BT gives staff 1.5% pay rise and promises not to furlough workers or cut jobs for three months

THOUSANDS of BT workers will keep their jobs for at least three months on their normal wage - and they'll get a 1.5 per cent pay rise in July.

The telecoms company, which employs 84,000 people in the UK, has today pledged to "stand by its people" as they "stand by the country".

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BT's chief executive, Philip Jansen, will also donate the next six months of his £1.1million salary - worth £550,000 - to the NHS Charities Together Covid-19 appeal and to affected small businesses in his local community.

It follows criticism from BT call centre workers who claim they've been “shoved in like sardines”, with no option to work from home.

BT's engineers and customer service representatives are still working as normal as they're considered to be key workers.

Meanwhile, its 4,200 retail staff who worked in its high street stores have been redeployed to other parts of the business.

But it admits that thousands are unable to work, including 400 new engineers it's been unable to train but kept on.

However, it's today said no BT Group employee will lose their job as a direct result of coronavirus over the next three months.

This applies to everyone working under the BT Group brands of BT, EE, Openreach, and Plusnet.

Over this period salaries will be paid in full even where staff are unable to work.

The Group adds that it won't furlough workers or use the government's jobs retention scheme to pay wages.

These measures will be reviewed in three months.

In addition, all non-managerial workers across the brands in the UK will get a 1.5 per cent pay rise from July 1.

This benefits around 58,000 staff - mostly key workers in call centres, as well as engineers.

Managers won't get a pay rise in the 2020/21 financial year but BT says it plans to dish out bonuses to them for the last financial year as normal.

Staff who are eligible will find out more about this in June, but bonuses are typically worth a proportion of the salary for people such as call centre managers and regional engineer managers.

All employees will also get a cut of £500million worth of BT shares in June.

The Sun has asked BT how many staff are currently unable to work, how many have been redeployed, and whether staff got a pay rise for the last financial year.

We'll update this story as soon as we get a response.

The firm had also come under fire from customers for failing to pause BT Sport during the crisis given there's no live sport, but it U-turned after the backlash giving customers a one month refund.

BT has also given all customers unlimited home broadband to help families stay connected during the coronavirus crisis.

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BT says it is connecting the new Nightingale Hospitals, as well as continuing any ongoing or planned programmes unrelated to the coronavirus pandemic - something it says staff may be retrained and reassigned to help with.

Mr Jansen said: “BT is stepping up, standing by the country in this time of need and standing by our people who are working tirelessly to keep everyone connected, safe and working.

"This is an unprecedented situation and I want to give our people some certainty about the months ahead."