Connect was a British

trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits (s ...

representing workers in the

communications Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inqui ...

industry.

History

The union was founded in 1912 as the Society of Post Office Engineering Inspectors. In 1947, the Society of Chief Inspectors merged in, and it adopted the new name of the Society of Telecommunication Engineers. Another merger took place in 1969, when the Telecommunication Traffic Officers' Association joined, with the name changing to the Society of Post Office Engineers, and in 1975 the Telecommunications Sales Superintendents' Association merged in, and it became the Society of Post Office Executives (SPOE), by which point it had more than 20,000 members. Around the turn of 1983, the union became the Society of Telecom Executives, then finally it became Connect in 2000.

University of Warwick , mottoeng = Mind moves matter , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £7.0 million (2021) , budget = £698.2 million (202 ...

,
Society of Post Office Executives
Connect's final president was Denise McGuire, while its final general secretary was Adrian Askew. In 2010, Connect merged into Prospect, the union for managers and engineers.

Overview

Certain employers formally recognised Connect, for example, companies like

BT Group BT Group plc ( trading as BT and formerly British Telecom) is a British multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is the largest provider of fixed-line, bro ...

O2 plc O2 (typeset as O2) is a global brand name owned by the Spanish telecommunications company Telefónica. The company uses the O2 brand for its subsidiaries in the United Kingdom and Germany. Since 2018, it is also used as an online-only flanke ...

Yell Group Hibu Inc. (styled hibü), formerly Yellowbook Inc., is a provider of digital marketing and advertising solutions to small- and medium-sized businesses across the US. Hibu’s specialties includes web development and hosting, digital listings and ...

, Guernsey Telecoms, HP,

Vodafone UK Vodafone UK is a British telecommunications services provider, and a part of Vodafone Group Plc, the world's second-largest mobile phone company. Vodafone is the third-largest mobile network operator in the United Kingdom, with 16.9 million s ...

and Kingston Communications. In these companies Connect negotiates on members' behalf. In companies where there is growing membership but no formal recognition as yet, such as

T-Mobile T-Mobile is the brand name used by some of the mobile communications subsidiaries of the German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom AG in the Czech Republic ( T-Mobile Czech Republic), Poland ( T-Mobile Polska), the United States ( T-Mob ...

Energis Energis Communications Limited, briefly Telecom Electric, or more usually just Energis, was a 'technology driven communications company' based in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The company was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index, but subse ...

, employees still can access union services.

Disputes

Connect Members in BT undertook industrial action in 2008.

References

External links

Official Website

Connect Leaning
Connects ULR site
Pay Fair Campaign Site

Catalogue of the Connect archives
held at the

Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick The Modern Records Centre (MRC) is the specialist archive service of the University of Warwick in Coventry, England, located adjacent to the Central Campus Library. It was established in October 1973 and holds the world's largest archive collecti ...

Branches

Connect in Vodafone
Blog for Vodafone members
Connect South
Non BT - Covers Southern England outside the M25 Defunct trade unions of the United Kingdom Trade unions established in 1912 Trade unions disestablished in 2010 {{UK-org-stub