Members may have seen the announcement by Philip Jansen that the company proposes to freeze pay for the second consecutive year. 

This would be a devastating blow to members who have worked so hard over the past year, not only to maintain exceptional levels of business delivery but also to keep the country connected during the pandemic. Furthermore, despite the Chief Executive’s message referring to talks with the union this decision on freezing pay has been taken unilaterally and before any meaningful discussions on the detail of the company’s plans could be held.

You will know that the union recently put forward a pay proposal to BT that was reasonable, responsible and perfectly affordable. Indeed, a 3% award in line with our proposal would have shown that the company truly values our members and their unstinting efforts on behalf of the business. Instead, with BT’s proposals members would see their real terms pay further reduce, particularly as inflation is forecast to rise significantly by the end of the year. Unfortunately, the warm words of the Chief Executive will do nothing to address the fact that in real terms managers would be significantly poorer by June 2022.

Your elected BT Committee will be meeting on Thursday 25 March to discuss our initial response to this provocative move by the company and will be issuing further communications in the next few days. It is clear we will need to be united in our response and we will need to engage all our members in the campaign for fair pay in BT. Therefore, we would encourage members to talk to their colleagues about this issue and to attend our online calls and branch meetings. You can also let the company know how you feel about BT ‘s proposals by leaving a message or joining the debate on our Workplace sites. The campaign and our response to BT will be driven by members and we welcome your support, ideas and help with the campaign for fair pay