No let up for BT bosses as CWU strike ballot enters final countdown
BT, EE, Openreach June 28 2022
The spotlight the union has been shining on BT Group’s double standards on executive versus staff pay is reaching a new intensity as the first company-wide strike ballot in 35 years enters its final days.
Hot on the heels of last week’s public relations disaster for management – in which the company’s dirty linen was aired by no fewer than three national news outlets in 24 hours – the union has been out and about with giant front-page style mock-ups of the devastating exposés that appeared in the Daily Mirror and the Big Issue last Thursday.
Yesterday evening the ‘Have I Got News For You’-type billboards – contrasting the 32% increase CEO Philip Jansen is enjoying in his overall remuneration package this year with the ‘food bank’ that has been set up to assist hard pressed employees in one of the company’s call centres – made their debut in front of the iconic BT Tower in London’s Fitzrovia for a final push ‘Vote Yes’ broadcast to members.
“This is the ballot of a lifetime,” stressed CWU head of communications Chris Webb. “It’s the opportunity for every single member in Openreach, EE and BT to send the strongest possible message to a company which has displayed unbelievable levels of hypocrisy, telling you that a decent pay rise is not affordable while handing out massive rises to themselves.”
Referring to Philip Jansen’s “farsical” Workplace broadcast to employees last week – in which, as Bloomberg reported, the CEO was pilloried by “incensed staff after he told them the telecom giant can’t afford to pay them more,” Chris continued: “If you haven’t voted ‘Yes’ in this ballot you are voting with Phil.”
Turning to the Big Issue expose headlined ‘BT call centre set up ‘foodbank’ for its own staff’, Chris lambasted the “absolute front” of BT’s insistence that it isn’t a foodbank, but a ‘Community Pantry’.
“Let me tell you something,” he insisted: “If it looks like a chicken, clucks like a chicken and tastes like a chicken it’s a damn chicken!”
Just in case anyone at the top of BT Group is still oblivious to the embarrassing home truths doing the rounds, at lunchtime today the giant CWU billboards had their latest high profile outing – this time in front of the company’s One Braham headquarters in Aldgate.
Two weeks to the day after the CWU’s London Region was last there to mark the eve of the despatch of ballot papers, activists were once again treated to a paparazzi like reception – complete with a full complement of security guards and multiple managers taking photos and videos from within the glass fronted edifice.
“They don’t seem to be getting the message that, when it comes to surveillance, we love the attention!” joked TFS Executive member Peter Francis.
“It does make you wonder, though, who they were actually trying to intimidate – because once again we were amazed at the number of people entering and exiting the building who quietly wished us well as they scuttled past.”
Deputy general secretary Andy Kerr concludes: “In many ways, our fight for fairness reflects what us going on in many other industries and amongst numerous other groups of workers who have simply had enough.
“That’s why it’s so important that every single one of our members in Openreach, EE and BT casts their votes in this all-important industrial action ballot – and votes Yes!”
- Ballot papers must have been received by Thursday’s (June 30) post – so any members who have not yet cast their vote are urged to do so without delay.