Yahoo Finance BT hands workers biggest pay rise in 20 years but unions reject offer
Telecom giant BT (BT-A.L) announced that it will award all BT, Openreach, Plusnet and EE frontline workers a £1,500 ($1,962) pay increase, the largest rise for frontline workers across the group in 20 years.
The hike affects 58,000 out of 93,000 employees, and consists of £1,000 in cash and £500 in shares. It will increase salaries from 1 April, focusing on the lowest paid workers.
This will work out as a roughly 8% increase for those earning under £20,000 per year. It would be smaller rise for staff in the higher pay bracket, roughly over 3%. UK employers typically offer a 3% rise on average.
However, with UK inflation rising to 6.2%, the Communication Workers Union says it has rejected this latest consolidated pay hike, and will prepare for a vote on strike action.
The CWU has rejected the pay offer from BT. We have no choice now but to immediately prepare for a statutory industrial action ballot.
We will be sending further communications to members via email and social media later today.— The CWU (@CWUnews) April 7, 2022
The group had been in lengthy discussions with unions, which had reportedly rejected an offer of £1,200 previously.
Philip Jansen, chief executive of BT, said the company hopes lower paid workers will "benefit most and as soon as possible" as a rising cost of living crisis looms.
"We took the decision not to use redundancy and the government’s furlough scheme as a direct consequence of the pandemic, and thanks to the contribution of all 100,000 BT people, we’ve continued to improve customer ratings and invest in growing our full-fibre and mobile networks," Jansen said.
Shares in BT rose 2% 189.80p in afternoon trade on Thursday in London.
Read more: National Insurance rise starts to hit pay packets of millions of workers
The news came as Tesco (TSCO.L) moved to increase its hourly wage for shop staff and warehouse workers by 5.8% from £9.55 to £10.10 from 24 July.
Rivals including Lidl and Aldi and had already increased pay this year.
The supermarket chain, which is one of Britain's largest private employer, said the new rate of pay is part of a £200m investment into its workers, which will also include an extension of the colleague discount allowance and new training.
Shares in the FTSE 100 (^FTSE) firm were down 0.3% on Thursday afternoon.
UK wages grew 4.8% year-on-year in January, to an average weekly pay, including bonuses, of £596, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Watch: Why are gas prices rising?
