DEFEND EVERY JOB, DEFEND OUR INDUSTRY - RENATIONALISE BT NOW!

15,000 jobs are to go this year in BT. That’s around 10% of the workforce. In the last financial year we lost another 15,000, of which 5,000 left in the first 3 months of 2009.

Permanent, Contractor and Agency. 30,000 workers left to worry about bills, where the next wage will be coming in from, weighing up the finances. The violence and fear of mass unemployment continues under the recession. But never mind, the Bankers have been bailed out, no trials or bringing to book for them. MPs of all parties, nearing a General Election, previously happy to oversee and support “light touch” legislation for the Banks are scrabbling around like rats in a sack, raiding the public purse before they get thrown out of office. For example, retired darling of Westminster, Tam Dalyell, Labour MP had £18,000 of book cases shamelessly made to store his copies of Hansard before he left the job.

For BT workers, they’ll just get a cardboard box to store the P45’s in. This after experiencing a Pay Freeze while seeing non-executive directors pocket a 50% raise on their £60,000 per annum salary for a basic week of 20 days per year.
Senior Managers, who have left in the wake of the BT Global fiasco, have had their contractual terms legally honoured by the company including Global’s Chief Executive, Francois Barrault.
For many of our agency and contractor colleagues, all they’ll get is the legal minimum notice to quite. For many, these are workers who saw on average a fall in pay 14%.

And workers left behind will be sweated to squeeze out more performance and profits from their labour to pay for the crisis. Disciplinaries are being used to manage people out of the company; the high level review at the appeals stage has been removed. Regrading and shift patterns will be reviewed. The screw is being turned. The counter revolution on the shop floor gathers speed. Even Level 1 line managers can be heard voicing discontent at having to deliver on the new Performance Management decrees.

Yet the CWU still believes that if we sit down, be nice, maybe (just maybe) the BT Board will see heart and stop wielding the knife. There should always be negotiations, but not at the price of sacrificing independent Union action in the workplace to defend hard won terms and conditions! A measure of the mood in the workplace can be seen by the fact that BT is still prepared to pay for Industrial Peace by doubling their payments towards solving the Pensions Deficit. Pleading with the Regulator, they have been given 20 years, instead of the current 10 to solve the shortfall in funding.

However, with more workers who would have paid into the Pensions Pot leaving the business, the Pension funding is far from being solved. The CWU urgently needs to build its organisation and reputation throughout Telecommunications if it is to be seen as a credible organisation to defence Jobs, Terms and Conditions through the Industry.

The price of rubbing BT’s belly for now? Pensions Cut, Pay Cut, 30,000 Job Losses, members managed out of the company under an increasingly harsh discipline code and attendance patterns up for review.

No wonder BT is still a profitable company. The financial press report that dividends on BT shares are 7%, higher than many other FTSE listed companies. BT would like to raise £1.5 billion for it’s fibre to the cabinet project. The City will want to see more blood on the floor, more profit extracted from the remaining workforce before it releases the cash. It can’t be ruled out that, like the Banks, the workforce will witness a Hedge Fun or two, launch media attacks on the company to talk down its share values. Then, move in for the kill.

BT sees itself as the custodian of the national infrastructure. If that is the case then we say that it is too important to be desroyed and broken up by the Private Sector. Look at what has happened to Rail! A disaster for workers and travellers.

There is work to be done. In this day and age every home should have Broadband that is reliable and cheap. It is time for Royal Mail and BT to be brought together again in one Publicly Owned, resourced and managed utility.

The CWU’s Defend Royal Mail Campaign must now also demand that BT be renationalised. But this must not be renationalisation so that the utility can be resold to the Private Sector sharks when the work economic crisis is over. It should be renationalised paying compensation only in the case of proven need; the workforce must run is democratically. BT workers, agency and contractors know what to do to deliver a telecommunications service. The City and Private Sector Board will not allow them to do so. So, the Free Market which they represent must be removed and ownership transferred to the Public Sector.

RENATIONALISE BT NOW - DEFEND JOBS AND OUT INDUSTRY.
NATIONALISE OTHER TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMPANIES WITH COMPENSATION ON PROVEN NEED ONLY.

FOR TELECOMMUNICATION TO BE EXPANDED AND DEVELOPED AS PART OF A NATIONAL PLAN TO DELIVER THE LATEST TECHNOLOGY FOR ALL.

In the June 4th European Elections the following Trade Union candidates will be supporting the renationalisation of Telecommunications and opposing the EU Directives that allow the pillaging of our Industry by Big Business and the City Financiers. No2EU - Yes to Democracy will be contesting the 6 South West seat in the European elections on June 4th 2009 on a platform of opposition to the Lisbon Treaty, against the EU-led privatisation of our public services, for workers’ rights and in protest at the corrupt EU gravy train.

Alex Gordon -
Rail Maritime & Transport Union - National Executive - Bristol

Rae Lynch -
Bristol National Union of Teachers Committee (personal capacity)

Nick Quirk -
Rail, Maritime & Transport - National Executive - Plymouth

Roger Davey -
Swindon & Wiltshire Health Unison Branch Chair (personal capacity)

Paul Dyer -
Barnstable Trades Union Council Secretary (personal capacity)

John Chambers -
Retired Transport and General Workers Union official - Cornwall

Bob Crow, Secretary of the Rail Maritime and Transport Union says “Millions of working people feel abandoned by the mail political parties, which support EU diktats demanding the privatisation of our public services from the Post Office to our rail networks”.

All the mainstream parties now support privatisation of utilities. Even parties like UKIP and the BNP want to remove “Red Tape” in Europe. But that is just to allow UK companies the tools to attack Trade Union terms and conditions in BT further. At a local level this will translate in to allowing Private Companies to run cash starved and privatised local services with a casualised, poorly paid workforce. We  have experienced enough of that!

Come along to discuss how in the light of the Westminster expenses scandal, it is now time to build support for these independent working class representatives in the European Elections. No support for the Liberal/Labour/Tory/UKIP/BNP privateers.

For more information about the Socialist Party and the No2EU - Yes to Democracy slate call …

Robin Clapp (Bristol) - 07759 796 478
Sue Powell (Gloucestershire) - 01452 412 720
Mike Luff (Bristol) - 07881 417 218

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