back to article BT betters pay offer under strike threat

BT has made another pay offer to the Communications Workers Union (CWU) in the hope of avoiding a strike. As is standard form for industrial disputes, details of a letter sent late last night were leaked to the media this morning. It improves on the two per cent, one year offer rejected by the CWU with the promise of a three …

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  1. G C M Roberts
    FAIL

    Double standards?

    Erm, don't the union bosses make a packet?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Flame

      Tripple standards actually

      Bosses get a pay rise,

      So does unionised labour.

      Non-unionised skilled/specialist labour like software developers, design, architecture, finance, etc get a diddly squat. Doodle on a stick. Nada. Nil. Zilch. Zero pay rise.

      That is all the shareholders need to know about the perspective of BT launching any competitive products anytime soon or being competitive in the long term.

      1. Steen Hive
        FAIL

        Triple standards

        "Non-unionised skilled/specialist labour like software developers, design, architecture, finance, etc get a diddly squat. Doodle on a stick. Nada. Nil. Zilch. Zero pay rise."

        Cry me a river, or join a union.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Not so much...

      Actually, not as much as you might think. Obviously, by our standards, they do, but certainly nowhere near livingstone's level.

  2. PirateSlayer
    Flame

    You're kidding!

    While I sympathise with some of the strikers demands in the BA dispute, this is just opportunism at its worst. It's nice to see Livingston's personality traits rubbing off on its workers: greed and stupidity over business sense.

    This ex public sector dinosaur needs shredding from top to bottom. Where's Fred when you need him?

    I am sure the new phone tax proposed by the outgoing commie government to fun this wreck of a company's fibre infrastructure will come in handy when it comes to paying these underworking dullards more money for the menial tasks they manage to accomplish daily. The 'Performance Related' bonus for BT employees is obviously some kind of sick joke.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Opportunism or asking for a fair deal?

      " this is just opportunism at its worst"

      So, not having any pay rise for 2 years running when inflation was about 2-3% and 5% is opportunism is it?

      When the company made no money last year, we didn't get a rise, fair enough but now Ian's getting a million bonus and the company is swimming in profit, being offered 3% below inflation is just a big "screw you" to the class of employee at BT that actually get their hands dirty doing the work.

      And fyi most of the "underworking dullards" have been made that way by the overweening management bollox that saps the will to live. Hours of mandatory training, deskilling (or no training), expecting people to work at a higher grade than they're paid, making every little £1 bus trip require multiple manager approval, etc. etc...

      On average I expect most employees get through a few hours of real work a week if they're lucky.

      I agree that the whole place needs ripping apart but blame entirely the greed and incompetence of the management on the situation. If the "man in the van" were allowed to unleash his potential BT could be great.

      Before I press "submit" Double check that I am "Anonymous coward" !

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      ignorance at its best!

      underworking dullards. undoubtedly you have no idea how a call centre operates. If you wish to post comments on Bt staff at least make sure you have an insight into the qualifications that BT staff have.

      Your comments are ignorant and offensive. at least make sure that you get your facts right before uttering your menial scribblings to ther public!

  3. Elmer Phud
    IT Angle

    Ah, same old same old

    BT always keep rather quiet about the amount of actual rise those higher up the food chain get.

    They have even done 'across the board' percentage rises but 2% of bugger all is still bugger all and 2% of quite a bit is always quite a bit.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Inflation

    Inflation is running at +5% , all workers should demand this as a minimum. Maybe if the Bank of England wasn't so useless then this would not be required.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Unhappy

      +5?

      Looking at my visa statement it is more like chasing 10%.

  5. rhydian

    A strike at BT? Who'd notice?

    BT openworld chaps with vans are a bloody handy lot in fairness. Unfortunately BT's impenetrable customer dis-service operations mean you can't get hold of them for love nor money. I doubt the strike will be noticed, just a lengthening of the usual support wait from two weeks to four...

    1. momba

      woah hold on there buddy!!!!

      BUT, what about the commitment BT staff have made over the past 2 years; voluntarily sliding shift times, large changes to shift patterns, taking a cut in salary for the past 2 years and clawing BT's name out of the dirt for using inferior standard software and horrific managerial decisions that have caused an increase in customer disatisfaction in all retail areas.

      Call centre staff have bent over backwards for BT over the past 2 years; to help the company retain its profit value. Some of the regulations that have ben put in place, are frankly ridiculous! Do you know that a call centre worker is now trained to apologise before the customer even advises what their call is about due to poor working standards and un qualified managers, sub standard systems that fail continually!

      5% is a fair and reasonable increase. Its the wokers that bear the brunt of public disatisfaction while higher management; and in some cases lower management reap the profits of a seriously miss managed blue chip company!!!

    2. momba

      you would notice

      If the polite call centre staff you get through to in the UK took that kind of approach on a daily basis you would have had a rather more unpleasant experience than you have obviously already had. blame the higher management decisions and poor systems that BT have employeed over the past 4 years for your poor experience - not the workers; who are more than less educated to a degree standard, but cant get jobs anywhere else due to the crippling economy!

      the poor public seem to think that turning on a broadband connection is the switch of a button, and, hey ho, theres your internet connection. get real and dont comment on what you seemingly know nothing about!!

      1. rhydian

        A clarification

        I've nothing against the call centre STAFF, rather the SYSTEMS they're a part of. I work with BT nearly every day covering offices over a wide area, each one connected using BT wholesale supplied broadband and using BT phone switches and ISDN lines. When you get bounced from one call centre to the other for a simple query because business faults aren't dealt with by xyz call centre but rather centre 123, who pass you over to ISDN faults which is 456 and so on it does get demoralising. By the time you've got hold of someone with authority to dispatch an engineer your phone switch is so old sales are trying to sell you a new one...

