13 July 2001 Volume 6 Issue 26 Paragraphs 267 - 280
WEEKLY INFORMATION FROM THE COMMUNICATION WORKERS SUMMARY
GENERAL
267 Respect Festival —
21st July 2001
TELECOMS
268 e-peopleserve:
Developments in the Technical Training Function
269 Network Access
Planning Accreditation
270 Starting and Finishing Times
271 BIS Call-out Review
272 Hinged Carriageway Covers
POSTAL
273 Parcelforce Attendance
Procedure — Annual Conference Propositions
274 Birthday Concessions:
Postshops within Crown Offices
275 Branch Office Staffing
Agreement — Changes to Employment Contracts
276 Election of Quadrant
Area Reps
HEALTH & SAFETY
277 Temperature at Work
278 DSE Review in BT
279 CWU Health Safety and
Environment Website
OBITUARIES
280 The Late Laurie Pardoe
& Strike'87
SPECIAL BRIEFINGS
SB/285 Logistics Solutions: Payroll Problems (Terry Pullinger)
SB/286 EUREST Pay Claim 2001 (Sally Bridge)
SB/287 PON: Branch Office Staffing Agreement —
Pay-Related Issues (Tony Kearns)
SB/288 Developments at Vodaphone (Donald MacDonald)
SB/289 Cash Handling & Distribution Pay Review: 1st April
2001 (Tony Kearns)
SB/290 BT Facilities 2001/2002 (Nigel Cotgrove)
SB/291 TFSE Personnel & Equal Opps. Committees: Officerial
Responsiblities (Bill McClory)
SB/292 Future Consultative Arrangements: Health & Safety
in BT (Kevin Shaw)
Back to the Top
GENERAL
267 Respect Festival — 21st July 2001
On 21st July 2001, the Mayor of London, SERTUC and the National
Assembly Against Racism, are taking over Finsbury Park in North
London to stage the free Respect anti-racist festival.
The event is a free, outdoor music and entertainment festival for all
Londoners (and beyond), with music stages, dance & comedy,
performances, food & bars, stands & stalls. The festival
starts at 12 noon until 8:30pm.
Any queries regarding this festival contact the General Secretary's Dept.
TELECOMS
268 e-peopleserve: Developments in the Technical Training Function Representatives
from the CWU met with e-peopleserve management to discuss current
trends and potential developments within the e-peopleserve community.
Discussions centred on the growing volume of learning days delivered,
problems associated with meeting operational training in some areas
and the potential inability to deliver training in the more complex
technology or the emerging technology areas.
Management confirmed that they had responded to the Union's argument
for more recruitment as suggested in the discussions on the creation
of e peopleserve by recruiting two Aerial Riggers who were near to
the end of their training. Furthermore, authority for the recruitment
of nine Fixed Term Contracts had been given.
It was argued that the increased training demand, extensive periods
of away from home training and the age profile would support
conversion. Management did not disagree and undertook to reflect and
communicate their decision fairly quickly to the Union.
As part of the commitment on the skills audit, management presented
on the options expressed by individuals on upskilling in other areas
of technology. Some of these areas led to a discussion where there
could be further 'Winbacks' — work currently undertaken by
Business Unit Trainers or External Suppliers. Potentially this could
be a wide-ranging area of technical training and embrace confined
spaces working from, Henry Boot, SDH and PDH from Nortel, Ultra
Broadband from Marconi and Work Manager from BUTs, as well as DSE
Technical Assessments. It was recognised that this presented resource
scheduling problems and management gave a commitment to discuss with
the Union perceived problems and in advance of any decisions being
taken. Developments will be reported to Branches, as and when they occur.
Brian Healy, Assistant Secretary
269 Network Access Planning Accreditation
The Executive met management last year to discuss the progress on
trialling the Planning Accreditation process which, at that time, had
only been tested in Dundee. It was reported that further
implementation proposals would require the outcome of a project
business case.
The Project Control Board have now considered the business case and
agreed that the trial should be extended to cover a larger patch to
provide greater assurance on both the effectiveness of the process
and the forecast savings. The Project Board have determined that the
trial should be extended to cover Netsolve and One-Step teams based
in the Edinburgh (NPPN2 and NPPN3 teams). It is intended to run this
in an extended trial for a period of two months.
