Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...ve-pay-bonuses

BT is facing a walkout by more than half of its staff after delegates at the Communication Workers Union annual conference voted unanimously this afternoon to ballot members about launching the first national strike to hit the company since 1987.

The union, which has rejected an offer of a 2% pay rise and is pushing for 5%, has set management a deadline of midday on 4 June to come up with a revised pay deal or it will vote on industrial action.

The news came as it emerged that BT's chief executive, Ian Livingston, saw his bonus more than triple last year, taking his total pay package, including shares, to more than £3m.


so what do you think do they have a good reason to strike or should they accept 2% ??

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

they should strike. I am sick and fed up with fat cats like this getting rediculas pay packets and the workers who afterall keep the company going cuz without them well its game over aint it. It does extract the urine.

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

BT have shed 1/5th of their staff in a bid to get profitable and still have a massive pension deficit to deal with. It should be noted that while the bonuses at the top are a big headline maker they are performance related and 10s of thousands of BT staff received performance related bonuses.

A lot of employees aren't getting big payrises this year. Sadly the public sector and ex-public sector are, as ever, keen to go whine to the unions and go on strike.

No they aren't justified to go on strike. There are very few reasons to go on strike. If they think they're worth more money, perks, benefits and pension rewards than they are getting at BT they can go work elsewhere.

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

I agree with the first part of your post but Ive never understood the mentality behind statements like the last sentence. Where else would they work doing the job that they are trained to do? If workers and the unions didnt push for better pay etc do you just think management would just give a pay rise every year?

Im making a very big assumption here and theres no offence whatsoever intended but I think I read that you fall in to the high tax bracket so maybe you dont have the same worries etc that the BT workers have and unless you work at BT how could you know that there are very few reasons to go on strike? You obviously hate unions (I dont know if thats politically motivated) and probably dont have the need to be in one but they have always done right by me and they are there to stick up for the workers so they dont get trampled on.

Im not attacking you I just dont understand comments like that

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

I get a pay rise every year and don't need a union to push for it for me so I have no idea what you're referring to there. It's not a requirement, you just need to be valuable enough to the employer that it is worth their while improving your pay to retain your services.

Regarding what they're trained to do, BT aren't the only telco in the world and if they are only capable of working for one company it's their problem they have so few options.

I think unions are a relic of a bygone era that act as a comfort blanket for those who think they are entitled to a job for life with one company and who are too lazy / insecure / indifferent to risk changing their employer so the union tries to change their job.

If they don't have the skills to get another job which is better paid, then bluntly that is the going rate for their skills and they can either upgrade or add additional ones or deal with it.

Perhaps I'm just fortunate that I'm evidently coming from an alternative viewpoint where my employer compensates me in order to retain their services as they don't want to lose me rather than being of the opinion that I'm easy to replace and they don't care.

Unions aren't there to stick up for the workers they are there to keep the fat arse socialists that run them in jobs. They look for disharmony in workforces and need to amplify it in order to justify their existence and give them things to do. When they ballot their members for strikes they are actively campaigning for staff to strike and are all too happy to give them disinformation in order to get their way. In addition their political influence over the Labour party is, in a modern democracy, totally distasteful. Having the second largest political party in the country in the pocket both financially and in terms of voting power in internal decisions of bodies with so little relevance to modern Britain is, again, totally distasteful.

Unions should have been gotten rid of once the actual reason for their existence, getting basic rights for workers, was enshrined in law. There was a time when unions actually gave two hoots about society at large, these days they just seem to look for ways to keep themselves busy by causing society grief. Can I also point out that virtually all the union related grief stems from public sector or formerly public sector employers.

Either way a lot of people are getting zero payrise again this year. Times are hard, BT themselves only made profits through cost cutting. Many are fine with it if it guarantees a job next year, though of course for the unions and their members this isn't good enough.

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

I can see some things I disagree with there but I'll reply when Im not typing on a ps3, just dont want you to think I've scarpered :) Finally a debate where Im not out of my depth :p:

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

all this from the guy with how many zeros???

Sorry dude but you are not working class you may have worked your way through working class but from how you post you seem to forget what it was like being there.

