BT CUSTOMERS have been issued an 11-day warning ahead of disruption to services amid staff walkouts.

BT and Openreach staff have voted to stage two 24-hour walkouts in a dispute over pay.

Members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) will strike on July 29 and August 1after voting for industrial action last month.

CWU general secretary Dave Ward said: "For the first time since 1987, strike action will now commence at BT Group.

"This is not a case of an employer refusing to meet a union's demands - this is about an employer refusing to meet us whatsoever.

“The serious disruption this strike may cause is entirely down to Philip Jansen (BT chief executive) and his friends, who have chosen to stick two fingers up to their own workforce.

"These are the same workers who kept the country connected during the pandemic. Without CWU members in BT Group, there would have been no home-working revolution and vital technical infrastructure may have malfunctioned or been broken when our country most needed it.

"Our members worked under great difficulty and got a real-terms pay cut as a reward.

“The reason for the strike is simple - workers will not accept a massive deterioration in their living standards. We won't have bosses using Swiss banks while workers are using food banks. We are not going to stop until we win."

BT issues statement over strikes

A BT Group spokesperson said: "At the start of this year, we were in exhaustive discussions with the CWU that lasted for two months, trying hard to reach an agreement on pay.

“When it became clear that we were not going to reach an accord, we took the decision to go ahead with awarding our team member and frontline colleagues the highest pay award in more than 20 years, effective April 1.

"We have confirmed to the CWU that we won't be re-opening the 2022 pay review, having already made the best award we could.

“We're balancing the complex and competing demands of our stakeholders and that includes making once-in-a-generation investments to upgrade the country's broadband and mobile networks, vital for the UK economy and for BT Group's future - including our people.”

The spokesperson added: "While we respect the choice of our colleagues who are CWU members to strike, we will work to minimise any disruption and keep our customers and the country connected.

“We have tried and tested processes for large scale colleague absences to minimise any disruption for our customers and these were proved during the pandemic."