The Executive raised a number of queries on the project which
management agreed to respond to when they were clearer on its future.
These are listed below:
Possible lack of 'soft skills' training (eg, negotiation skills)
available for Newsites Officers. David Onion's team have introduced a
number of reskilling and development initiatives over the past months
to equip NewSite Reps for their role. A number of 'soft skills' are
covered (eg interpersonal skills) though not negotiation.
The Executive noted the different actions given by the assessor to
major and minor weaknesses identified during assessments. The
Executive asked for a copy of the guidance documentation provided to
assessors on making such distinctions. This has been received and the
guidance documentation for assessors was sent electronically and is
for Branches to comment upon.
The grading of assessors would need to be reviewed by the unions in
the light of Newgrid 'chargeship' allowance and skill descriptors.
The Executive reserved the right to come back to BT if it felt there
was a grading issue. As promised at the meeting BT have highlighted
this issue in the business case and will be reviewing the banding of
the posts as part of the project evaluation phase and will discuss
the proposals with the Union.
The use of e-peopleserve (ex HR&DS) to provide training and
accreditation of assessors should be maintained. Management confirm
their intention to continue to use the expertise offered by
ePeopleServe to train and accredit assessors.
The linkages between accreditation and NVQs needed to be clearer. A
matrix detailing how elements of the accreditation matched up to or
contributed to NVQ achievement was needed. Management agreed the
benefits of such a matrix in encouraging people to see the wider
benefits of accreditation and encourage continued development. The
matrix is however taking some time to pull together, when agreed
internally the document will be sent to the Union to comment upon.
The Executive felt it was important that candidates had some
dedicated time to prepare for their assessments. The Union asked for
a commitment to dedicated learning time prior to each assessment. The
management view is that this should already happen but they have
highlighted the issue in the business case and will monitor the
activity as part of their evaluation of the extended trial.
To evidence the business' commitment to Accreditation, any
development actions arising out of assessments should be given a
higher priority than other DAP actions. Management agree that
accreditation development points should be given a high priority,
however, it may be that in some, special circumstances, there are
development actions arising elsewhere that are more essential.
Management has stated they will ensure that line manager guidance
highlights this issue and requires them to give accreditation
development actions a very high priority.
The Executive had some concerns about the accuracy and
comprehensiveness of the training matrix document and agreed to
review document and feedback any comments or concerns. Following
further representations from the Union, notification of the training
matrix was reported in CWU Briefing No.24 (2001), paragraph 250 and
Engineering RDA Secretaries should, by now, have received the
associated documentation.
The Executive sought from the Company if it intends to use evidence
of attendance at training courses as a factor in determining whether
a person is ready to be assessed, and that there should be a process
for accepting evidence of prior learning in lieu of existing training
records, eg is there a countervailing qualification process.
Management are looking at the need for such a process and this will
be further considered during the evaluation of the extended trial.
Branches are strongly urged to scrutinise the training matrix and to
highlight any shortcomings in the training skills required.
Brian Healy, Assistant Secretary
270 Starting and Finishing Times
You will have seen from previous briefings that Network Transport
Field Operations has been reviewing its policy for people who use a
BT vehicle to travel to and from work from home.
Management have stated that the roll out of Laptops and the latest
version of Work Manager will allow Core People to log onto Work
Manager from home and pick up their first job of day in the same way
that Narrowband and CST engineers have been doing for sometime. This
will enable Core People to travel straight to the first location
confident that there is work there for them to do rather than the
arrangements that are currently in place which are a great source of
frustration. They have trialled these arrangements and the outcome
was on many days, although not always, engineers no longer had the
frustration of travelling to one site through heavy traffic, and then
going straight to another, sometimes back in the direction they had
come from.
As before, management pitch the attractiveness on the rising cost of
transport, which makes the use of a BT vehicle to travel backwards
and forwards to work a real and increasing benefit. The AA estimates
that it costs over 42p per mile to run an average family car. This
represents a £ 874 saving per annum for someone who lives 5
miles away from their BT Office and £1748 for someone who lives
10 miles away and uses a BT vehicle.