You mention fat arsed socialists what about fat arsed capitalists? if anything I would say they could be worse

The class system ( which does still exist in this country irrelevant of what el gov think) needs all levels to work. Without the working class who would empty your bins? clean your water? do all the menial jobs that need the bottom end to do or the country would be knee deep in real crap instead of the proverbial

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

here's a thought
if BT do go on strike what happens to the switch equipment at VM as its BT that maintain it these days so if the system x goes faulty there would be no one to fix it ,as the people who used to fix it were transferred to bt .

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

No I'm afraid I don't forget - my attitude was the same then too. I moved from one job to another when I felt I could get a better deal. I had no involvement whatsoever with trade unions at any point, relied purely on myself for my own working relations.

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

That's the way the world works.
I'm sure if you were a 'fat cat' you'd want to be paid more than your employees too ;)

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

If we're playing that game without the 'management' class who would be running these companies, opening new ones, investing and putting up the capital?

Overpaying workers causes inflation, inflation is not nice. Upsetting shareholders and investors makes capital harder to raise.

I didn't get 5% this year and my company had a record year both in terms of revenue and profit with zero pension deficit.

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

what do you think employing workers who think they are undervalued and underpaid causes? This isn't my full reply btw just had to ask :) Depends on what you class as overpaid but its my opinion better pay=more productivity and appreciation of the job

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

Essentially that would be the banks - the ones we all own.

Which isn't helped by the attitude of the banks - the ones we all own.

Join a union. ;)

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

That would be the shareholders, which would include far more than just the partly nationalised banks ;)


Irresponsibility and being too relaxed got them into the mess, wouldn't want them to get back into trouble by not being suitably controlled with their extension of capital again now would we?

For banks to do well they must invest properly and wisely, so if companies aren't running efficiently they are obliged to invest in better run companies to get a better return for their own shareholders - us the taxpayers.

It seems a bit odd to suggest that the banks that are largely owned by the tax payer should invest in less efficient companies so that they'll pay their staff more. Strikes me as suggesting the public as a whole should subsidise unionised workers. We already do that quite enough to the detriment of their non-unionised industry colleagues.

I did - and the union of one (me) was perfectly content as he received performance related bonus and everything was in line with the industry rather than being a random figure picked out of the union's rectum.

It could be worse. My union of one could have been the same union that took lower pay rises for other members in other companies this year while complaining about this one not compensating for inflation and ignoring that the employees of this particular company already receive higher pay and better perks than others in the industry.

Same syndrome as BA really, striking despite being better paid and having better perks than those who aren't ex-public sector.

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

Dude, You`ve changed since you used to be `Broadbandings`.:erm:

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

Yes, however over 80% of certain banks are owned by unwilling shareholders as opposed to voluntary / speculative shareholders. There is no point / little comfort in using the term "partly nationalised" as this is part of the old school labour spin. The fact is the banks are in a pit of poo which they are not about to get out of any time soon and they face further dilemmas in the very near future.


I think you are missing the points I was trying to make.

You, as an individual, are entirely entitled not to join or support a union. That right does not, however, obviate the democratic rights of others to collectively exercise their democratic right to do so and to exercise whatever (legal) action they might deem necessary to secure their rights / employment.

Never assume the unions are working to an anti-government or anti competitive agenda.

Bear in mind that if unions fought for their membership and their membership only then certain economic ideals would be realized even quicker than the coalition could hope for in that they (industry / government) could cut (streamline) workforces as they saw fit and the remaining (unionised) workforces would be forced to prove themselves more productive with the overall wage defecit spread over a shorter (unionised) base.

I see from your info that you are 31. As such your entire working life experience since reaching voting age has, with the exception of the past two weeks, taken place under what can only be described as a disasterous labour administration. On that premise I think I'm fairly safe in assuming that you have little or no real recollection of the Thatcher era and the policies of the then day.

You have a lot of unlearning to do, believe me. What lies ahead for Britain under the tory / lib dem coalition (through no fault of their own I hasten to add) will cause catastrophic implosions in all sectors of all industries. People who currently believe there is no "use" or "need" for a union or their participation in one are about to embark on a very steep learning curve.

