Momentum builds in EE

Telecoms & Financial Services, EE December 5 2017

A big new influx of members has been recorded at EE following the latest round of ‘Access Days’ last month, further strengthening the CWU’s resolve to move towards a formal claim for recognition at the BT-owned mobile giant early in the New Year.

Despite management obstruction in Merthyr Tydfil, where access for CWU recruiters was denied following a previous spat with local management – and an extraordinary attempt to disrupt CWU leafleting by an Employee Forum rep in Plymouth which prompted the union to lodge a formal complaint with BT – momentum is building in advance and anticipated claim for recognition early in the New Year.

In a bid to maximise membership levels in advance of that claim being lodged all members across EE have now been written to by the union urging them to ‘talk to 2’ non-members – explaining the role of the union and why the securing of collective bargaining rights holds out the best hope of positive change for employees across EE.

Reinforcing that argument, the CWU has produced a detailed leaflet contrasting negotiated pay rises in BT since 2010 with the consistently lower rises during the same period paid by EE – and efforts are also being made to encourage lapsed members to re-join.

Assistant secretary John East told The Voice: “The message we’re trying to get across to those who’ve not already joined the union is that, instead of asking themselves whether they can spare a relatively small sum for union subs, the bigger picture is whether they can afford to allow a situation to continue where they have no collective say in annual pay rises and terms and conditions.

“Every indication suggests that message is now really hitting home – and, in a perverse way, the difficulties the union faced at Merthyr Tydfil and Plymouth during last month’s Access Days have reinforced the point that the CWU is trying to make that independent unions provide protections and a voice for workers that employee forums simply can’t.

“In Merthyr the refusal of local management to allow us to set up the union’s stall in the canteen prompted us to email all members on the site to explain exactly what had happened – and a subsequent surge of interest, including new people coming forward to be CWU reps, that we’ve received from that site indicates that in this instance heavy-handed local management proved the best possible recruiting sergeant for the CWU!

“Similarly, the reprehensible attempt of an employee forum rep to snatch CWU leaflets out of the hands of an ordinary member who was trying to give them to her friends – and the tussle that followed when our member bravely stood her ground and the employee forum rep then started grabbing leaflets out of the hands of people who’d already taken one – graphically made the case that EE staff need a recognised union in the workplace to look after their interests better than we could ever have done ourselves!”