Important Industrial Action
It has been announced that both BT and Royal Mail will be undertaking strikes over the coming weeks, which is likely to cause significant disruptions to both businesses and households across the country. So now is the time to prepare yourself to avoid the snowball of catch up after the strikes.
BT’s two-day strike will cover the following dates:
- Tuesday 30th August
- Wednesday 31st August
Royal Mail strikes will take place on the following dates:
- Friday 26th August
- Wednesday 31st August
- Thursday 8th September
- Friday 9th September
These strikes will impact delivery, network repairs, products and service levels across the country. Therefore, please plan ahead and prioritise cases so that day-to-day running is affected less.
Preparing for BT Strike:
- Please ensure you only escalate urgent cases that meet either the CNI category
- Appointments including EAD survey, EAD Fibre Fit & Tests: notifications will be sent from open reach to rebook
- General contact: this will still operate, though levels of service may be lower
- Repair: this will be prioritised, and Openreach will continue to aim for the 5-hour fixed SLA
Implementation of priority staircase – as follows:
- Blue light – repair and provision – emergency services
- Welfare and vulnerable repair
- CNI repair
- CNI provision
- Major service outages, significant incidents, and emergency safety incidents (prioritised on volume and effect/impact)
- Repair for loss of service
- Repair
- Provision
- Proactive build
- BAU build
- FVR (fault volume reduction) proactive repair of the network
Preparing for Royal Mail Strike:
- Post your items as early as possible in advance of the strike dates
- Continue to post your items at Post boxes or Post Offices; however, collections will be less frequent on days when strike action occurs.
- Letters will not be delivered (unless special delivery)
- Covid test kits and medical prescriptions will be the top priority.
- Special Delivery and Tracked24 parcels will be prioritised.
- Additional resources will be implemented by Royal Mail after the action takes place.
The combination of BT and Royal Mail striking at a similar time will result in resources, repairs, delivery of core parts being delayed, and creating an expected backlog. Prepare yourself now, and don’t let your business suffer.
