“Still confused to why you should vote YES?
One of your branch officers should be ringing you over the next few days or you can contact them here.”
BT Group-wide consultative ballot on industrial action gets underway as CWU patience snaps. Read more from the CWU main site »
BT members should have received a ballot via their home email address. If you haven’t received an invite by the end of Thursday 19th November please contact one of your branch officers – contact details can be found here.
A comprehensive ‘YES’ Vote is needed!!!
BT/Openreach want to reshape the company as they see fit and they don’t care whether you are the casualty of this. The union has tried their best to negotiate and represent your interests, but BT refuse to engage.
We need you all to show BT that you will stand up for yourselves by voting YES in the Consultative Ballot.
Note this is not an official strike action ballot, it is a consultative ballot and we need to secure a large YES vote as it will demonstrate that members are willing to take part in industrial action to protect our terms and conditions and get BT to resume meaningful negotiations and to stop treating it’s staff with contempt.
“It’s NOT JUST ABOUT COMPULSORY REDUNDANCIES, BT are attacking our agreements, which have been fought for over the years and are now at risk of being torn up, if we, me and you, do not show support for our Union.
BT will be watching us closely over the next few weeks and months, looking for weakness and seeing what they can get away with next.
Changes to Compulsory and Voluntary redundancy terms. Un-agreed enforced COT (Compulsory Overtime). Personal Travel Time, Pay and Protection ignored.
Staff being made redundant and their jobs being off-shored.
Closure of offices, soon none in our branch area. More contractors installing our Fibre Network.
Attacks on Union representatives. Threats, veiled or otherwise, to terms and conditions.
The list of attacks growing day by day.”
“Is this a concerted attack on the CWU as a whole.”
Enough is Enough – Vote YES.
Let me be clear about why we decided to go for this consultative ballot: I’m sick and tired of listening to people at a senior level in BT saying ‘you don’t speak for our employees, you just speak for the union’. I keep on explaining to them that I’m not the union – the members are – but it’s now important we have a vote on this so I can go back and push it into their faces that quite clearly myself, the Executive and branch activists have been speaking for our members all along, and that we’re all in this together.” – Deputy General Secretary, Andy Kerr.
5th November 2020 – Spotlight shone on BT’s job security and Ts&Cs bonfire as national consultative ballot is announced.
Thousands of BT members across the country are participating in a national day of action against compulsory redundancies, imposed change and the company’s flagrant disregard for longstanding agreements.
Despite Covid restrictions banning mass gatherings, branches and regional Count Me In campaign committees across the country are finding innovative new ways to highlight and harness an unprecedented wave of workforce fury at the shoddy treatment of ‘key workers’ by a new generation of senior management.
Kicking off the CWU’s second UK-wide day of protest at a belligerent new management, the union has today (Thursday) announced the timetable for a national consultative ballot in which members will be able to register their opposition at management’s current trajectory. Read more »
Media Articles
Andy Kerr in Tribune https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/11/bts-key-workers-deserve-better-than-the-sack
Dave Ward in Morning Star https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/we-want-your-support-fight-jobs-can-we-count-you
Andy Kerr in Morning Star https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/no-bt-bosses-treason-and-plot-5th-november-day-remember
Karen Rose in Morning Star https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/our-members-bt-are-big-and-much-valued-part-cwu-family
Branch articles in Morning Star
Sarah Miah https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/culture-bt-and-openreach-has-changed
Quincy Raymond https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/bt-workers-have-been-fighting-equality-long-time
Media we have generated
Investment Media https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/933252/bt-workers-mull-strike-action-as-company–puts-profit-before-people–933252.html