BT gears up for summer strikes

BT customers are already feeling hot under the collar as temperatures in the UK threaten to reach unprecedented levels this week. They also now face a summer of disruption to their broadband and phone services: BT staff are to go on strike over pay in the first nationwide action since the telco was privatized in the 1980s.

Around 40,000 Openreach engineers and BT call center staff belonging to the Communication Workers Union (CWU) are to lay down tools on July 29 and August 1 after talks with BT failed to address what the CWU described as "insulting" pay inaction and improve its recent pay offer.

Figure 1: Unions keep doors open for talks, but BT indicates it has nothing more to offer.
(Source: BT)

The union has previously accused BT of "unbelievable levels of hypocrisy, telling you that a decent pay rise is not affordable while handing out massive rises to themselves."

In a tweet, the CWU doubled down on this message, accusing BT managers of "using Swiss banks whilst our members use food banks."

Stalemate

CWU secretary general Dave Ward indicated that BT still has two weeks to engage in what he described as "meaningful negotiations." However, he made it clear that if BT doesn't "want to do the right thing here, then we're going to have to take that strike action."

BT already appears to have ruled out the possibility of more talks. In a statement, the operator said it has confirmed to the CWU "that we won't be re-opening the 2022 pay review, having already made the best award we could."

Strikes now seem all but inevitable, and BT customers can expect disruption to services including repairs, the installation of broadband lines, and customer support.

BT reiterated that it has "tried and tested processes" to deal with such "large scale colleague absences."

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Indeed, BT's chief technology officer Howard Watson recently said the operator has a "robust plan in place" in the event of industrial action by its workers. He pointed out that the group "learned a lot in the pandemic," when it reduced "some of the out-of-hours capacity of uplift work."

BT said measures to reduce the impact of any industrial action will include "postponing any non-essential planned engineering or software updates – similar to what we did at the height of the pandemic and as we do over holidays like Christmas."

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— Anne Morris, contributing editor, special to Light Reading