Louise Nousratpour, in Bournemouth
Wednesday May 26, 2010
The Morning Star
More than 55,000 BT workers could walk out on strike next month unless the telecoms giant bows to their demands and improves its "derisory" pay offer.
Communication Workers Union delegates voted unanimously on Wednesday to give BT until June 4 before serving formal legal notice to bosses of the union's intention to ballot for industrial action.
The decision came just hours after BT's annual financial report revealed that its chief executive Ian Livingstone and three other directors had raked in bonuses totalling £2.7 million last year.
More than 1,000 delegates crowded into the Bournemouth conference hall to hear impassioned speeches calling for a united stance to see the fight through.
The CWU postal members took the unusual step of suspending their sectional conference nearby and joined fellow telecoms delegates in a defiant show of solidarity and strength.
Opening the charged debate, deputy general secretary for telecoms Andy Kerr said that he had "no doubt in my mind that we will win this fight," evoking a standing ovation.
Mr Kerr attacked the company's "double-standard" attitude to pay as it emerged that Mr Livingstone had received a bonus of £1.2 million last year on top of a salary of £860,000.
Company chairman Sir Michael Rake pocketed £670,000 last year for doing part-time work and former Labour Cabinet minister Patricia Hewitt, who is a BT director, was paid £128,000.
Mr Kerr argued that the union's 5 per cent pay claim accounted for a fraction of BT's £1bn profit in 2009 - up from a loss of £244 million previously.
"With a pay freeze last year and inflation now running at 5.3 per cent, BT's attitude to pay is insulting and the staff deserve more," he charged.
Members have already rejected the company's 2 per cent pay offer, arguing that it amounts to a cut and will have a detrimental impact on their pension.
CWU telecoms executive member Alan Eldred said: "They're offering us a pay cut and we're not having it."
East Midlands branch delegate Linda Woodings said that members' goodwill gestures last year to forgo a pay rise in light of BT's heavy losses had been rewarded with "a kick in the teeth."
She vouched for her branch members that "they will walk," not just over pay but in protest at "a workplace tyranny which has left them with a sense of aggrievement and mutiny."
Croydon South London delegate Steve Browett said that members were fed up with bosses' divide-and-rule tactics to break the union.
"When you keep kicking a sleeping dog, don't be surprised when the dog wakes up and bites you in the backside," he said to roaring laughter.
A BT spokesman insisted on Wednesday: "We have made the CWU a very fair offer."
And in a provocative move that laid bare BT's unwillingness to return to negotiation, the company confirmed that it has put contingency plans in place to deal with a possible walkout.
BT has asked its managers to provide details of their skills with a view to mobilising a scab workforce in case of a strike.
The last time BT workers walked out was in 1987 - three years after it was privatised.
louise@peoples-press.com
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