Full union recognition for outsourced BT Facilities Services workers

Telecoms & Financial Services March 28 2019

A comprehensive union recognition agreement will ensure continuing first-class representation for approximately 1,000 security and housekeeping employees set to be ‘TUPEd’ from BT Facilities Services to service provider ISS on April 1.

Following senior-level talks between the CWU and the company, the deal was jointly signed by assistant secretary Sally Bridge for the union and ISS key account director Mikkel Knudsen.

The controversial outsourcing – which the CWU campaigned against in its high-profile EndGame campaign – is due to take effect on this coming Monday and Sally and her team have moved fast to secure the best possible arrangements for these workers.

Sally said: “Our priority has had to be to work as hard as we can to ensure these members retain full collective bargaining rights and union protection.”

And an important achievement in this recognition deal is the recognition by ISS that all new recruits to the company, who are taken on to service the BT contract, will also be fully covered by CWU.

In a joint public statement this morning, Sally said that the CWU “welcomes the fact that ISS has moved swiftly to conclude a comprehensive recognition agreement covering not just the existing BT Facilities Services workforce transferring into the company, but also new joiners taken on to service the BT contract in future.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that this clear signal of ISS’s willingness to work constructively with the CWU places us in a good position to start our future relationship,” she continued.

And Mr Knudsen, speaking for ISS, said in the statement: “It is great that we have managed to establish common ground so quickly through the recognition agreement and I look forward to be working with Sally and the team to ensure the best possible working environment for the entire team on the BT Contract.

“I think we all recognise there are a lot of areas to work through, so it is really positive we can do this within an agreed framework that promote an open exchange of views,” he added.