Vodafone Q3 results

The company today announced their quarterly results for the 3 months ending 31st December. On the face of it this looks like good news for the company, and for workers who should expect to benefit from the success generated by their hard work.

Total revenue is up 15.8% to £9.2 billion and the company now has 250 million customers worldwide.

Vodafone UK took £1.2 Billion from 18.4 million customers in the 3 months, that’s up 5.9% on the same period last year.

So why the gloomy message today from UK CEO Nick Read, talking of recession in the USA and a slowdown in the UK? It would appear the Nick is very selective about the commentary that he reads as the consensus is that these are far from certain. The results prove that he is running a very successful operation and the hard work of his staff is paying off.

The message goes on to talk of “cost reduction”, making “key deals” and “simplifying the business”. Connect members fully support initiatives that benefit both the company’s bottom line and the environment. The company has made good progress in these areas and we would be interested to know if Nick has picked up his Toyota Prius.

But this seems to be a message aimed at softening workers up for yet more outsourcing, offshoring and redundancies.

We have already seen in the last few months that marketing has been moved to Ireland, Regional Ops is in the process of a cut and shut with Orange and parts of Network operation and development are been outsourced to Alcatel-Lucent.

If Nick isn’t careful his organisation will be very simple, as he will be the only person left on the payroll.

RAN Sharing proposals in Vodafone update

Connect has written formally to Vodafone Regional Operations North and South.

Following the discussions about RAN Sharing/Project Churchill with the company last month we have stressed to Vodafone that consideration needs to be given to lessen the negative impact that extensions beyond the original timescales have on our members' engagement in that process and perception of the project. Clearly our members expect due diligence to be followed and proper consideration given to retaining work in house, for example and it would not be appropriate to attempt to hurry the process up.

However where there are continued delays it is quite right that Connect stresses the need for greater clarity on issues of key importance to our members as a way of rebuilding confidence in the process.

While the detailed consultation is still to come on detailed proposals around TUPE, for example, we have proposed that Vodafone takes the opportunity to remind its employees of its full commitment to meaningfully consult and to give reassurance on specific issues such as pensions, job security and union recognition to Connect and our members. Moving forward Connect and Vodafone will be engaged in consultation to ensure that any commitments made are robust and protect our members impacted by RAN sharing.