British Telecoms under attack END OF THE LINE FOR OPERATORS? 135M: YES! ANDREW WIARD, Report

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Sitting posts and telecoms, endthe public monopoly, then sell off BT - the Tories' plans me: cuts Ann McKinley reports

IN THE autumn of 1981, autumn of 1981, British Telecom (BT) decided to compile a report on 'The Future of the Operator Services' - later known as the Brookes Report.

Its release coincided with the Union of Communication Workers (UCW) annual conference in May; and as a result of an emergency motion there, a special conference is being held on it in November.

Developments since then

- the announcement in July 1982 of the Tories' plans to privatise BT, and, in September, the leak of a Department of Industry confidential paper stating that BT should cut its workforce by 45,000 by 1987may make the Brookes Report look out of date.

But some of its findings, and the UCW executive's response to them, need looking at, especially after the day of action against privatisation on October 20.

The report considers five options for the next 20 years.

Option 1: closing down the operator service. This was discounted as a serious possibility.

Option 2: Maintaining a minimal traditional operator service and reducing this as swiftly as technological advances allow.

Option 3: Option 2 plus new 'profitable' services. These new services would be at the discretion of the telephone manager in the area. Option 4: Option 2, plus other front office services. New technology will make it possible to give skilled customer-contact staff, like operators, access to straightforward information. This option means that operators should be able to have access to databanks and provide information which has previously been provided by CPSA/SPOE grades.

Option 5: is a combination of options 3 and 4.

The Report also contains interesting calculations on restricting the hours of services, and the savings that would result:

• Closing down all services from 6pm to 8am: 37% saving.

• Closing down all services from 11pm to 8am. 999 calls to be transferred to other authorities - 8.1%.

• Concentrating all existing work to a single unit in a telephone manager's area at 11pm. For example, it there are four exchanges in an area, three would close at 11pm and their work would be transferred to the remaining one -• Closing down the directory inquiry service from 6pm to 8am - 11.3%.

• Closing down directory inquiries at 6pm to 8am and concentrating 'all other work in a single unit -17.3%.

The report then The shorter work week is centrai to consider equipment strategy, and suggests that more power should be devolved to telephone managers to introduce modernisation like computerised directory inquiries. Changes could be phased in according to local circumstances - and where there is a weak union locally.

It would be difficult for operators to get national agreement on a shorter working week, and the necessary health safeguards to work on VDUs, if new technology is introduced area by area. And this also opens the door to local productivity deals, which BT has had in mind.

Measures recommended in the Brookes Report for the next ten years include:

• charging more for services, • charging for services like directory inquiries to discourage use, • limited access to the operator, • introducing new technology quicker.

The more strategic measures include proposals not only to introduce computerised directory inquiries earlier, but to give business direct access to the computer - bypassing the operator. Eventually this access would also be available to residential subscribers. In August BT's computer information service Prestel announced that 100,000 householders are to be offered free adaptors so that their TV sets can use the service.

The idea is called Project Y, and although the aim is to encourage banking and shopping from home, BT are also looking at ways to save labour costs.

Big business in the print also has a lot to lose by such developments. There fight to defend jobs and living standards was a flurry recently when the Bell Telephone Co. in the States made moves to bring out an electronic version of its local 'yellow pages' An instant coalition of local newspaper publishers let out a scream of rage, and the idea was: quietly but temporarily scrapped.

On overall plans for the next 20 years, the Brookes report avoids a specific recommendation, but leans towards Option 2 - minimal traditional operator service, to be reduced as quickly as technology allows - with flexibility to allow BT to take advantage of any commercial or technological opportunity.

The number of operators employed at present is about 29,000. The report expects staff requirements to be 'stabilised' at about 4,000 sometime around the year 2005-6.

What has been the UCW executive response to this report? It complains on the first page of its special report that BT "are now thinking as business people and no longer as people involved in a public seryice" . It then chastises the members for asking for a special conference on the Brookes Report!

Recommendation

The UCW executive is prepared to recommend to its members to obtain existing work, based on existing services, even where this work is currently performed by other grades - fellow trade unionists.

It is also happy to recommend cooperation with the introduction of new operator-based technology (computerised directory inquiries, etc.) with no safeguards as to who should operate this - the subscribers or the operators, no safeguards on its introduction by telephone managers' discretion, and no introduction of a shorter working week. They make no mention of defending jobs and services as they exist now.

