This years General and Industrial Conferences will take place from Sunday 10th May to Thursday 14th May 2026 at Bournemouth.
The agenda for the CWU General Conference which is being held at the Bournemouth International Centre, Bournemouth on Sunday 10th – Monday 11th May 2026 has now been published and can be accessed by clicking the link below:
General Conference Agenda 2026
The agenda for the CWU Telecoms and Financial Services Agenda which is being held in the Tregonwell Hall at the Bournemouth International Centre, Bournemouth from Tuesday 12th – Thursday 14th May 2026 has now been published and can be accessed by clickimng the link below:
Our Branch delegates for General Conference are, Max Cartwright, Andy Cable, Steve Phillips and Nigel Bailey. Delegates for the Telecoms and Financial Services Conference are, Adam Plumb, Gurjit Dhillon and Aman Dhillon. Conference reports will be made available. shortly after the end of conference.
Our branch submitted four Props, three of which were accepted.
Prop 4 (which was made a Composite with the T&FS Executive) – “Conference recognises that for Openreach engineers on Workforce 20/20 contracts to gain employment with Openreach they have to accept a requirement to park their works vehicle at home if required to do so by Openreach. Where it is not possible for an engineer to park at home the engineer is requested to park in an exchange yard location and this is known as Convenience Parking. Engineers who have NewGrid contracts, (prior to the implementation of Workforce 20/20 within Openreach), have not got this requirement, and it is voluntary to agree to parking their work vehicle at home. Conference recognises that the terms of the Parking at Home Policy requires engineers on NewGrid contracts who have volunteered to park their works vehicle at home and engineers who have Workforce 20/20 contracts to give 15 minutes unpaid Contribution Time at each end of the workday. Conference recognises engineers classed as Convenience Parkers still have to give contribution and commitment time, unpaid, whereas yard parkers on NewGrid contracts do not. The Parking at Home Policy is not an agreement between Openreach and the CWU. Conference recognises that following conversion from diesel to electric vehicles some engineers cannot charge their vehicles from their home location and some have been forced to park in a yard as Convenience Parkers. Conference recognises that the Contribution Time is unpaid and is required for essential safety Pre Use Inspection checks at the beginning of the day and completing housekeeping of the vehicle at the end day. These are vital for the safety of individuals and the public and conference believes this should be done in paid work time. Yard Parkers, (who are not classed as Convenience Parkers), do these checks in paid work time. Conference recognises that the Parking at Home Policy was implemented when it was voluntary to opt for home parking and prior to the commitment to park a vehicle at home being a prerequisite to accepting employment with Openreach. Therefore, the T&FSE are instructed to campaign with CWU members and CWU Branches whilst negotiating with Openreach the removal of the Contribution time and the removal of the Convenience Parker definition. The aim will be to enable all engineers to get paid from their agreed sign on time and will include getting paid for their vehicle safety check and travel to their first job.“
Prop 5 – “This conference believes every worker should have sufficient time off from the daily grind of the modern workplace. Therefore, we find it unacceptable that people who have been working in the same job for 20 years only receive 22 days annual leave allowance. We therefore instruct the T&FS executive to negotiate with Excellerate Services UK (ESUK) Ltd for those CWU represented employees to have their annual leave increased in line with service so that anyone who has been in post for 20 years is entitled to a minimum of 6.6 weeks’ annual leave (including bank and public holidays), paid at the normal rate of pay. This equates to 33 days for someone working five days a week. All employees accrue annual leave entitlement from their first day of employment.”
Prop 52 – “This conference believes that the “passport” coaching procedure used in Openreach can confuse some members with the wider BT Passport that is used for equality and caring issues. We also believe that false or erroneous entries can be difficult to challenge, amend or removed. We feel a change of title (e.g. Openreach Coaching Log) will help to remove this confusion. We also feel that a clear process needs to be introduced to enable members to challenge entries they feel are unfair or ambiguous. We therefore instruct the T&FS executive to negotiate with Openreach to make amendments to the process that include a change in name and an agreed process for challenging entries.”