As for the being "shareholders" (and in some cases majority shareholders) of certain high street banks the fact is that the tax payers needlessly propped up banks which otherwise would have failed.

Any assertion that banks that are largely owned by the tax payer should invest in less efficient companies so that they'll pay their staff more is no more ludicrous than proposing to bail out the very same banks in the first place because of their fiscal ineptitude and greed and their continued wanting to reward failure at your / my / our collective expense.

"What's good for the goose.....". etc.

I've really no wish, nor indeed the energy nor compunction, to get into this discussion other than to reiterate that people have a democratic right to be unionised and any move to forsake that democratic right for future generations just because the country has been dragged into the financial gutter by the actions of an industry fuelled by greed and which continues to show little or no compassion for its customers / saviours (as opposed to savers) would be a very, very foolish sacrifice to make.

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

I assume that the unions are anti-everything that doesn't fit their ideology or aims. Seeing a union poster pre-election threatening Tory cuts was quite enough to indicate an agenda, along with their being the major funder of the Labour party.

There's a nice load of cash in union chests for a PR offensive against the current government.

I'm unsure that I see what your point is with this paragraph. I can easily imagine this being a nightmare rather than doing the coalition or industry any favours. A fully unionised workforce has little incentive to be productive knowing they can rely on collective bargaining to ensure that they work less and are paid more than non-unionised workers.

Looking back on history the unions caused catastrophic economic issues in the not that distant past. Their mandate is to totally ignore everything bar what they want for their members which will inevitably cause intense friction and social unrest in its' own right.

It should be noted that unions financially propped up said disastrous administration and are its' largest donor by some way now, it being very clear to almost everyone bar unions that they are totally inept. The opinion of at least two of the unions is that no-one loses their jobs and we all pay a little more tax. Great plan.

Likewise "Two wrongs don't make a right.".

I want us, the taxpayer, to get our money back, with interest from the banks as quickly as is feasible. I have no interest at all in seeing the banks propping up companies so that they can pay their unionised workers more, I see that as grossly unfair on everyone who isn't unionised. We already historically pay more for our goods and services thanks to union powered wage inflation.

I agree unionisation is a right, however I also think that a lot of reform is needed. The BA strike - striking due to not receiving a perk that isn't on any contract at the same level as before is ridiculous.

Unions meddle in politics at will, own the second largest party, and increasingly seem set on having public sector and ex-public sector business employees strike at a whim.

I'm frankly sick of these guys holding using us to blackmail their employers into giving them what they want. From BA to that communist twit Bob Crow and his crew through to this. No doubt Crow's cronies will be blackmailing London for a load more money and holiday around the 2012 Olympics, as those 7 weeks of paid leave per year clearly aren't enough, BA's overpaid (over double Virgin) cabin crews will continue to strike at times which cause maximum disruption, and if the BT staff strike it'll be us again that suffer.

My opinion has always been, and remains, that if you don't like your job get another one or deal with it, it's not rocket science. Unions are a throwback to that state of mind that largely only exists in the public sector and ex-public sector of a job for life.

Of course purely my opinion.

---------- Post added at 23:45 ---------- Previous post was at 23:44 ----------

Indeed, I grew up ;)

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

and became a distant memory :)

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Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

Too tired and too little time to contribute too much of a constructive nature too this thread.

However, Broadbandings, your hijacking of a thread on a subject you clearly don't get is a bit disappointing. You contribute massively to this forum but let yourself down greatly by the thatcherite, daily mail, Rupert Murdoch ramblings you have offered so far in this thread.

I'll be the first to admit that the Trade Union movement has had many moments in the past that have been shameful. Those of us who can see beyond that know that the contribution Unions made, and continue to make, to the conditions that we are all subjected to in our working life more than makes up for that.

