CWU reassurance on BT jobs
For immediate release
04th May 2018
CWU reassurance on BT jobs
Following the speculation in the FT this morning that BT could cut 6500 of its workforce, the CWU would like to make the following statement.
Commenting on the story, deputy general secretary telecoms & financial services, Andy Kerr said: “The CWU have recently secured a victory in the recent pension discussions with BT, as the talks culminated in a hybrid scheme, providing part defined benefit and part defined contribution for our members, lessening future risk for employees. This was set against the company’s preferred option to do away with defined benefits altogether.
“The CWU continually hold discussions with the company over staffing levels for our represented grades, in particular within customer service and frontline engineering. BT has made it clear to us that they plan major investment in both these areas and have already committed to recruit over 3,000 field engineers in the coming year. As a consequence the recent pension discussions and the securing of a hybrid scheme for CWU grades are completely separate and not in any way linked to the speculation in the press about 6500 job losses. We are therefore confident any job losses will have little impact on CWU represented grades and we welcome BT’s plans to invest and grow in the frontline areas in which our members are mainly employed.”
Notes to editors:
The Communication Workers Union (CWU) is the biggest trade union in the communications industry with 190,000 members in post, telecoms, mobile and financial services companies including Royal Mail Group, Post Office, BT Group, EE, O2 and Santander.
For further comment please contact:
CWU Press Office: 020 8971 7267 / 07793 314249 / pressofficer@cwu.org