CWU’s BT Openreach strike expanded to include ‘The Nines’ today: the North’s only 999 operators in Portadown joined the rest of the BT Openreach Strike on the pickets marking a serious escalation against the company.
Portadown is home to the BT Telephone Exchange the only facility in the north to handle inbound 999 emergency calls. Portadown handles 999s from across the UK and include handling of specialised messaging services to make the emergency services available to all and they operate Relay UK.
About 130 workers 30 to 40 field engineers were on the Portadown picket too with the worn Telephone Exchange building behind them to bolster the numbers and show more support for what could have been a contentious escalation. It was anything but. There were between 80-100, chatting, making noise waving flags and welcoming visitors from the nearby hospital and shops and even the nursing home across the street.
Like many who have taken to the pickets in the north’s strike surge they have travelled the well-worn path from being invisible workers to Covid heroes as ‘key workers’ and ‘frontline staff’ who saw well over 10% of their staff go out at any time to now being told that they are once again ‘non-essential’ and ‘unskilled’ as the cost-of-living crisis hits.
The workers we spoke seem less affected by that and more incensed about the basic absence of respect and the mind-boggling classism on display from ‘Foodbank’ Phil Jansen and the BT Group.
CWU HQ had cautiously ‘protected’ Portadown’s 999 service centre from industrial action in July and August. But from the approval from passing neighbours, co-workers and agency workers on constant display, CWU’s caution was past any necessity. In July and August the workers here provided ‘limited services’ ie working, but refusing all non-essential services: an action short of strike.
One younger first-time striker explained. ‘They turned off all the other features on our pins except essentials. We tried at first to be as cooperative as could…’ This was in the face of the Cost of Living crisis, the record profit increases, a staggering 32% increase for a multimillionaire CEO and a 22% for the CFO. These were people who would never have noticed the cost of living crisis had it not been for these strike days and without the pressure of the public they won’t. So CWU took this step and the workers were more than ready for it.
The CWU strike demonstrates the growing confidence of working people to call out the CEOs and shareholders and organise grassroots pressure. And strikes work. Many workers knew of the success at Glen Dimplex plant where workers had won striking in Portadown in the autumn. They knew of the Interface workers in nearby Craigavon who won 15%. News of the 20,000 strong Cost of Living Coalition march in Dublin on the 24th was welcome news.
THE GOALS
‘We want two things,’ one said, ‘a pay rise in line with inflation and that means 10 to 13% for me – and respect.’
Workers described their anger at being forced on the picket lines.
‘We don’t want to be out here at all. Why won’t Jansen just sit down and talk with CWU?
‘I want real negotiations to take place. Get in real negotiations.’
THE FIGHT
The brand damage enough may not be enough. There will have to be a serious loss of service and the 999 strike shows how quickly this dispute could become a life or death issue like the cost of living crisis will be for many families this winter. Some non-union BT workers had been brought in to scab as operators for emergency services with just 3 days of training. Agency workers, too, from Blue Arrow who BT regularly hires to supplement and cover had not been balloted. That labour kept the strike from being knockout blow for BT, as it could have been.
A clear goal for the best trade unionists on the picket line today was to build their union. And they were well aware what was happening. When asked what effect the strikes have had on moral the one woman put on sneaking smile as she spoke of new workers signing up and smiled ‘Absolutely! This is building the union further. It’s making the strike stronger. It’s down to Jansen refusing.’
RESPECT
The workers clearly respect each other, they knew each other’s roles in terms of the specialized work done in handling very high pressure often emotional calls late nights on varying shifts, missing weekends, taking the text messages send by deaf and speech impaired people family, while missing moments at holidays and having normal routines ruined by ‘mandatory overtime’. We picked up the calls for the Manchester Arena bombing, for Grenfell…’
All for about ’20 or 21, 000 pounds a year. And now a 1,500 euro once off bonus. It’s a joke.’
Meanwhile CEO Philip Jansen brought home £3.5 million in 2022.
‘If he thinks he’s worth that fine but what about us? Why aren’t we worth that?’ one woman said.
’Morale and good will are gone in there,’ one worker nodded over his shoulder at the building. But it was strong here on the picket.
Another worker asked us as we were walking away ‘What’s the justification for his salary?’ There’s no answer to that question but there’s a clear response.
The Portadown Telephone Exchange workers will be striking again on Monday 10 October.