The Network Transport Field Operations Board has decided to offer its
Core People the opportunity to Start and Finish at home using Work
Manager in the same way as many existing field engineers are already
doing. In line with Company Policy this means that individuals would
be required to travel to/from their first/last job in their own time
subject to a maximum of home to office journey time + 15 minutes at
the start and end of each day. Exceptionally and in recognition of
the support given to the company the Network Transport Field
Operations Board has decided to exempt those on Contractual Call Out
and those actively responding to Call Outs on a voluntary basis from
the + 15 minutes at the beginning and end of each day (The + 15
minute exemption to those on call out will also apply to Narrowband
(ex CNS) People who are on Call Out).
This has not been discussed with the union nationally and it is
believed that the purpose of having a different arrangement is to
attract more people to go onto call out, as the Executive has already
reported of problems in this area.
The following are practical examples being given in a management
briefing, a copy of which will be sent to Branches:
In practice this means that if you have a home to office journey time
of 20 minutes and a start time of 08:00 hours, and are not on call
out, you will be required to log onto Work Manager at 07:25 hours and
place the first job in issue. You may not necessarily be required to
leave home straightaway, as this will depend on the travel time to
the first job. You should leave home at a time after this which will
enable you, if possible to reach your first job location by your
start time. Once on site you will be required to access Work Manager
again and place the job into execute. At the end of the day, with a
finish time of 17:00 hours, you should progress the last job to the
appropriate status on Work Manager log off and travel home. Upon
arrival at home you will access Work Manager and sign off. In this
example arriving home and logging off at 17:35 hours is equivalent
(for pay purposes) to finishing work at 17:00
If you are on call out, with the same start time and home to office
journey time, you will be required to log onto Work Manager at 07:40
hours (assuming 20 mins agreed travel time) place your first job in
issue and leave home when the travel time of the first job dictates,
continuing as with the previous example. At the end of the day, again
as with the previous example and with a same finish time, having
progressed the last job to the appropriate status and logged off from
Work Manager, you will travel home access Work Manager and sign off
at 17:20 hours. (again assuming 20 mins agreed travel).
Line Managers will be contacting members to review these
arrangements. The purpose of this will be to clarify the situation,
and confirm "home to office" journey times. This policy has
been decided upon and announced since the Union's conference,
therefore it has be launched before the Executive has been able to
consider and respond to Conference propositions.
Brian Healy, Assistant Secretary
271 BIS Call-out Review
As Branches will know, the introduction of C3 grading in ECS was
linked to the introduction of a contractual on-call rota. It is now
management's intention to implement the rota in ECS despite the fact
that the number of call-outs has dropped dramatically to an average
of less than 1 per week. The overall rota is likely to encompass 100
people including all C3 grades. This however will leave a shortfall
of 30. The intention is to seek volunteers initially from C2 members
currently on paid-standby.
The CWU has raised concerns that C2 people would cover work for which
C3 grading had been granted. Essentially this would be convergent
products. At this stage, the Union has indicated that if members are
doing identical work then the grading should be the same. Management
responded to this by anticipating a growth in C3 jobs as volumes
increase. The rota itself will be 1 in 4 and will be compensated at
the Newgrid rate of £208.00 per month.
Once the contractual scheme has been fully set up there will be an
obvious winding down of the current paidstandby scheme. Further
reports will be given as formal proposals are considered.
Ian Cuthbert, Assistant Secretary
272 Hinged Carriageway Covers
As Branches will be aware, carriageway covers over manholes and joint
boxes should be lifted using the mechanical cover lifter and D' and
T' keys have been withdrawn to deter manual lifting.
There are, however, many locations where the mechanical lifter cannot be
used, either because the box is on a soft surface or is close to a
wall or kerb. One solution which BT Engineering Solutions are
exploring and investigating is the use of hinged covers which require
much less effort to raise manually.
They now have a prototype Carriageway 2 frame and cover with hinged
covers installed at Smaliford Trial Site for evaluation by safety,
security and operational people and the Executive has been invited to
make an input on behalf oftheCWU.
Arrangements are in hand to do so and further information will be
reported to Branches.
