THE people are saying “enough is enough” after bosses were given increased payouts amid the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, the general secretary of the Communications Worker Union (CWU) said today.

On Thursday, BT Group workers began voting on possible strike action over pay and about 115,00 postal workers are expected to get their ballot papers on Tuesday.

Dave Ward, speaking to Sky News on Sunday, said: “I mean, the background to this, as well as the cost-of-living crisis, is the reality that BT posted profits of £1.3 billion last year, Royal Mail £758 million.”

“They paid shareholder dividends of £700m and £400m respectively, and I think what’s making workers more and more angry is that the CEO of BT, his pay has actually gone up by 32 per cent in the last year.

“In Royal Mail, the financial director apparently hit all their targets and got £1.5m and the CEO’s just received a bonus of £140,000.

“You know, people are saying: ‘Enough’s enough’.”

Commenting on a claim by the Royal Mail chief executive that the company needs to “remain competitive in a tight market,” Mr Ward said: “Let me be absolutely clear. This is not a debate about affordability.

“Both BT and Royal Mail Group could afford to pay workers more money.”

The comments come at the end of a week of industrial action by the RMT union over jobs, working conditions and pay.

They also follow an announcement by BA workers at Heathrow that they will strike during a summer which has been labelled as a potential “summer of discontent.”

Mr Ward said: “The people who are trying to create the image [of a summer of discontent] is the government at the moment.

“I think people across the UK have sort of seen through some of these tactics. So what I would say to you is this, if people look at the financial crisis in 2008, the pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis, the climate crisis, the only certainty in the UK at the moment if we don’t make a stand for all working people is that the rich are going to get richer and the powerful more powerful.”

A BT Group spokesperson said the company has awarded the highest pay rise to workers in 20 years.

A Royal Mail spokesperson said they did not believe there was any ground for industrial action.