I write this column with a heavy heart, following the extremely sad news that my predecessor Andy Kerr passed away on 27th August following a serious illness.
The best way to respect his memory going forward is to continue to his strong belief in collective action and the power of the union to continue to tackle the challenges of today and the future.
The two outsourcing announcements are of particular concern for our members at this time. The first of which, as reported on the inside pages of this Edition, was the unilateral decision by Openreach – unagreed by this union – to move our poling crews to other duties and their highly skilled and safety-critical work taken on by third-party contractors.
The CWU is making every effort to support affected members and seek a reversal of this decision, which impacts polers directly and also potentially affects the operational and working situation of all engineers.
And the second instance – in this case an offshoring rather than an outsourcing as such – concerns our members working for Santander in Bootle, Carlton Park and Manchester.
Our understanding is that there are over 50 workers at these CWU-
recognised sites ‘at risk’ of redundancy due to a decision by Santander to offshore an arm of its Financial Crime Division to Poland.
The CWU opposes offshoring and our focus remains on maximising jobs that are based in the UK and fulfilling careers for our members.
We’re currently engaged in working to mitigate against compulsory redundancies in Santander – both through the active exploration of redeployment opportunities and the negotiation by the union of exceptional one-off lump sum payments in additional to redundancy payments for members who do not wish to consider the redeployment opportunities available.
Whether we’re working to save jobs, support and advise members with individual issues, or pushing for better pay, terms and conditions, the more members we have, the stronger our organisation and the more we can do to make life better at work for you and your colleagues.
CWU acting national officer for Openreach members Fiona Curtis tells Your Voice:
“The company made this announcement to our members in mid-July on a unilateral and unagreed basis and it’s something the union strongly disagrees with.
“We’ve urged the business to think again, that poling is such a critical part of our infrastructure. We’re continuing to push on this and our policy is that it should always be in-house wherever possible.”
Your Voice visited poling crews in the south east and north west, asking them about the safety-critical work they do and for their feelings on this company decision.
SOUTH EAST
We meet up with South East Central Branch chair Steve Taylor at the Tunbridge Wells engineering yard and we talk with some of the polers as they prepare to head out on their first job.
As we head to a work site in East Malling, Steve Taylor explains that field engineers oppose
outsourcing too, “firstly it’s the solidarity of course, but also they have potential safety concerns with poles installed by contractors rather than our own crews.”
When we arrive at the site, a crew is busy transferring cabling from an old to a new pole and,
while James Bozac is busy working at the DP from the cab of a hoist, we speak with his colleagues
Mark Pullen and Daniel Collen, asking them how this decision by the business has impacted them.
Mark says that he has applied for an FTTP role and tells us that “if I get that, I’ll take it rather than going over to civils – but my preference would be to stay on poling.
“We’re actually a fairly new crew and we’ve been smashing the work out – the union should keep fighting to keep this back in-house. It’s better for members and better for the public as well.”
Daniel may be moving to an FTTP position as well, saying: “I’m waiting to hear about it, but if I don’t get it I’ll be offered civils. Personally, I think it’s fairer that poling should stay within and not given out to contractors. It’s better for customer service as well in my opinion.”
When James gets down from the hoist, he explains that the old pole had to be replaced because it was classified as defective – a ‘D’ pole – and that the new pole will be both safe and accessible.
“I’ve been on this job for two years – on civils before that. I’d prefer to stay on this job, but we’ll see what happens,” he says, adding: “They should keep this as direct labour. The quality of service won’t be as good with contractors.”
He and his colleagues talk some more about how the news was broken to them – that it had come as a complete surprise in the context of a teams call and that people had felt that their questions had not been properly addressed or answered.
We see Steve Park at another work site near Penshurst. This one is out in a rural area and the polers are discussing the difficulties of installing a new pole near a wooded area that’s close to a small lake.
Recalling when the outsourcing announcement was made to staff a few weeks previously, he says: “We were told we had a secure job for the future and to be told in a Teams meeting that this was happening, we didn’t see it coming.
“I might be moved to a hoist job, but if I don’t get that, the only other option will be back to civils work,” he continues, adding: “I want the union to take a strong stance on this.”
Most of the other crew members ask not to be interviewed or photographed, but make the point that they also strongly disagree with the company’s outsourcing decision.
But one poler, Paul Clark, wants to tell us about how he enjoys the job and he criticises both the decision itself and the way the news was broken to workers.
“It came out of the blue came out of nowhere” he says, adding that he and his colleagues had been expecting just a routine team meeting only to be told that their whole job was being given to outside contractors.
“There are people who can’t go over to civils – what will happen to them?” asks Paul, who has
been on poling for 24 years.
“This work should be done by us.”