Brian Healy
POSTAL
273 Parcelforce Attendance Procedure — Annual Conference
Propositions
Further to 13th April 2001, Volume 6, Briefing Paragraph 161, which
reported the terms of a letter received from the Head of Employee
Relations concerning the time taken between notification of absence
being sent out by Wakefield and the issue of a formal warning, to
date there has been no response to the request for reports from Branches.
It would, therefore, be appreciated if reports could be submitted by
Friday 17th August 2001.
Any Branch comments to Ray Ellis, Assistant Secretaiy, Technical and Central Services.
274 Birthday Concessions: Postshops within Crown Offices
The following letter has been received from David Brodala, Head of
Retail Development, Post Office Network, and Tony Kearns, Assistant
Secretary's reply. This correspondence is being reproduced for your information.
"Dear Mr Kearns
Concession Trials in Post Shops
Further to our meeting some weeks ago where I outlined our proposal
to test concessions in Post Shops, this letter serves to advise you
that we are now ready to add some more offices to the trial. As I
explained at our meeting we will be testing some 10-20 offices during
the year with three or four different business propositions bring.
The next branch offices to include a concession will be Gloucester,
Ilford, High Holborn, Manchester (Spring Gardens), Wolverhampton and
Poland Street, London. They will be completed by the end of August.
We have not advised the staff yet although we will be doing so up to
July 13th, so I would be grateful if you would treat this
notification in confidence until then.
I understand that all staff affected by this change will be found
suitable jobs as happened with the Birthday concessions although
should this not be the case then normal business procedure will
apply. When I have more details of any other trials I will let you
know, however should you have any further queries in the meantime
please do not hesitate to contact me.
Yours sincerely, David Brodala
Head of Retail Development"
"Dear Mr Brodala
Concession Trials in Postshops
Thank you for your letter dated 26 June 2001 concerning the above.
As you would imagine the subject of the Concession Trials in
Postshops was the subject of some debate at the Annual Conference of
the CWU.
The first debate on the issue centred on the following amendment:
"that the CWU will oppose by all means necessary the change of
status of Postshops from Post Office directly managed outlets".
Quite clearly the carriage of this proposition would have placed us
on a collision course for Industrial Action should a local Branch
have determined that to be the "means necessary" to prevent
a concession arrangement coming into being. You will be pleased to
note that the Postal Executive was successful in convincing
Conference that this was not the best way to proceed on this matter.
In effect this means the CWU acknowledging the need for PON to
operate commercially in the manner that this initiative suggests.
Having more or less established that principle we then debated the
issue concerning how we deal with the people affected by the trial or
any proposed extension of it. Conference carried three amendments on
this point and they are as follows:
"that the Postal Executive will seek a comprehensive agreement
with PON that secures Post Office employment together with terms and
conditions of employment of CWU represented grades in the event of a
joint venture or partnership arrangement that transfers the
administration of Post Shops out of PON/POL Additionally the
agreement must include the ability for RA's to opt for redeployment
to counter duties with Postal Officer terms and conditions".
"that during the Birthdays Concession Trial and any subsequent
expansion of that trial, directly employed substantive PON staff and
those on first year probationary period that are affected will not be
blocked from transferring to a PON managed Post Shop due to agency or
casual staff being employed at that particular Post Shop".
Finally "that any extension of the Birthdays Trial will not be
agreed until all details about the effect on Retails Assistants is
known and that an agreed action plan implements".
Quite clearly the CWU, and our Annual Conference, accepts the
arguments that the business makes around the need to trial new
initiatives as part of the attempt to secure the organisation for the
future. However we are adamant that this can not be done without
taking due cognisance of the impact this may have on the staff you
employ, hence the carriage of the three amendments.
The feeling I gained from our initial meeting on this matter is that
such a position was indeed a shared aim. The reality is that I have
had no problems reported to me on the trial so far. In order that the
situation remains that way we believe that the policies adopted at
conference offer the best way of continuing that position.
There are some points we wish to discuss with you concerning the
timing and content of the announcements due to be made, and I would
therefore be grateful if you could contact either Andy Furey (NEC
Member) or myself in order to arrange a date fairly soon when we may
be able to meet to discuss all the items I have listed. I look
forward to your early reply.
Yours sincerely
A P Kearns,Assistant Secretary"
Any Branch comments should be addressed to Andy Furey, Acting Assistant Secretary, C&CH Department, quoting reference B. 108.
