The EGM passed three motions.
1) PAY
We recognise that the MAN05 pay agreement for 2004 marked a significant step forward, both in achieving an agreement, and beginning to tackle some of the big issues. The extension of sick pay and holiday pay during the campaign were also welcome. We instruct our reps to continue to press for full implementation of the 2004 agreement.
We note that Fujitsu Services staff are still typically paid significantly below the market rate for their jobs. Pay rates for jobs in the IT industry are now rising again.
The Company used to argue that though our pay was relatively low, the total package was competitive, when overtime rates, pension etc were taken into account. However, the Company has reduced the value and availability of benefits in recent years.
Company performance has improved on the back of rapid increases in productivity. We note that the Company believed its performance was good enough to justify a significant "stretch factor" on certain bonuses (excluding the bulk of MAN05 staff) in 2004. Nonetheless, the pot allocated for pay reviews in 2004 gave no room to address the long-standing underpayment problems.
We want the company to be open and honest with staff about the problems the company has with pay and to build on the actions resulting from the 2004 MAN05 pay deal to resolve the outstanding issues.
We instruct our reps to begin preparations for the April 2005 pay review:
* Publish analysis of the pay situation at MAN05
* Conduct a pay survey of staff, and publish the results
* Ask the company what information they want members to consider
* Make information available to members to promote informed debate on a pay claim for 2005
We want an April 2005 pay review based on some form of credible and published pay scales.
We recognise the difficulties presented by negotiating pay on a local basis when some of the factors are national. We call on the Company to extend the same pay bargaining rights we enjoy to employees outside MAN05. As steps towards this, we instruct our reps to:
* Explore with members outside MAN05 whether they wish to be part of a common 2005 pay claim and campaign
* Explore with the PCS union whether some or all of our claim for 2005 can be joint
2) DISPUTE
We note that:
1) No talks to settle the dispute have taken place since 11 February.
2) The company has not even made a commitment to reopen talks
3) That our current recognition agreement is MAN05-specific
4) That many of the issues in dispute (e.g. redundancy, redeployment) continue to affect employees inside and outside the current MAN05 bargaining unit
5) The company says it will review whether or not to reopen talks after the end of September
6) That management promised to try to avoid any of the issues which sparked the MAN05 dispute resurfacing in the meantime
We believe the company's delays in resolving a dispute which began in early 2003 detrimental to good industrial relations. We are concerned that the company may lack genuine commitment to a negotiated settlement, and may be trying to avoid a settlement while moving staff out of MAN05 to a new site without union recognition - effectively derecognising the union without giving the 6-months notice required by our current agreement.
We instruct our reps to seek a negotiated settlement of the dispute and to avoid further unjustified delays. To this end, we instruct the reps to approach the company and seek the following positive and reassuring steps:
1) Email to all MAN05 staff an agreed joint statement that both parties see the need for a negotiated settlement, and that if this hasn't been agreed by the time staff begin to transfer to the new Central Park site, both parties accept that the existing bargaining unit and arrangements will extend to cover the new site.
2) The company to indicate during September what issues they have with the current draft agreements, including any feedback from their legal advisors. Our reps are instructed to do the same.
3) The company to propose a date in the first week of October when we will either recommence talks or explain why they are unwilling to negotiate.
We instruct our reps to call a further EGM in October to report on progress and discuss the way forward.
3) REPS
We elected our reps committee. Reps are accountable to members throughout their term of office. If at any time we ceased to have confidence in any of our reps we would remove them through our normal democratic processes.
We have confidence that our reps are accurately and effectively representing the interests and views of employees.
We call upon the company to constructively address the issues that our reps raise on our behalf. We would regard any attempt to victimise any of our representatives as an attack on all employees and our union.
Thanks to all those who attended today's EGM, which heard reports from reps on the MAN05 pay deal for 2004, the Reward Framework Discussion Group, the MAN05 dispute, redundancies & compromise agreements and the Manchester Move.
Reps also reported the good news that Dave Francis had been elected unopposed to the Manchester seat for the ICL Pension Members Committee (which replaces the old Pension Consultative Committee and then the UK Pensions Consultative Committee).
Three motions were passed as follows:
1) PAY
We recognise that the MAN05 pay agreement for 2004 marked a significant step forward, both in achieving an agreement, and beginning to tackle some of the big issues. The extension of sick pay and holiday pay during the campaign were also welcome. We instruct our reps to continue to press for full implementation of the 2004 agreement.
We note that Fujitsu Services staff are still typically paid significantly below the market rate for their jobs. Pay rates for jobs in the IT industry are now rising again.
The Company used to argue that though our pay was relatively low, the total package was competitive, when overtime rates, pension etc were taken into account. However, the Company has reduced the value and availability of benefits in recent years.
Company performance has improved on the back of rapid increases in productivity. We note that the Company believed its performance was good enough to justify a significant "stretch factor" on certain bonuses (excluding the bulk of MAN05 staff) in 2004. Nonetheless, the pot allocated for pay reviews in 2004 gave no room to address the long-standing underpayment problems.
