BT Fleet
The Officer responsible for BT Fleet is Grace
Mitchell, CWU Assistant Secretary.
Grace's PA is Imelda Holmes who can be contacted at iholmes@cwu.org.
A team of Nationally elected officials drawn from each constituency (Clerical and Engineering) support the Officer on BT Fleet matters. They are:
- Steve Catterall
- Jeffrey Till
- Beryl Shepherd
BT Fleet is BT's motor vehicle fleet maintenance, purchase and disposal arm. It became a wholly-owned subsidiary within the BT Group on 1 June 2002 to enable it to recover VAT on all vehicle services transactions, thereby making a key contribution to profitability in a way that was impossible while it was part of a Telecommunications company.
Under Project Griffin, BT Fleet conducted a search for a long term strategic partner.
At the end of 2002, the company invited the union to discussions about how an in-house solution could be developed in an environment where at least three external bids had been received for the sale of BT Fleet Ltd.
Following intensive negotiations and consultation with lay representatives, an agreement was reached in December which protected job security, basic pay and terms and conditions in return for increased opening hours and a more flexible approach to resourcing.
A three month implementation phase ran until the end of March 2003 during which detailed discussions took place, with lay representatives on the negotiating team, to agree new attendance patterns.
These new attendance patterns were implemented from 6 May 2003 and are currently being assessed by both the union and the company in terms of their effectiveness and fitness for purpose.
A key part of the deal was that the BT board committed to not revisiting the question of the sale of BT Fleet Ltd for at least four years. CWU regard the ability to prevent the sale of BT Fleet as a significant success.
The main issue of attendance patterns would have emerged irrespective of the ownership, given changes in EU regulations around the "block exemption" - the relationship between motor manufacturers and authorised dealers.
Any queries on BT Fleet should be addressed to: iholmes@cwu.org
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CWU Organising Department,
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