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

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 Mail Royal Mail Letters127,615 Parcelforce3,430 Counters 6,637 BT BT plc 53,812 o 2 2,634 Alliance & Leicester/Girobank 1,756 Others 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 7 th 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