We want the company to be open and honest with staff about the problems the company has with pay and to build on the actions resulting from the 2004 MAN05 pay deal to resolve the outstanding issues.
We instruct our reps to begin preparations for the April 2005 pay review:
We want an April 2005 pay review based on some form of credible and published pay scales.
We recognise the difficulties presented by negotiating pay on a local basis when some of the factors are national. We call on the Company to extend the same pay bargaining rights we enjoy to employees outside MAN05. As steps towards this, we instruct our reps to:
2) DISPUTE
We note that:
1) No talks to settle the dispute have taken place since 11 February.
2) The company has not even made a commitment to reopen talks
3) That our current recognition agreement is MAN05-specific
4) That many of the issues in dispute (e.g. redundancy, redeployment) continue to affect employees inside and outside the current MAN05 bargaining unit
5) The company says it will review whether or not to reopen talks after the end of September
6) That management promised to try to avoid any of the issues which sparked the MAN05 dispute resurfacing in the meantime
We believe the company's delays in resolving a dispute which began in early 2003 detrimental to good industrial relations. We are concerned that the company may lack genuine commitment to a negotiated settlement, and may be trying to avoid a settlement while moving staff out of MAN05 to a new site without union recognition - effectively derecognising the union without giving the 6-months notice required by our current agreement.
We instruct our reps to seek a negotiated settlement of the dispute and to avoid further unjustified delays. To this end, we instruct the reps to approach the company and seek the following positive and reassuring steps:
1) Email to all MAN05 staff an agreed joint statement that both parties see the need for a negotiated settlement, and that if this hasn't been agreed by the time staff begin to transfer to the new Central Park site, both parties accept that the existing bargaining unit and arrangements will extend to cover the new site.
2) The company to indicate during September what issues they have with the current draft agreements, including any feedback from their legal advisors. Our reps are instructed to do the same.
3) The company to propose a date in the first week of October when we will either recommence talks or explain why they are unwilling to negotiate.
We instruct our reps to call a further EGM in October to report on progress and discuss the way forward.
3) REPS
We elected our reps committee. Reps are accountable to members throughout their term of office. If at any time we ceased to have confidence in any of our reps we would remove them through our normal democratic processes.
We have confidence that our reps are accurately and effectively representing the interests and views of employees.
We call upon the company to constructively address the issues that our reps raise on our behalf. We would regard any attempt to victimise any of our representatives as an attack on all employees and our union.
All Amicus members based at MAN05 (or who are home-based with a MAN05 admin base) should attend this Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM):
3pm-4:30pm
Thursday 26th August
MAN05 restaurant
The purpose of the EGM is for reps to report back on key issues (the MAN05 dispute, the 2004 pay review, the Reward Framework, redundancies & Compromise Agreements and the Manchester Move) and for members to instruct reps on both the MAN05 dispute and the pay claim for next year.
There's a report on the 2 July meeting with management. This is on the company Intranet, so not publicly visible.
In our notice of 16th July we reported the slow progress the company had made in implementing the March 2004 pay agreement for the MAN05 bargaining unit. There were four main issues:
a) People being paid below the bottom of their 2003 pay-scale (i.e. shortfalls)
b) People wrongly mapped from one Professional Community, role and level to another
c) People who got 0% in breach of the agreement
d) People who got below the 1% minimum due to rounding
Your reps have just come out of a meeting with HR, where we were told:
a) Shortfalls
Your reps have not yet had an opportunity to assess the overall impact of the company proposals. We hope to be in a position to do so by the end of next week. In the meantime, members should make sure they are satisfied that any proposals from their manager involve firm commitments to address their shortfall in a reasonable time-frame.
b) Mis-mapping
Amicus had worked out who had potentially been mis-mapped into a new role in May. The company had agreed to notify everyone who had been mapped, and give those who had been mapped in a non-standard way the opportunity to appeal. Where this resulted in a lower pay rise in April, the company had committed to backdate their rise to April.
The company has been collating responses from individual managers as to the reasons behind non-standard mapping. Amicus is keeping up the pressure for this long-standing issue to be resolved. As a first step, the company will write to all those who have been mapped in a standard way as a matter of urgency.
c) 0%
The company acknowledges that there are people who didn't get a pay rise in April who didn't meet either of the agreed criteria. These were people who were "red-circled" or who were being disciplined for unacceptable performance. However, the company believes there were valid reasons (other than those they agreed) for the 0% rises in each case. The company have committed to giving us a break-down of these reasons, so that Amicus can assess whether this is an issue we need to pursue.
d) <1%
A number of employees received rises just less than 1% due to their salary being wrongly calculated. These problems will be corrected in the August pay packet.
It is clearly disappointing that progress has been so slow, but your reps hope that many members will start seeing more benefits from the March pay agreement in their pay packets soon.