BT workers were out on strike across the UK and the north on Thursday 6 October and they are on the pickets today again 10 October.
People Before Profit spoke to Hollie Gregg, a BT worker, about her job at the Belfast strike rally (31/8/22) on and why/how they decided to fight back and how you can help.
PBP: What’s your name?
Hollie: Hollie
PBP: Where are you from?
Hollie: I’m from Belfast.
PBP: Where do you work?
Hollie: I work in BT.
PBP: Why aren’t you in work today?
Hollie: Because we are not getting a pay rise and we deserve one.
PBP: Ok. What’s the deal with the pay rise? Did they not give you a pay rise? Did they…?
Hollie: They imposed a ‘pay rise’ which was a flat rate of 1500 across the board. Not a percentage increase. So it varies at which percent: it works out at roughly 5% across the board on average.
(This is the same tiny BT pay imposition that sent BT’s 999 operators in Portadown on strike in record numbers on Friday. They’ll be out again today.)
Strikers Rally at Belfast City Hall 31 August 2022
PBP: What’s inflation like in the north right now?
Hollie: At the moment, we’re sitting at about 10 or 11% right now. So it’s not a pay rise, it’s a relative pay cut. So that’s why we’re here today.
PBP: Now you are in the private sector. BT is not a public company. It seems like everyone is striking here in the north. We’re sitting here outside city hall in Belfast. And there’s a big rally with Royal Mail which a lot of people in the south would think was a public company but it’s a private company.
Hollie: It is.
PBP: You are a ‘private company’.
Hollie: Yeah.
PBP: These aren’t public sector strikes. These are private sector strikes.
Yeah. That’s it.
PBP: Now have you been out on strike before? I mean is there a big tradition of this?
Hollie: Well I mean we have. This is our second lot of strike days. However prior to this it had been 35 years since our last strike in BT. That’s the last time we’d taken industrial action.
PBP: Wow.
Hollie: Yeah.
PBP: Wow.
Hollie: Yeah.
PBP: You weren’t alive then?
Hollie: Yeah.
(Laughter)
Hollie: It’s not something we do lightly. Definitely not for the sake of it. Or for losing the day’s pay.
PBP: So what’s your job?
Hollie: So I work in ‘Consumer’. I work with the public. I deal with calls about technical faults, billing issues… So like I took a call on this week which was: ‘My broadband, my landline- it’s not working. I have no connection. It’s not working! (you know?) I need it fixed. I need an engineer.’
PBP: So then you fix up that person with an engineer visiting the house?
Hollie: Yep. Yeah. I’ll run some checks, try to diagnose the issue, and if we need to get an engineer booked.
PBP: And do you work from home or are you in a big call centre like in Sorry To Bother You? What does it look like?
Hollie: I do. I do work from home… normally. However, I’m at the moment in supporting some new guy so I do get in to the office depending…
PBP: Alright- how do you organise a strike when you never see each other? How do you have meetings? How do you do all that?
Hollie: Virtually.
PBP: Really?
Hollie: Yeah. We have wider virtual meetings which we can have for across the UK and Northern Ireland. And then leading up to it we have local meetings that we’ve been doing. Yeah but it’s all virtual.
PBP: How long have you been working for (BT)?
Hollie: For almost four years?
PBP: And did you start saying ‘I can’t wait to organise a strike here’?
Absolutely not. (laughs)
PBP: Why did you join BT? Not because you wanted to strike?
Hollie: No. Definitely not. No I joined BT because it seemed like decent pay, decent benefits.
PBP: Alright.
Hollie: And a job that I was interested in: ‘customer service’, helping people. That’s the main thing for me.
PBP: So you were there. You were getting paid. You were happy. Then how does it turn into ‘This issue matters enough to me to go on strike’?
Hollie: For us it was a couple of years with the pandemic where we didn’t get our pay rises because of uncertain times which was understandable.
PBP: And you’ve been here for 4 years so that would have been…?
Hollie: The end of 2018. We didn’t get our pay rise for two years during covid. But I could get that. We did have a bonus one of the first years. 1000 pound bonus: 1000 before tax, not a 1000 after. But we were waiting for a consolidated pay raise.
PBP: And what were you expecting?
Hollie: At least in line with inflation. Because ultimately, if it’s not in line with inflation, it’s not a pay rise. It’s a pay cut so at least ‘inflation’.
PBP: Yeah. And you didn’t get that. And so was it your idea: ‘Let’s all go on strike!’ or did someone say to you, ‘This is what we need to do’?
Hollie: So we balloted. You know the CWU (her union the Communication Workers Union) balloted us, their members to see if we did want to go that route. If they proposed industrial action whether we’d back it. And we got massive turnouts in BT, in Consumer where I work, as well as in Openreach. Unfortunately we didn’t get the votes in EE. They have a different kind of an atmosphere around unions. It’s a newer company.
PBP: This is EE (that’s the newer company)?
Hollie: Yeah, yeah. Newer company.
PBP: Yeah. So what does Openreach do that is different from (BT)?
Hollie: So Openreach are primarily the engineers. Or organising the engineers. You’ve got patch managers organising that. It’s more the field work?
PBP: So you deal with these guys anyway (even when not striking)?
Hollie: Yes.
PBP: So they do the callouts and you guys are ‘the office’?
Hollie: Basically, yes.
PBP: So are you getting strike pay?
Hollie: No we…
PBP: Good lord.
Hollie: No! (laughs) With the amount of people we have striking it’s just not possible. The funds they make in a year wouldn’t be enough to cover it. It’s just not do-able. But I would recommend people to get down. Keep an eye out. We got lots going on. Not only us but across the board.
The #EnoughIsEnough campaign as well: I’d really encourage people to get out to that. I really really recommend people check that out. You just sign up and then you’ll get updates about rallies and get out there.
PBP: And your strike is connected?
Hollie: Yes. The CWU is part of the collective that put together the EnoughIsEnough campaign. It’s everyone’s. It’s connected to everyone’s fights whether it’s us, whether it’s railway workers, whether it’s postal services…
PBP: I’m up from Dublin and it’s the same thing in the south. There’s a ‘Cost of Living Coalition’ (in the south). You’ve got a local cost of living coalition (in Belfast), which would be linked: same themes, same problems, same issues. ‘We need pay increases. We need energy prices either capped…’
Hollie: ‘…slashed!’
PBP: ‘…or the companies brought back into national ownership.’
Hollie: Absolutely. Absolutely. I’d recommend people to check out the EnoughIsEnough campaign. Keep an eye out for what’s happening. And encourage people to get involved. Visit their local pickets. Bringing them water, whatever you can.
PBP: Thanks very much.
Hollie: Thank you.
CWU’s Banner at the 31 August 2022 Rally at Belfast City Hall
CWU NI Telecoms Branch workers are on strike again today 10 October 2022. Get to the nearest pickets to show your support and solidarity today.