275 Branch Office Staffing Agreement — Changes to Employment
Contracts
The following correspondence has been received from Kevin Gibson,
Resources Manager, PON, and is reproduced for your information
"Dear Mr Furey
Branch Office Staffing Agreement — Changes to Employment Contracts
Further to our discussion at the meeting on 27th June 2001 I now write to confirm the details regarding the Training and CSA issues in the Branch Office Staffing Agreement.
1 .CSA. Now that the CSA grade has been officially recognised by the CWU I acknowledge that we will now need to consult you about such issues as the CSA Performance Standards and future incremental progression etc. The proposals for the level 2 standards and above are currently being scoped and once these have been documented I will share these with you.
2.Review of Counter Training. The reviews of the two trials that we have been carrying out on a shortened full time counter training course and the part time training course are currently being evaluated and once these have been documented I am happy to discuss the outputs with you.
3.Half Hour Training Sessions. In line with the content of BOSA I can
now confirm that my training colleagues within the Personnel
Development team have now advised all the current owners of new
products that should the training needs for their products exceed the
normal half hour training time allotted they will be required to
consult the CWU about this.
Yours sincerely
Kevin Gibson Resources Manager, PON"
Any Branch comments should be addressed to Andy Furey, Acting Assistant Secretary, C&CH Department, quoting reference B. 145/B. 101
276 Election of Quadrant Area Representatives
In CWU Briefing number 24 dated 29 June 2001 John Doherty, Nottingham
& District
Branch, was elected as Quadrant representative for the North &
South Midlands area. It has come to light that John is not employed
by Quadrant and therefore not eligible to hold the position of
Quadrant Representative. The position is therefore still vacant and
nominations are now invited for the North & South Midlands area.
Branches are reminded that only Quadrant employees are eligible for
these posts. Nominations are now invited for Quadrant Area
Representative positions in the following areas.
London (1)
Anglia
South West
East Pennines
Scotland and Northern Ireland
Nomination forms can be obtained from the Organising Department on
request. Completed forms, signed by the Chair, Secretary and nominee
must be returned by no later than first post on Wednesday, 18th July 2001.
Any enquiries should be directed to Eric Lovett, National Organising Secretary.
HEALTH & SAFETY
277 Temperature at Work
The recent heatwave brought with it the usual number of enquiries
from Branches regarding a legal maximum temperature at work. In the
cold months of course the questions are about minimum temperature and
draughty conditions.
Dave Joyce, Chair of the NEC Health, Safety and Environment Committee
explains that the appropriate legislation is Regulation 7 of the
Workplace (Health, Safety & Welfare) Regulations 1992 and the
associated Approved Code of Practice (ACOP). Employers must ensure
that during working hours the temperature in all workplaces inside
buildings is reasonable. This means providing reasonable comfort
without the need for special clothing. With regards to minimum
temperature, the Approved Code of Practice states that work rooms
should normally be 16°C for most types of work at least 13°C
for work involving considerable physical effort. Therefore in the
Office environment 16°C should be the minimum.
On the other hand although a maximum temperature is not specified in
the Regulations, for most kinds of work the acceptable zone of
thermal comfort lies between 16°C and 24°C. The World
Health Organisation (WHO) recommends that the maximum Air Temperature
should be 25°C and CWU Safety Representatives can use these
figures when they discuss standards with local management. The
Approved Code of Practice does however state that Employers must take
all reasonable steps to achieve a comfortable temperature including
insulating hot pipes and equipment, providing air cooling plants,
shading windows, siting work stations away from hot areas and using
fans and increased ventilation in hot weather.
Other factors such as draughts and humidity must also be considered
when aiming for a comfortable temperature and the Approved Code of
Practice is quite clear that workers should not be exposed to
draughts. Regulation 7 also states that a sufficient number of
thermometers must also be provided to enable workers to check
temperatures in indoor workplaces. Only as a last resort in
unavoidable hot or cold areas should employers provide suitable
protective clothing and facilities to limit the amount of time
individuals work in these areas. This however would not apply to
Office environments and would apply mainly to specialist Workplaces,
e.g Cold Stores and Blast Furnaces etc.
