Hi NITB members. Please read this very important announcement from the CWU National Executive below.

Thursday 11th March 2021

The prospect of the first BT-wide strike action in 34 years has moved significantly closer following last night’s announcement that the CWU is moving towards a national industrial action ballot over an unprecedented and sustained assault on job security and hard won terms & conditions.

Barring a dramatic eleventh-hour about-turn by a belligerent new senior management team which has now spent more than a year pursuing a brutal and needlessly confrontational agenda – despite incessant union appeals for meaningful talks to avert a full-scale industrial relations meltdown – that ballot will cover every part of BT, Openreach and EE where the CWU is recognised for collective bargaining purposes.

The momentous in-principle decision to press the nuclear button was announced in a special Facebook Live session yesterday (Wednesday) evening after branches, executive members and the union’s lead BT Group negotiators unanimously agreed that, without any apparent company willingness to negotiate meaningfully on the key areas of disagreement, the time for talking is fast drawing to a close.

Just 24 hours earlier, top level talks initiated at the request of the union in a last ditch bid to avert the need for a ballot had broken down without tangible movement by the company on the key issues the CWU has been highlighting in the union’s Count Me In campaign of resistance.

Read the full story here