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BT Retail must be brought to book  for 'fiddling the figures'  on agency ratios in a blatant to circumvent one of its key pledges in the 'Resourcing Strategy' agreement with the CWU, delegates to the union's telecoms industry conference in Liverpool agreed.

For months concern has been mounting that the company  has been 'cooking the books' by placing large numbers of agency workers under the Wholesale Line Rental (WLR3) short term resource banner to help it hit the 90:10 BT/agency ratio it agreed to in the deal that was brokered in 2006.



Despite early assurances by the company that it wasn't trying to "circumvent any commitments within that agreement" by falsely categorising agency workers as WLR3 short term resource, in February this year it became clear that over 2,000 agency workers had been nominally placed under that banner to enable BT to meet the 90:10 ratio by December 30, 2007.



Proposing a motion that commits the Telecoms Executive to establish a clear set of guidelines governing the use of WLR3 resource, Simon Edwards of Mid Wales, the Marches & North Staffs branch told how the deception had been revealed when a breakdown of how the 90:10 ratio had been achieved were provided to the CWU in February.



"As if by magic the 90 per cent target was hit almost exactly," he recalled. "They claimed that from September to December 2007 over 2,000 agency people had either left or been converted onto BT contracts whereas in previous quarters those figures had only been a few hundred. It soon became clear the figures were a sham - that all WLR3 resource had been excluded from the figures. In many cases the work hadn't changed - it had just been conveniently relabelled WLR3. Site managers were quite openly telling CWU reps they had no WLR3 despite the figures provided by BT showing the offices.



Blasting the company for "reneging on its part" of the Resourcing Strategy agreement, Simon concluded: "They have not only insulted us but insulted our members with what is effectively a sleight of hand. They should admit they have been caught with their pants down!"



Stuart Williams of South West and Thames Valley branch agreed: "During the last quarter across the whole of the country there have only been 23 conversions (agency to BT contracts), yet every day there are more and more agency staff being recruited.

'"The WLR3 short term resource is being used to circumvent the agreement - that undermines the partnership approach and prevents us from negotiating in good faith. "BT think they can get away with it and pull the wool over our eyes….let's send a message that they can't!"