The BT staff have voted for their first national strike in 35 years, which is expected to affect customers across the country with broadband services installed or faults fixed.
The trade union organising the ballot said that BT customers can expect disruption to services, including repairs, having new phone and internet lines fitted or getting hold of support staff, because of the strike by BT engineers and call centre staff.
The Communication Workers Union CWU represents about 40,000 of the company's 100,000 workers, over pay as the cost of living soars, according to the UK's largest telecoms company.
This is an incredible result that has been achieved despite a culture of fear imposed by senior BT management, said Dave Ward, General Secretary at the CWU, who said the result represents the first UK-wide call centre strike in British history.
This proves beyond any doubt that no worker in the UK is unreachable, that all workers are ready to stand up and fight for higher pay and in some cases better conditions. The ballot of staff at the BT subsidiary Openreach, which maintains the UK's internet infrastructure, resulted in a 75% turnout among 28,425 members with 95.8% voting for industrial action.
Among the CWU employees employed by BT, including more than 10,000 call centre staff, turnout was 58.2% with 91.5% voting in favor.
The vote of members at EE, the mobile operator that was acquired by BT in 2015, did not reach the 50% turnout required to make the vote valid. The CWU said that the 2,000 members who voted were just 8 short of the number required, with 95.8% in favor of striking.
Ward gave the company until the end of next week to respond to an ultimatum from BT bosses to return to the negotiating table with an improved offer or be served notice of industrial action. The earliest a strike can be called is 14 days after BT is served notice.
If a strike goes ahead, you can't underplay the significance, said Ward. These workers are responsible for the maintenance and roll out of the UK's broadband infrastructure. There are also key contracts with government agencies, security agencies that manage those contracts. The goal is to reach a fair settlement with the company. A spokesman for Openreach, who employs more than 35,000 staff, said the company has contingency plans in place in case of a strike.
He said that we tried and tested processes for large scale colleague absences to minimize any disruption for our customers. We proved this during the epidemic and as a precaution we are ready to do the same again if industrial action goes ahead. We will do everything we can to keep our customers connected. In April, BT gave 58,000 workers a 1,500 pay rise that it said was its biggest award in two decades. The CWU, which is pushing for a 10% rise at BT as inflation hit a 40 year high of 9.1% last month, called it insulting and a relative pay cut BT s chief executive Philip Jansen, who received a 32% pay rise last year to 3.5 million due to bonuses and share awards, said the company can't afford to sweeten its staff deal. BT made almost 2 billion dollars in profits for the year to the end of March, with shareholders receiving 700 m in dividends.
Ward accused BT and other telecom companies of profiting by putting up prices for consumers by up to 10% earlier this year, when inflation was around 5% and has since gone up to 9.1%.
A spokesman for BT said that our job is to balance the competing demands of BT Group stakeholders and that requires careful management, especially in a challenging economic environment. The result of the CWU's ballot is a disappointment.