Dear Member,

An update for our Openreach and BT members

Firstly, we want to congratulate and thank you for your outstanding support of last week’s strike action. You are a credit to yourselves and to the union. Despite reports from a few managers in the company indicating that the impact of the strike was low. We can report that nothing could be further from the truth, the backlogs and call wait times speak for themselves but the impact has in fact been huge.

After four days of strike action it is now important that we take stock of where we are, and make it clear to Openreach and BT that we are in this dispute for the long haul. What we will not do is burn you out as members by relentlessly calling strike action.

We are now working on our next steps to win this dispute; this will include consideration of calling further strike action but also:

The publication of national newspaper adverts to expose the hypocrisy of BT Group management.We have engaged an external company who are in the process of setting up meetings with major shareholders.We are arranging a fresh meeting with the Labour Party leadership and will be seeking to do the same with the government.We will target and further expose the greed of the company leadership.We will host a live session with members to update on the above.

We have been clear from the start that this dispute was a long term one. Unlike other industries, we cannot attract the same level of mass press coverage – because the impact of the strike is largely unseen by the general public. However, what we know for certain is through a combination of your support, political pressure, and shareholder lobbying, we can take BT Group to a place where they must reach a fresh agreement with us.

Our job now is to continue to stick together, staying united is the key to winning.

In solidarity,

Andy Kerr

Deputy General Secretary Telecoms and Financial Services

Dave Ward

General Secretary