        And broadband being a switch of a button? How is it then that when we had a go-live date of the 20th of may for our ADSL line it still didn't work four days later but worked 10 minutes after we flagged down a passing BT van and asked the chap to punch the pair up to the right connection strip at the exchange?

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

          1. rhydian

            Lucky enough?

            "fact that you were lucky enough to flag down an openreach engineer, who took the time to go to the exchange and correct your faulty line is fantastic"

            OK, so we managed to get the line activated eventually, but your missing the point that we wouldn't have had to do that if BT had done the job right in the first place and instructed the engineer themselves to do the job on time. This line was for a festival, and was one of several booked to be ADSL enabled for a two week period.Our line was activated, I can't remember if our wireless mesh suppliers' lines (2 of) or the TV company (1of) were ever activated. One was given an activation date of the 16th of June, very handy when everything had to be de-rigged and off site by the sixth...

            Fact is BT still act like they're a monopoly, which to be fair in most of the country they still are. They get away with their 1980s SLA (Voice and fax/dialup is all they legally have to supply, if their lines are faulty or they've multiplexed you with next door and you can't get ADSL then tough) while knowing full well if they bugger it up totally then the government will have to bail them out.

            1. momba

              to correct you again !

              Im not missing the point and there is no arguement here. i support what your saying with regards to terrible service.What i'm trying to explain to youself and the general public is that we have NO control over anything that the engineers do, NOR does any supplier. We cant simply call an engineer and INSTRUCT him/her to carry out our demands! and BT Retail does not have priority over BTOR as is thought by many out in the public domain!

              We are basically at the mercy of what the engineers decide or dont decide to do. it seems to be a massive misconception, that because OR have 'BT' plastered all over their vans that its BT Retail that are responsible for them. Would you call Virgin mobile to complain about cancelled flights with Virgin airlines due to Volcanic ash!!!!

              thought so!

              Same concept!

        2. momba

          the touch of a button!

          Firstly you are commenting from a business point of view. BT business and BT retail are 2 different entities. Customers with BT business pay slightly more for a superb repair diagnostic service. BT retail customers are given reduced priority due to the legal implications of lost revenue caused by downtime for a business customer compared to the downtime of a residential customer for missing a daily fix of springwatch.

          The fact that you were lucky enough to flag down an Openreach engineer, who took the time to go to the exchange and correct your faulty line is fantastic. I hope your business is booming in this economic disaster.

          Unfortunately the power is in the hands of BTOR & BTW.

          Bear in mind though that, BT Retail, as do all service providers, have to go through the same order processing. as your into BT jargon FYI - we use software that requires ISDN line checks, ADSL line checks and precise address matching systems. These orders are processed through not only BT Retail systems but Bt wholesale and BT Openreach systems as well. this is the same for all sp's!

          Customers can only be given the information that comes back from both BTW & BTOR at the point their order is placed.

          Delays/Failures and cancellations most often occur from BTW and BTOR after order confirmation from said sp. And remember that BTOR & BTW serve the whole industry!!

          now that thats explained!

          to get back to the forums context:

          The fact still remains that BT are refusing to pay their employees the correct amount for the job that they have to endure on a daily basis. Dont get me wrong, conversing with the public isn't all bad and is very rewarding at times, but, its the continual errors with systems that are never corrected that cause frustration, stress and the need for employees to respond to these posts

  6. Rogerborg

    Time to rewarm this chestnut

    If BT goes on strike, it could cause millions of pounds of improvements to the network.

  7. King Jack
    Thumb Up

    BT Engineers

    I had noise on my line, and reported it to my phone company (not BT). The every next day a BT engineer turned up, I mean before 9 in the morning. They traced the fault to an old wall socket. I was back online by 9:40. Give them the money I say. They seem to have changed for the better.

    This is not the BT I remember, these guys were good. No complaints from me.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      your the lucky one

      your lucky that Openreach even turned up! they usually dont or blame the service provider for missed appointments when its their systems that have caused complaints. please remember that BT Openreach are in no way a part of BT Retail.

      Its the same as phoning virgin mobile and asking for a flight to the USA

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    public dissatisfaction

    Do non BT employees even have the scope to realise what ridiculous working practices that higher management have put in place to stop the rot of the awfull service that customers receive on a daily basis? i am degree qualified and cannot get a job in my profession due to the current climate and terrible borrowing that has left this country in a multi billion deficit.

    A 5% pay rise is a small amount to ask to put up with the rubbish that we have to deal with. the average joe thinks that BB can be activated by the push of a button - oh i wish that were the case!!! if it was and it all worked perfectly in a perfect world, call centres would not be needed - get a grip customers of BT.

    from a revenue point of sense, most of the ignorant comments on here dont make any!!!!!!!!!!

    DO YOU think BT would realistically NOT want to get customers connected. From a company profit evaluation it makes no sense why we would do this - I presume that not many people can comprehend this due to the lack of intelligence shown in the unfounded and ignorant comments posted on this page. millions are paid out to customers that have had failed orders due to miss managed process' and inadequate software - NOT the advisors that answer the horrible calls fault. please think about what your commenting about before you DO!

  9. OneTwoThreeFour
    IT Angle

    I think the problem is

    Many people are being made redundant/having their hours cut/having their pay cut and therefore for BT employees to reject a 2% rise followed by a 3% rise + bonus payments seems a bit...

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