ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL ANALYSIS OF ENTERPRISES FOR COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

Bill Taylor – Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) Research Department

International Training Centre of the ILO, Turin

11/12 August 2005

Research

Research

Course Content

Session 1: Introduction to the CWU and Collective Bargaining at British Telecom and Royal Mail

Session 2: Finding and Identifying key information for financial analysis

Session 3: Analysing company accounts Session 4: Finding and identifying key information for

economic analysis Session 5: Analysis of financial and economic

information in support of a pay claim at BT Session 6: Exercise: Doing financial and economic

analysis to support a pay claim

Research

Introduction to the CWU and Collective Bargaining at British Telecom/Royal Mail

Origins Where we fit Membership profile What we do Key issues in Telecom and Postal Services Collective Bargaining at BT and Royal Mail Summary

Research

Where did the CWU come from?

Post Office Engineering Union

Civil & Public Services Association(Posts & Telecoms Group)

National Communications Union (1985)

Communication Workers Union

26 January 1995

Union of Communication Workers (1980)

Union of Postal Workers

Research

Where does CWU fit?

Main communications union in UK others are Amicus (Posts) and Connect

(telecoms)

Seventh largest union in UK affiliated to the Trades Union Congress

(TUC)

Second largest communications union in Europe Union Network International (UNI)

Research

Who are the CWU’s members?

Royal MailRoyal Mail Letters 127,615Parcelforce 3,430Counters 6,637

BTBT plc 53,812o2 2,634

Alliance & Leicester/Girobank 1,756Others 51,496(approx)TOTAL 247,380

Research

Who runs the CWU?

Conference meets annually- “supreme authority” sectional conferences

National Executive Council - “third party matters” meets monthly nine committees – N&IPCCC, F&A, H&S, PFMC,

R&O, Ed & Tr, Eq Opps, Structure and Rules, Legal Services

Postal & Telecoms Executives - industrial issues meet monthly

Research

Who runs headquarters?

Senior Officers General Secretary : Billy Hayes Senior DGS : Tony Kearns Postal DGS : Dave Ward Telecoms DGS : Jeannie Drake

Central Management Team top dozen meets bi-monthly

Research

What does the CWU do?

Negotiates wages & conditions Discusses strategy of employers Makes representations to

Government & regulators Provides range of services to

members Recruits & organises new members

Research

Telecoms Ofcom’s review of UK telecom market Equal access to BT’s network Growth of competition Decline of traditional, growth of new wave Convergence of IT/Telecoms and

fixed/mobile services Next Generation Networks – BT 21CN Remote sourcing

What are the key issues?

Research

What are the key issues?

Post Pay and major change programme (Single

Daily Deliveries/Mail Centres/Transport

Review)

Competition/Liberalisation of postal

market/Postal regulation

Threat of privatisation/outsourcing

Crown office closures

Research

Collective Bargaining in the UK Discouraged by prime minister Margaret

Thatcher in 1980s Not as prevalent as throughout most of western

Europe Increasingly being used by workers since 1997

following legal changes under labour government

Studies have shown that workplaces with collective bargaining get stronger pay deals

Also helps to improve benefits in other areas such as skills and pensions

Research

Collective Bargaining in BT

Collective bargaining agreement on pay and pay related issues such as pensions, working time and work life balance

Also on non pay related issues such as health and safety, bullying and harassment and equality

Covers 59,520 staff in 13 CWU represented grades One annual pay award covers all CWU represented

grades CWU pay team representing engineers and clerical

staff meets BT senior management to negotiate on pay - begins in March, often lasts until June

Research

Collective bargaining in Royal Mail

Covers pay and non pay related issues

Covers 160,000 members in a wide variety of grades

Annual pay awards are negotiated separately each year for 11 different business units. Main units are Royal Mail letters, Parcelforce and Post Office Ltd

Individual CWU pay teams meet management from the relevant business unit.

Pay negotiations last from Jan/Feb until May

Research

Summary

CWU 7th largest Union in the UK Decline in membership now stabilising Telecoms market characterised by

increased competition and technological developments

Postal market faced with liberalisation from 2006

Collective bargaining agreements at BT and Royal Mail

Research

Questions and Discussion