I'd be very surprised if some of the disputes that fee paying trade unionists have had to suffer in the past haven't improved your lot. Perhaps, not as much as the imperialists of the past, but certainly with less bloodshed. ;)

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

Hmm I had a long reply preplanned but with the recent posts thats gone out the window. Heres my comparison that MAY relate to you, my Mum and sister are both Conveyancers/property lawyers. They get head hunted, get to negotiate pay and conditions and if they dont like it they can do as you say and go elsewhere. They do well out of it but if you are part of a huge workforce of for example 8000 engineers all doing the same job then what are you to do to get better pay/terms? No matter what you think of unions its the members that make up the union, its the members that vote. Members arent stupid, you can say all you want about unions twisting things to push things their way, its no different to the run up to an election.
The difference is if you are an expert in your field and hold a job of your own, you have more opportunities, the general workforce of big companies dont have that luxury

Forgetting all the union/politics side of everything, in answer to the thread, I can see BT workers point of view. I think it was yourself that mentioned big staff cuts, yet this guy is paid £3M? You being a Tory guy and with Cameron taking a pay cut to show he his serious Im surprised you havent been a little more sympathetic towards the BT workers.

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

Did you grow up, or did you stop caring?

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

Its turning in to somewhat of an Iggy bashing thread but I must admit this just reinforces my view that the better off you are the more you stop caring about other people. I know if I win the lottery i wont end up that way, whenever I daydream about winning the first thing I think about is who I will spend it on :D

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

Careful now. You'll be branded a champagne Socialist!!! ;)

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

If I may - I'm a union rep for a very good trade union working in a communications sector. I'm in my 20s, so if you wouldn't mind not going on about "job for life" stuff, I'd appreciate it; I didn't buy into a job for life, but I did buy into one where when we made an agreement as employees with the company we work for, they'd stick to it.

I'm not going to go into anything further detail as to what part of the comms sector I work in, but put it this way, the local management in the company I work for recently decided it didn't like a perk that was part of an agreement that the COMPANY put forward 18 months beforehand. It was costing them too much money in the sense that their own cost-cutting performance related incentives may be affected. It's a VERY profitable company.

The BA situation is slightly different in that BA have got themselves into an idiotic situation where they're uncompetitive, however, they nonetheless have an obligation to their employees.

Ignitionnet - as you've clearly never been exposed to the relevant employment laws, you might not understand that the law of this country dictates that contracts are not only explicit but also contain implied terms.

Implied terms are those that have been negotiated or put in place outside of the usual terms of the contract. Your usual terms may include 25 days leave and a salary, but will not include things like share incentives or perks provided due to the relevant sector you're in (i.e. travel perks in the travel sector).

So, in summary, what the BA staff want is their contractual benefits reinstating. Before you try and tell people they're not contractually binding, you might want to understand what you're taking about, if I may be so blunt!

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

They all get paid more than me, and I haven't had a payrise in 4 years...my wage is edging closer and closer to minimum wage but there's no point in fighting for a lost cause. The only way you can better yourself is by going elsewhere, which is exactly what I'm trying to do. You don't see me calling strike action on Mr Neil, because at the end of it all you are a number that can be easily replaced - much like these guys, where I for one would jump at the chance to get their wages instead.

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

I'm aware of this, duty of trust and confidence, but thank you for the reminder. I'll wait and see the result of the legal case on this matter before I agree, as of now it is not a contractual perk. I do see a case Unite brought against BA earlier this year about cabin crew cuts, which they lost, so evidently they don't have that strong an aversion to legal action.

The opinions of other BA staff on this matter are quite amusing.

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

Inflammatory statements like the above do absolutely nothing to contribute to a balanced and fair debate, its the same sort of dogma you can read in the Daily Hate everyday.
I was a member of SLADE aka the print union for years, and at times they were very helpful indeed, to make a blanket claim that union members are lazy and insecure is not only pathetic but downright bloody offensive. I have never expected a job for life from any firm if ever worked for, far from it, I spent my career seeing if other print firms in my area can offer better prospects or conditions, aided I might add from the union.
As mentioned above you make some very good contributions to all sorts of threads ignitionet, but as soon as you get on subjects like the market you defer to plain old dogma each time, dogma that would make Norman Tebbitt blush.

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

Everyones entitled to an opinion. Personally I'm siding with Ignitionnet on this one.