Unity Official union leadership policies make it difficult for UCW members at a local level to work in a united way with other BT unions, especially the POEU and CPSA Post and Telecoms section - whom it is our aim to amalgamate with.

The POEU's position has long been one of support for the splitting of posts and telecoms. They have argued that if telecom is evitedit profits, the int DOSU telecom will ensure continued employment and prosperity for their members (very few of whom are on the postal side).

But it is that very profitability which encourages the Tories to liberalise and privatise the industry, and thus threatens the jobs that the split is supposed to protect.

The UCW saw the Bill to split posts and telecom as a threat: this meant that the UCW and the POEU, the largest unions affected, were divided from the s art.

Despite this, the unions mounted a campaign against the Bill on the basis of opposition to its provisions to end the public monopoly on telecoms.

The Bill, of course, went through, and during all this time there was no effort to involve the unions' membjob ership in active opposition. At no stage was industrial action mentioned, despite the fact that workers in the gas industry were successfully defending the gas showrooms from being sold off at the time.

Now BT faces a competitor: Project Mercury, a consortium of Cable & Wireless, BP and Barclays Bank, headed by Michael Edwardes.

• POEU branches sent in a number of resolutions to their annual conference to mount a vigorous campaign in opposition.

Debate was restricted and no decision was taken. It doesn't help, either, that ASTMS came out in support of Project Mercury in August. In their evidence to the Hunt inquiry on cable television they stated:

"It does' not mean that existing developments in communication systems such as Project Mercury should not be supported... there is already evidence that its inception has acted as a stimulus to BT"

No fight ASTMS has about 2,000 members with negotiating rights in Cable & Wireless, which was itself a product of the Tories' asset-stripping policies.

Sold off to the market in November 1981, its latest figures record a pretax profit of £97.7 million, compared to £62 million in its last year as a nationalised company. Did ASTMS campaign against its It is worthwhile looking at BT's response to Project Mercury. Their natural answer is to cut the charges for the services on which competition is emerging, and to compensate by raisMichael Edwardes heads Project Mercury intact.

Most noticeably these are local calls, and quarterly line rental.

Over the two-year period 1980-1, BT introduced three tariff increases.

January 1980 - 12.5% increase.

November 1980 increase.

November 1981 increase.

Altogether a 50% increase: and to make matters worse, the November 1981 increase was spread unevenly to 're-balance' BT's pricing cancture and to remove - in line with a government diktat -the practice of long distance calls subsidising local calls.

Business

BT wants this 're-balancing' not only to make the loss-makers pay for themselves, but also to make BT's service more attractive to business customers.

From November 1981 the unit fee was increased from 4.0p to 4.3p, and the time allowance on local calls was reduced.

Increases for trunk call charges were well below those for local calls. The overall average increase on local calls was 26%, on trunk calls under 56. km 7.5%, and on trunk calls over 56 km, 17.7%.

The Post Office Users' National Council has pointed out that these figures are misleading. Because of the reduction in time allowed per unit, the real increase on a 3-minute local call was 115%.

The November 1981 price increases have effectively meant a public hand-out to big business of £56 million. BT chairman Jefferson believes that privatisation will mean a further 50% increase for residential customers - and the handout to business will be even greater.

A 50% increase, based on 1981-2 BT $5.7 billion, revenue of domestic users contributed £1.9 billion, would amount to £950 million!

Attacks

There is an alternative to these attacks by BT and the government.

A shorter working week and work-sharing on full pay, together with proper health and safety standards are the basic requirements needed for new technology to benefit the workforce.

Yet most important is the increasing need for amalgamation between the UCW, the POEU and CPSA (P&T) to combat the 'divide and rule' tactics of both management and trade union executives.

Ultimately the only thing that will stop privatisation of BT is the combined strength of those unions in industrial action.

The executives of these unions are prepared to see privatisation go through. and see the only course of action is to 'convince members and customers tr vote Labour at the nex Action But with the. Labou Party NEC and PLP in the control of the right wing there is no guarantee o them carrying out Part!

policy. Extra-parliament ary action has to be the onl way to defend jobs in BT -this fight should also b linked with others on th Tories' list of nationalise industries for privatisation In the words of Gilber and Sullivan, Thatcher ha 'got a little list, and none c them will be missed.' The working class has t defend its public service - or they will be missed!

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£36 for a 60 hour week! November

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Spl ing ing

ing prices in areas where the old monopoly remains