Union celebrates working time victory with tour

The CWU communications union celebrated a victory on working time last month as management switched off the “despised” personal travel time (PTT) system for Openreach engineers.

The union reported that the digital network business introduced a 60 minute PTT system for all new recruits in 2012. They had to put in up to two hours of unpaid PTT a day on top of their contracted hours, putting some close to the 48 hour maximum allowed under the European Union Working Time Directive. The 2015 European Court of Justice “Tyco” ruling means travel time spent by mobile workers getting to, and returning home from, their first and last allocated jobs of the day is now legally deemed to constitute “work”.

While some engineers were compensated for their travel time, others were forced to give up to 10 hours a week for nothing. High levels of recruitment meant thousands of staff were affected.

In January 2019, the CWU launched its Our Hours campaign “against the blatantly unequal treatment of an ever-growing percentage of the field engineering workforce”. It demanded fair and equal treatment of engineers “on the vexed issue of travel to and from the first and last jobs of the day”.

The union said around 14,000 people would benefit from the change and marked the “momentous CWU achievement” with a countrywide celebration that included a “time bandit” tour of Wales and the Marches.

https://www.cwu.org/news/our-hours-campaign-triumph-as-openreach-finally-calls-time-on-ptt