Northern Ireland visit tackles the key issues
1st February 2013
Core union concerns such as pay, staffing and leave topped
the agenda when CWU assistant secretary John East,
accompanied by Telecoms Executive members Simon Trim and Tom
Cooper, visited CWU members and branch officials in Northern
Ireland.
The whistle-stop tour at the end of January, started off at the
Fujitsu factory in Antrim, at a meeting organised
by lead rep Stuart Dawkins. Production workers there raised issues
around staffing levels, work allocation and forthcoming pay
discussions. Members were insistent that they wanted a consolidated
pay rise after having to accept an extra day of leave instead last
year. A subsequent meeting will consider what that claim should be.
At Virgin Media, members and branch
officials debated the union's fight against the company's
shocking derecognition of the CWU in November, strongly backing any
campaign to force VM to recognise the CWU again. Members felt
Virgin had already moved the goalposts on the previously agreed
"Aspire" scheme for grading advancement of Network
Engineers, setting arbitrary limits on who can progress to higher
grades, regardless of performance. They also reported a lack of
progress on agreed processes to allow engineers and technicians to
take lunch breaks, or hand work back at the end of the day when
overloaded. Members agreed to feed in ideas for campaigning issues
to boost membership.
At the BT Fleet workshop in Mollusk, working
practices, training, resource levels and allocated task times
headed the bill. At a brief meeting organised by rep Robert Clarke,
rumours of shift changes and the ability to take annual leave were
of particular concern. John and Simon agreed to raise all these
issues with senior management and report back.
Local rep Steve Palmer set up a further meeting
where BT Supply Chain drivers, stores hub staff and testing staff
wanted to discuss a major concern over the reliance on agency
staff. While the union accepts that in certain circumstances agency
workers are needed, it stresses that they should be fairly treated,
and BT should not be abusing union agreements by having a permanent
shadow workforce. Some members said they had worked for BT for
years as agency employees before getting a contract and, the volume
of work remaining high, it was clear that the six agency staff in
the depot should be employees. John will raise matter this once
again at the next meeting with the company.
John also informed members there that he had raised recent
rumours about testers being transferred to BT Fleet. As a result,
the company has put out a briefing clarifying that although this
was being considered, no decision had yet been taken, and would not
be taken without full consultation with the CWU.
The visit to Northern Ireland ended with an extremely lively branch
meeting where, following a hotly contested vote, members elected
their delegates to Conference and decided on the propositions they
would submit.
To find out more about CWU work in telecommunication companies in Northern Ireland contact the Northern Ireland Telecoms branch.
