership faced the challenges of home working, high staff turnover, and a real culture of fear created by senior management to deliver an overwhelming show of support for strike action. “Call centre workers are some of the most casualised and isolated workforces in this country. They are notoriously difficult to organise, and the unprecedented vote they have taken today demonstrates the anger so many people feel in this country today. “Our members were never going to accept imposition. BT Group thought they could get away with bullying treatment – they were wrong."
The strike comes as the UK faces a summer of industrial discontent as workers strike over pay, jobs and conditions amid a backdrop of surging energy bills, food prices and fuel costs.
Doctors, bus drivers, airport workers, criminal barristers and local government staff are among the groups which have threatened to walk out.
The CWU is also balloting 115,000 postal workers at Royal Mail about possible industrial action over pay, with the result due on July 19.
If staff back strikes, the CWU says it could amount to the biggest ever strike by its members.
BT has said it was disappointed by the CWU's ballot and would "work to keep our customers and the country connected."
“BT Group awarded its highest pay rise for frontline colleagues in more than 20 years – an average 5% increase and up to 8% for those on the lowest salaries," a BT group spokesperson said.
“Our job is to balance the competing demands of BT Group’s stakeholders and that requires careful management, especially in a challenging economic environment."
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