Over 40,000 members at the Communication Workers Union (CWU) have agreed to strike for two days on August 30 and 31.
The strike includes more than 30,000 Openreach engineers taking industrial action over a pay dispute.
It follows two months of discussions between the CWU and BT Group at the start of the year when no agreement on pay could be reached.
A BT Group spokesperson said: “We know that our colleagues are dealing with the impacts of high inflation and, although we’re disappointed, we respect their decision to strike.
“We have made the best pay award we could and we are in constant discussions with the CWU to find a way forward from here.
“In the meantime, we will continue to work to minimise any disruption and keep our customers and the country connected”.
According to the BT Group, the company gave its team members and frontline staff the highest pay award in more than 20 years when it became clear that no agreement could be reached with the CWU.
As a result, all team members and frontline colleagues at BT Group received a fully consolidated pay increase of £1,500, representing a pay rise of around five per cent on average and eight per cent for the lowest paid staff.
However, BT Group says that the CWU still balloted its members who voted in favour of industrial action among its Openreach and BT members.
According to the CWU, 28,425 members were entitled to vote, with 95.8 per cent voting in favour of industrial action on a 74.8 per cent turnout.
At BT, 10,353 members were issued with ballot papers in which 91.5 per cent voted to strike on a turnout of 58.2 per cent.
A post on the CWU website states: “BT Group’s approach to the annual pay review this year represents a radical departure by management from the time-honoured partnership approach to industrial relations that had previously underpinned 35 years of industrial peace in BT Group.
“Instead of following normal negotiating protocols – under which a draft deal that is fair and acceptable to both sides is arrived at through discussions, and then recommended by the union to its membership for their ratification – this year BT abruptly terminated the talks after just six short meetings.
“BT claims the flat-rate settlement of £1,500 that it then imposed, without an agreement, equates to between 3.8% and 8% dependent on where individuals sit on the pay scale – though, in actuality, the higher percentage going to the company’s lowest paid workers is illusory.
“That is because up to two-thirds of the £1,500 uplift had previously been paid out to address a recruitment and retention crisis in the company’s call centres where new hires had been placed on unagreed pay rates that were only marginally over the Real Living Wage.
“The CWU, therefore, calculates that even the biggest beneficiaries of this year’s imposed flat rate pay award have only received around 5% – with the vast majority of CWU-represented grades receiving only a little over 4% and some below 3%.”
The upcoming industrial action will be the second time in a month the CWU has called an all-out strike.
Communication Workers Union members at BT Group held a first round of industrial action on July 29 and August 1.
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