One of the biggest strikes of the year began on Thursday morning with Royal Mail, BT and Openreach workers walking out over pay and conditions.
At BT Customer Contact Centre, in Gosforth, members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) wore bright jackets and waved flags as they formed a picket lines at the entrance to the building. They joined around 30,000 Openreach engineers and 10,000 BT call centre workers who have already taken industrial action, and further strikes are also planned for October 24.
999 emergency call handlers also took part in today's strike, a move that was previously exempt from the strike according to CWU. But the union added that after widespread outrage at the company’s "refusal" to negotiate with union representatives, those workers would now join their company colleagues.
