Capita pay talks loom large amid strong growth in Telefonica and Tesco Mobile

Telecoms & Financial Services November 8 2018

With meetings already in the diary for the Tesco Mobile Capita contract management pay talks – and O2 Capita contract discussions expected to follow on swiftly – assistant secretary Brendan O’Brien is urging members on both contracts to tell their branch reps about their expectations for the 2019 pay round, which becomes due on January 1.

The O2 Capita contract discussions come in the wake of the publication of strong third quarter results by O2, the UK arm of Telefonica, which has seen revenues up 7.9 per cent to £1.5 billion and a net increase of 120,000 customers. The Spanish telecoms group says it now expects full-year revenues to grow by 2 per cent, against the previous forecast of 1 per cent – with the tripling of the previous quarter’s customer base increase (once leavers are taken into account) leaving it with 32.3 million customers in the UK.

Tesco Mobile, meanwhile, has surpassed 5 million customers and was the winner of 2018 USwitch Awards for Best Network for Customer Service.

“It’s clear that both clients are performing very well indeed, and it’s not rocket science to deduce that, if they are expanding, that’s going to impact on the customer service functions provided by CWU members serving on Capita’s O2 and Tesco Mobile accounts,” stresses Brendan

“Put simply, if both the clients are doing well the question has to be asked as to what benefits are going to flow back to those outsourced frontline staff who are clearly delivering great results for their respective client companies.

“That’s going to be a key theme as we enter into this year’s pay round – but it’s also helpful for the CWU negotiating team to have a clear indication of what our members are expecting to come out of the looming talks.

“As such I’d urge members across both Capita accounts to actively engage with the union on this issue by feeding back their expectations, hopes and any other issues they would like brought to the fore in the forthcoming discussions.”

In the first instance, members should feed back this information to their local branch reps.