Revolt at BT

It’s at war with the regulator Profits are being hammered And now its own staff are in uproar over pensions

BT faces a damaging row with its own staff as bosses struggle to draw a line under a year of turmoil.

After profit warnings, clashes with regulators and criticisms over awful broadband, the telecoms giant was last night on course for a fresh bust-up – this time over pensions.

The latest row leaves Gavin Patterson, BT’s beleaguered chief executive, fighting battles both inside and outside his company.

Union chiefs have warned proposals to plug a massive hole in the pension scheme have sparked fury among 21,000 workers.

Patterson, paid £1.4m last year, insists the changes are needed to rein in an estimated £14bn pension deficit and to make sure employees are treated equally.

But last night, union chiefs said their members had overwhelmingly rejected the plans put forward by BT.

The revolt will pile further pressure on the 50-year-old, who has been dogged by recent speculation about his position after the arrival of chairman Jan du Plessis. BT’s share price has tanked by nearly 30pc since the start of the year, with the company hit by a £500m Italian accounting scandal, criticisms of its broadband services and pressure from regulator Ofcom and the Government to invest billions of pounds in infrastructure.

It is also bracing for the next costly auction of Premier League football rights in February, where it could be challenged by the likes of Facebook and Amazon.

BT has tried to avoid a dispute over pensions. The Communication Workers Union has warned it could consider strikes if BT doesn’t back down. The union is also in a dispute with Royal Mail.

Andy Kerr, CWU deputy general secretary, said: ‘BT is making billions of pounds of profits and paying out billions of pounds in dividends every year. Our members deserve better and BT can afford it.’

One union source told the Mail last night: ‘If these changes are pushed through, we would have no choice but to ballot for industrial action.’

BT says it hasn’t made any firm decisions. Its pension scheme has about 300,000 members and is the biggest privatesector retirement fund in the UK. Patterson said last month: ‘We need to balance a number of things – affordability, fairness, making sure that there is not one group of employees being treated unfairly.’

The firm said yesterday: ‘We understand the importance of these proposals and have spent considerable time developing them, working with BT’s recognised trade unions.

‘But, at the same time, we need to take action to address the risks and costs of the defined benefit BT pension scheme.

‘If we do nothing, BT will be facing hundreds of millions in extra contributions to the scheme, on top of our current costs.’