back to article BT freezes wages for 100,000

British Telecom is freezing wages for all its 100,000 UK staff in a "head on" response to the economic downturn. A BT spokesman said: “BT can confirm that, after careful consideration, there will be no pay rises as a result of this year’s review of salaries. This will apply to all UK employees, including BT’s most senior …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Hoopy... I'm impressed... honestly

    No pay rises? Oh big wow.

    As a professional electronics engineer I have received 3 pay rises in 10 years, all from quitting and moving onwards! Full on commercial entities (and I'm not talking the likes of behmoths like BT) have had pay freezes on and off for the last decade. This is neither new nor impressive.

    Why should BT's efforts in reducing bonuses and freezing pay impress us? Maybe if they stopped shelling out for f*ckwittery like Phorm and started providing a decent service in general, people might not be legging it in droves from their Internet side of the business, but since this is still an organisation that suffers from Civil Service grade bureaucracy and ineptitude, it's not going to sort itself out any time soon.

    So glad I no longer have shares in them!

  2. Adam
    Unhappy

    title

    "a pay cut in those circumstances is an insult to staff"

    A pay-freeze is not a pay cut. You could argue that not getting a payrise effectively loses you money in relation to inflation but the retail price index, used by many companies to determine paryrise amount and the real rate of inflation is currently at 0.1% so no real loss there either.

  3. Andy Barber
    Thumb Down

    Industrial Action

    So a profitable company is forcing its Unions into Industrial Action in the middle of the 'credit crunch.' Does this look like a sensible thing to do?

  4. Elmer Phud

    Slight change

    They used to say 'only a 3% pay rise this year' and neglected to say that 3% of not much is bugger all and 3% of exec pay is usually more than most grunts get in half a year.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ah those management bonuses

    "Bonuses" for junior managers in BT (and probably most other similar organizations) are in fact withheld or reserved salary. When they were first introduced in BT, approximately 10% of existing pay was kept back on the principle of "we'll give you the rest if you're a good boy, and if you're a very, very good boy indeed, we might just give you a bit of somebody else's as well".

    The so-called bonus is simply a part of your basic pay for doing your job normally.

  6. chris
    Thumb Down

    @andy

    Except the "real rate" of inflation includes the price of unwanted tat (aka "consumer goods") that has seen a dramatic fall in price as the credit crunch bites and a third HDTV starts to seem unappealling at any price.

    Meanwhile, important stuff like food, gas, electricity has rocketed in price making for a cost of living increase far above the headline rate of inflation.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    @ chris 1308H

    "Meanwhile, important stuff like food, gas, electricity has rocketed in price making for a cost of living increase far above the headline rate of inflation".

    Very true - something the deflation doom-mongers always seem to forget. With the QE policy started yesterday if I were a betting man I wouldn't put much money on 'real' deflation (disinflation) happening anytime soon.

    But, the odds of high levels of inflation happening soon? Wouldn't bet against it....

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    RE:Hoopy... I'm impressed... honestly

    Well you should realy get off your arse and find a better company to work for, or make your self more needed. Every company I have worked for gave yearly pay rises in line with inflation, and then you have a review once a year of your performance, and part of that is discussing pay rises - That dosent meen you will get one, but you do if you can justifie it to your boss, with a structure to dispute the outcome if you feel they are being unfair. The only time I havent had this is when I worked in local government.

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