Telefonica pay up after CWU-negotiated deal gets big thumbs up

Telefonica UK February 21 2019

Members in Telefonica have overwhelmingly accepted an across-the-board and fully consolidated 2.75 per cent pay offer that was brokered by the CWU in a whirlwind set of negotiations and put out to ballot with a strong ‘vote yes’ recommendation.

A staggering 96 per cent of those participating in the poll – which closed yesterday (February 20) – voted to accept the deal, which also secures pay progression payments for Telefonica (rather than NewGRID) contract employees.

Those performance related payments, which apply to Technical Specialist, Business Support and Technical & Engineering grades, give ‘good performers’ an additional 1 per cent, ‘high performers’ an additional 1.25 per cent and those deemed ‘outstanding’ and additional 1.5 per cent. Developing performers will receive 0.25 per cent, meaning only those graded as ‘under performing’ will receive no pay progression payment at all on top of the 2.75 per cent ‘base-line’ increase.

Thanking members for their 20-to-1 support of the deal, assistant secretary Sally Bridge said: “From the outset of talks the CWU was adamant that the settlement for 2019 had to take into consideration both the rising cost of living and the contribution our members have made to the company’s success over the last 12 months.

“It was the firm view of the national team that the company’s final offer met both objectives – delivering a fair and reasonable settlement that, now ratified by members, will come into effect, on time, on April 1.”

Pointing out that the pay negotiations had been conducted against a difficult backdrop of Brexit uncertainty and challenges in the mobile industry itself, Sally concludes: “The fact we’ve secured a settlement that stacks up favourably against other pay settlements at this point in time demonstrates that Telefonica has listened to what the CWU had to say about the importance of our members’ pay rates not falling behind.”