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

if the exec came out and said I will take 2% and 'no' bonus, I would say they been silly.

but hes got a monster bonus and that is clearly going to upset the workforce when they dont get the same. By accepting the bonus he has created a us and them feeling in the company, instead of the we all a team.

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

Agreed - all should share the burden.

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

it does cause inflation but also printing money and low interest rates raises inflation.

so why are we trying to curb inflation with wage rises but letting it go up elsewhere? the result is wage rises that are below inflation and a poorer population.

I do agree with some of your points, I think the weak link here is the ceo accepting the large bonus. If he turned it down then I expect the pay deal would have been quietly accepted. If I was running a company and just accepted a 3million bonus, I wouldnt be able to keep a straight face when telling the workers they had to live with 2%.

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

Isn't comparing the proposed basic wage rise for a group of workers in one part of a business to the contractual bonus structure of another worker erroneous?

Maybe the CEO is only going to get a 2% wage rise too?

Maybe other BT employees also received contractual bonuses?

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

It seems they are.

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

yes I did read the article, some employees did get their own bonuses.

I am not going on about if its fair or not, I cant possibly comment on that as I am not privy to what the employees contracts are.

My point is the ceo just creating ill feeling in his company at a time when he is closing the purse strings. In his position he would have done better to refuse the bonus, or at least defer it.

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

He has turned down 2/3rds of his proposed increase. He is due a 6% rise but is only accepting 2%, the rest going to charity.

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

One of the reason i left the cwu was a conversation i had with a union rep. He was talking about support for the union within VM and that as soon as they had enough support they wanted to show VM who's boss !. So that will be BT and VM they are going to try and destroy.

Unions are too much trouble these days.

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

BT may have shed loads of staff to get profitable but their customer service is going down the pan now as there isn't enough experienced staff out in the field. More & more faults are tasked out by robots resulting in the more complicated ones being unresolved for ages with the buck being passed from one section to another, the few staff that are left are being run ragged. Also they didn't get any pay rise last year.

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

Neither did I, or the year before that and my company is turning a good profit. They should just get over themselves and accept what they have been offered.

If i was offered 2% I would.

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

Strange that earlier this year the very same CWU recommended only a 2% pay increase for Virgin Media members.

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

Seems like employers don't wish to share their profits with the employees then.

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

Isn't it...

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

Directors are employees too.

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

maybe thw cwu boss has a crappy long BT line :rolleyes:

ok its me Im the head of cwu *hides*

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

If I was getting a seven figure bonus I'd happily accept a 0% pay rise, every year, for the rest of my working life.

It is not erroneous when the bonus is more than a lot of people earn in a lifetime.

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

So you'd agree then Derek that any officers in your nick or in the country who take an interest in the police federation are, "lazy, insecure and indifferent to risk"??
As you say everybody's entitled to their opinion, even if it is downright offensive dogma, but I take issue with these "ignorant" claims being laid at my door or in fact at the vast majority of working men/women who belong to a union.
Frankly I thought you were more fair minded Derek.

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

Nope as the Police Federation is slightly different in that it can't call for strike action. :)

That's a massive simplification but some unions have gone too far and seem to take delight into running certain companies into the ground.

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

Strikes are called for by union members. It's a long process with many checks and balances in place to ensure that strike action is the only remaining action. The vast majority of negotiations between an employer and a Union don't lead to industrial action, nor even the threat of it, so the comparison to the Police Federation is valid.
Strikes are very costly to Trade Unions so you're wrong to think that Unions want to take strikes with the purpose of running any company into the ground.

You're a clever man Derek. How does a Union win by running a company into the ground. A business being run into the ground will inevitably lead to redundancies.Members losing their jobs means lost revenue for the Union.:confused: That's not a definition of the word victory I'm familiar with

If you think that Trade Union members are like Turkeys voting for Christmas you're deluded.

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

erm, calls for strikes are voted upon by the members - the calls for strikes usually comes from the Union Executive.

Re: Strike threat at BT as boss gets £3m pay package
 

That's not the case. It may well be the first time the General Public is aware of the strike is when they hear one of the Union Executive in the press but that would only have been after there has been a breakdown in negotiations at local and/or regional levels depending on the size of the Organisation involved.