Connect was a British

trade union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

representing workers in the

communications Communication is commonly defined as the transmission of information. Its precise definition is disputed and there are disagreements about whether Intention, unintentional or failed transmissions are included and whether communication not onl ...

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 The University of Warwick ( ; abbreviated as ''Warw.'' in post-nominal letters) is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between the West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded in 1965 as part of ...

,
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 Prospect may refer to: General * Prospect (marketing), a marketing term describing a potential customer * Prospect (sports), any player whose rights are owned by a professional team, but who has yet to play a game for the team * Prospect (minin ...

, the union for managers and engineers.

Overview

Certain employers formally recognised Connect, for example, companies like

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

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 flanker ...

Yell Group Hibu Inc. (styled hibü), formerly Yellowbook Inc., is a provider of web development and hosting, digital listings and reputation management, search engine and social media marketing, and digital advertisements. Hibu is headquartered in Cedar ...

, Guernsey Telecoms, HP,

Vodafone UK Vodafone Limited, trading as Vodafone UK (stylised as vodafone), is a British telecommunications company, owned since May 2025 by VodafoneThree, a joint venture between Vodafone Group (51%) and Three owner CK Hutchison Holdings (49%). The ...

and

Kingston Communications KCOM Group (formerly known as Kingston Communications and latterly KC) is a UK communications and IT services provider. Its headquarters are in the city of Kingston upon Hull, and it serves local residents and businesses with Internet and telep ...

. 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 of telecommunications by Deutsche Telekom Deutsche Telekom AG (, ; often just Telekom, DTAG or DT; stylised as ·T·) is a partially state-owned German telecommunications company headquartered in Bonn and the largest telec ...

or Energis, 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 collect ...

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