Future of Openreach

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Dear Kevin, I am writing in order to voice my anger at the manner in which Openreach Ltd. is approaching major changes for both myself and my colleagues. It is clear to us all that as key workers we have played a major part in keeping the country connected whether that has been by working from home in extremely difficult personal circumstances or continuing to visit customers’ premises putting ourselves and our families at greater risk than the public in general. I would like you to address the following points; Key Workers - Throughout the pandemic whether we have been planning, allocating, providing or repairing customers’ services, we have been outstanding in the face of the challenges this virus has brought. We have kept this country connected and that should be recognised by the company in a way that better respects, rewards and values us for what we have delivered. Not even a thank you, just a paltry 1.5% pay rise which was not backdated to the effective date of 1st April. Surely as the part of BT that employs the largest number of team members you could and should have influenced that decision or did you choose not to? Race to the Bottom - We work for a hugely profitable blue chip technology company and that means that our pay, terms and conditions should reflect that, by being in the upper quartile within the sector. Attacks on grading; deskilling key functions; diminishing career progression opportunities through wage reductions for higher graded roles; and serving notice on hard fought for agreements, all add up to a desire by the company to devalue our contribution and drive our pay, terms and conditions down. Further use of 3rd party across all field activities threatens my long term job security and potential skilling journey. Why do you personally support and encourage this approach? A UK fibre network planned and built by UK based workers - We work for a company that is seeking billions of pounds of taxpayers (our) money to help fund building the UK fibre network - an asset for this country and its people for decades to come. It is wholly unacceptable that much of that will be spent maintaining and creating jobs offshore, leading to the destruction of highly paid and highly skilled existing UK based desk roles and destroying future career opportunities for those currently in field roles. The company before you were employed by Openreach worked with the CWU and reached agreement on the Working Together programme that safeguarded jobs and avoided unacceptable travel and compulsory redundancies. Why have you abandoned that approach? - and don’t blame BT Group! A technology company that sells technology solutions it refuses to utilise - We are working through a pandemic that has seen millions of people working from home and who we have kept connected. But the company that sells this way of working, by using faster smarter products in the home, refuses to embrace those options in the future for its own employees. It is shameful hypocrisy for a technology company to be so instrumental in changing the way that this country works, whilst, simultaneously, threatening jobs in the very communities that we are helping to build, through your own lack of innovation. How can you personally justify that approach when we are respected and supported in every corner of the UK? Your customers won’t accept that approach. How do you also reconcile forcing additional travel expectations under Openreach’s Location Strategy with your proud ‘green’ declarations? This is a company which we should be proud to work for, so why as a senior leader are you seeking to destroy everything that myself and my colleagues are seeking to defend. I look forward to a personal response.

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