ENGINEERS with BT's subsidiary Openreach are taking further industrial action as a company plans to change the job role for future workers.

Openreach announced plans to replace the role of Repayment Project Engineers (RPEs) – of which there are 170 in the UK – with a managerial role. Although this would not affect current employees it would mean people hoping to be RPEs would instead have this new bonus-based role. Some fear that this is “cost-cutting” and “revenue-generating”

Industrial action - via union CWU – has previously taken place across Wales, including outside Newport's telephone exchange, and began again on Thursday, March 18, with action also taking place on Friday. Action is also planned on the first three days of next week.

MORE NEWS:

Pickets are taking place in Newport, Cardiff, Swansea and Merthyr – this follows the previous five days of action in defence of the tax payer and terms of conditions for future employees.

A striker previously said: “The managerial role is bonus-based which could encourage bad practice or behaviour to maximise ‘income’.

"There should not be incentives or bonus-related payments when using public sector funds."

An Openreach spokesperson said: “We’ve worked closely with the union for more than a year-and-a-half to try and resolve this specific issue.

“None of the 170 repayments project engineers in question is at risk of losing their job or seeing any deterioration in their pay, terms and conditions.

“We’ve offered them the option to upgrade to the better-paid, higher technical professional grade, but we’ve also given a cast-iron guarantee that they can choose to stay on their existing terms and conditions – which includes an extremely competitive salary of around £45,000 a year.

“We want to reassure customers that this action won’t impact the quality of the services we provide, or affect our large ongoing investments in recruitment, training and a new full fibre broadband network for the UK.”