By a correspondent OPERATION CRISP (Customer Repair Service Improvement Programme) is British Telecom's (BT) астоnym for its total re-organisation of its Personal Communication Division (PCD) which deals with the local network and residential customers. the fledgling but real competi ion from Cable TV and Mer cury, managing airector san Vallance, has declared BT to be a "seven-day-a-week" comAt present BT staff work 37.5 hours Monday-Friday between 7.15am and 6.15pm, with many on nine-day fortnights or similar patterns. All other attendances attract overtime or shift payments.
BT wants to change all that. They are proposing 7 day working from bam till 10pm with longer working days, flexible working hours, "in return for" fewer daily attendances (a four day week?) and an unspecified reduction int he working week for all BT engineering staff.
Management clearly hopes to divide PCD employees from the rest. They want it implemented by October. No ad¡itional pavments are on offer Unsurprisingly these proposals have provoked uproar amongst union members.
The National Communications Union's (NCU) right wing leadership, desperate as usual to do a deal, has been thrown into confusion.
They know that any agreement now would spell certain defeat in April's NEC elections and, less importantly for them, a drubbing at Annual conThey are still manoeuvring on the NEC, voting down the No. 40 Broad Left's proposition insist ing on 'existing or improved enefits for voluntary weekend satory arrangements. Their satory' 4885488888869 clear hope is to survive the elections, ignore conference and to sign up afterwards. ning for a complete rejection of the deal, and for any attempt to impose it to be met with indusShameful retreat The new realist leadership has had a shameful record over the last year. They have actively encouraged members to under BT's Release 92' and 93' voluntary redundancy schemes under which 29,000 staff left last year and 15,000 are due to leave this year.
BT aims to reduce its staff from its present 200,000 to around 100,000 by 1997-8, aiming to contract out much of he work to companies lik lanpower (sic) U:
The NCU's membership has fallen similarly. So, directly against conference decisions, a recognition deal bas signed with Manpower UK to recruit people domsdos потmally performed by direct labour!
This year elections will therefore be decisive. The Broad Left, which organises the entire tween its teeth. Even traditionally right-wing branches, fed up with the right-wing's be trayals, have been nominating Broad Left candidates.
The present balance is 23-12. Prospects look good in the 23 The 12 Clerical seats present more problems, since these have been traditionally controlJed by a small number of large derical branches in league with the opportunist ex-Broad Left Clerical leadership.
A Broad Left victory would have the added significance of being the first clear victory for the left outside the NUM in the unions for nearly a decade Whatever the outcome of the elections, rough times lie ahead for BT staff.