Ballot opens on attendance patterns in BT Consumer as onshoring is delivered

Telecoms & Financial Services, BT February 5 2020

 

Members across BT Consumer are being urged to ratify a new deal on Team Based Scheduling which would deliver long term predictability of attendances and days off, while also bringing in new options such as FlexiTime.

Thousands of ballot forms have been issued today (Wednesday) as the consultative exercise gets underway – triggered by breakthrough in negotiations late last year that had been given added impetus by the strength of feeling expressed on the issue by delegates at CWU Annual Conference last May.

For the past fortnight members of the CWU’s BT Consumer National Team have been explaining the deal to members at all of BT Consumer’s call centres – with the last of 28 such ‘roadshow’ events taking place in Barrow on Monday.

Feedback has been very positive – confirming the view of the national negotiating team that the package on offer secures meaningful improvements to attendance options that customer facing staff have been craving for years.

National Officer for BT Consumer, Nigel Cotgrove, said: “It’s a timely coincidence that this agreement is out to ballot just as Consumer has confirmed that it has now reached its target of 100% of incoming calls being handled in the UK and Ireland a full year earlier than expected.”

“To put this in perspective before we did the last attendance review in  2015, around 80 per cent of calls were handled in India despite years of CWU campaigning against the offshoring of work that began with the union’s iconic ‘Pink Elephant’ campaigning against remote sourcing in 2003.”

“While the realisation gradually dawned on BT in the decade that followed that there were costs as well as savings associated with offshoring customer-facing work, our 2015 Transformation Agreement was a key element in ensuring that  the return of work was possible. As a result there are now some 3,000 more BT Consumer UK jobs than 5 year ago and the number of agency staff at team member level in Consumer is now at zero for the first time in over 20 years.

“At the heart of Team Based Scheduling  is the concept that, in contrast to the current situation under which members of a team can have entirely different attendance patterns, in future teams will share, as far as possible, the same attendance pattern.

“The new attendances crucially  provide long term predictability of attendances and days off something members have consistently told us is their number one priority. The agreement also maximises full weekends off,  brings in new flexi time options and allow more choice over when to take breaks. At the same time there are continued protections for  those who cannot work standard patterns for personal and domestic reasons, as well as protection for Sunday earnings,” explained Nigel.

Urging members to ratify the new agreement in the current ballot, Nigel concluded: “For the last three years the union has been pressing BT Consumer to make improvements in the arrangements for attendance patterns – and throughout we have been clear that the current arrangements are not good enough due to the lack of predictability of attendances, variable start times and a poor work-life  balance.

“The proposed agreement would extensively overhaul and improve the existing 2015 arrangements and the CWU Executive is strongly recommending that you vote to support it.”

More details can be found here