CWU intervention wins more pay for GXO members
Telecoms & Financial Services, GXO October 24 2023
Hundreds of members in GXO are in the process of having their 2023 pay award recalculated, with some in line to receive hundreds in back-payments, following the intensive and protracted request of the CWU.
The union’s intervention followed a barrage of complaints from ex-BT Supply Chain members who eagerly opened their June pay slips only to discover that their pay rise and back-payments bore no relation to the CWU-brokered settlement they had overwhelmingly accepted at the start of that month.
Not only had some employees not received the minimum increase of 9.9% that had been precisely detailed by the company prior to members’ four-to-one acceptance of the deal: Worse still, a significant number of the driver workforce – who should have been in line for base pay uplifts averaging 19% as a result of the promised removal of the ‘temporary’ allowance that had been introduced by BT prior to their transfer to GXO to stem a full blown driver exodus, replaced with a new salary point – were appalled to find they had either received no rise at all or, in some cases, actual cuts in take home pay.
Urgent investigations by the CWU quickly revealed a number of errors in the company’s implementation of the deal. These included not just simple miscalculations, examples of overtime not being paid or paid incorrectly and being paid for the wrong job role.
For some individuals, those errors were further compounded by GXO’s incorrect interpretation and application of Pay and Pension Protection (PPP) for those who had transferred over from BT with that supplement.
Yet despite escalating the issue to GXO senior management in early July – along with the union’s disgust that short-changed employees were having to report their concerns using a premium-rate number costing £10 to £15 per call – it has taken until now for the company to concede many of the errors.
In part, that was due to erroneous advice on PPP entitlements that GXO was inexplicably provided by BT – requiring the CWU to get BT to review and clarify the situation and to communicate that back to GXO, all of which took time.
CWU national officer Tracey Fussey told CWU News: “The CWU National Team is obviously relieved that most of the issues are now finally in the process of being resolved, but the fact that it has taken nearly three months to do so is deeply regrettable – not least because it has soured what was actually a very positive outcome of our first major set of negotiations with GXO.
“Unfortunately we’re also still in disagreement with GXO on the fact that the three month notice period that should have been provided before the withdrawal of the TRB was not applied.
“This was formally escalated to senior management yesterday (Monday) because, whilst the pay deal incorporated an aligned pay structure, the notice period set out in the original agreement with BT Supply Chain was categorical. Indeed, in large part it was the withdrawal of that bonus that gave rise to the considerable underpayments that occurred.
“BT has provided guidance to GXO that three months notice should be applied, and we’d therefore expect that to be honoured, with any underpayment fully rectified.
“The CWU is now awaiting GXO’s response on this specific issue – and we will keep members informed on the outcome,” Tracey concludes.
See more information in GXO Logistics UK Ltd Members’ Bulletin No.167/2023