BT Strikes Staff Pay Deal

LONDON -- BT today announced it has reached agreement with the CWU’s leadership on a new pay package for team members. This package, which has been agreed by the union’s executive, will now be recommended to union members in a consultative ballot. This ballot will take place within the next few weeks.

Having failed to reach agreement on a one or two year deal, the two sides have instead agreed on an unprecedented thirty nine month deal that will take both sides through until March 2013. This deal will provide BT with wage stability for several years.

The agreement will see team members receive pensionable pay rises worth 3 per cent each financial year from April 2010 to March 2013 with the rise being backdated to January 2010. The union had previously demanded a 5 per cent rise for 2010/11 alone.

Ian Livingston, BT chief executive, said: “I am pleased that we have been able to work with the union’s leadership to resolve this matter as industrial action would have been in no-one’s interest.”BT Group plc (NYSE: BT; London: BTA)