Outdoor workers have to be provided with suitable warm clothing
designed to protect against adverse weather conditions under the
Personal Protective Equipment Regulations 1992.
Any enquiries on this matter should be referred to Kevin Shaw, Assistant Secretary quoting Ref. HB2O SW
278 DSE Review in BT
The Executive will be meeting with BT in the near future to review
DSE in the Company. Under review will be:
•Health and Safety Handbook - Section 4 — Display Screen Equipment
•DSE Training Package. (The package can be accessed on the BT Intranet.)
The package was rolled out in October 2000. Since then the main
concerns of Branches and Safety Reps has been the style and format of
the Training Package and some of the content of the package and the
Handbook. Will Branch Officers please bring this coming Review to the
attention of Safety Representatives and members and do everything
possible to encourage feedback on this issue. Please send your
comments and suggestions as soon as possible to the Health and Safety
Department quoting Ref: NS33.
Any enquiries on this matter should be referred to Kevin Shaw, Assistant Secretary quoting Ref. NS.33
279 CWU Health Safety and Environment Website
As Branches are aware, we are building the CWU Health Safety and
Environment Website. The purpose of this Briefing is to inform
Branches that in the past week the CWU's Stress Survey and the Men's
Health Packs have been added to the site.
The National Health Safety and Environment Committee encourage
Branches and Safety Reps to provide us with feedback on the site. I
would like to also thank all those members who have already made a
contribution to making the site informative and interesting.
Any enquiries on this matter should be referred to Kevin Shaw, Assistant Secretary quoting Ref. NS. 152
OBITUARIES
280 The Late Laurie Pardoe and Strike '87
The sudden death of Laurie Pardoe recently, a member of the union for
nearly 30 years in North West London and a prominent member of Brent
Council, saddened all who knew this 'quiet man with a big influence'.
But he has left the union a very tangible legacy — his scrapbook
of the biggest industrial action ever by the telephone engineers of
British Telecom in 1987.
'Strike 87' is a first hand record of the twelve week battle, which
began in late January that year. It was the last stand of 110,000
skilled engineers against the worsening conditions and bad treatment
introduced by the newly privatised regime, before they were decimated
by the mass redundancy 'downsizing' exercises of the early '90s.
Pride of place in this collection of BT and NCU letters, notices and
press cuttings are the letters sent to Laurie and all other engineers
who walked out on 19th January. That one day action was in protest at
the suspension of seven engineers who had refused overtime in line
with the union's instructions. The letter told them their pay had
been stopped, and that they wouldn't be allowed to return to work
unless they signed a form agreeing 'to work normally as directed on
any work proper to your grade' including overtime, weekdays and
Sundays. Naturally, Laurie's form remains unsigned, as did all the
other engineers, who dug in for a long haul. A letter from Geoff
Carlsson, Chairperson of his Metropolitan North West branch (as it
was then), told him that 103 members had turned up at their meeting,
to be told what they wanted to hear. The whole engineering membership
across the country 'are on strike indefinitely until our National
Executive tells us otherwise'!
At that point, it is clear from their next letter that the local hard
line District General Manager, J.M. Davies, was worried. He wrote
again to say that Laurie could return to work now without signing
anything not even a verbal assurance was needed, his presence would
be taken as enough! Needless to say he stayed out as the trial of
strength began across the country. Who would crack first, the network
or the workers? Although we know the outcome, (the network proved
technically quite robust with most of the managers pressed into the
gap), but the strength shown by ordinary engineers like Laurie for so
long, shook the new BT management out of their arrogance. They were
not keen to take them on again in a hurry. When it came to the
'downsizing' exercise a few years later, BT had to negotiate one of
the best voluntary redundancy packages in the country with the union.
He left his long-time partner, Brent Council leader Cllr. Ann John
and three sons. She gave his Strike '87 scrapbook to CWU Assistant
Secretary, Jim Moher, a close friend of the family.
There must be loads more such mementos of that proud stand by
Britain's telephone engineers, knocking around in members' homes and
branch offices. When that history comes to be written, it would be
nice to know that such records would be available. So, have a scout
around your branch and especially with retired members, dig out the
old files and keep them in a secure place and send us a list of what
is there.
Jim Moher