Amicus has been running a national pay campaign in Fujitsu Services for the first time this year. Despite massive support from employees across the country, the company are still (predictably) refusing to negotiate at national level. However, the campaign has already begun to set the agenda on pay and benefits. Even without negotiations, a strong campaign can influence company decisions over the coming months.
The reps on the UK Consultative Forum have also expressed the feelings of employees on the pay review, with a letter to the company. The fact that this letter is the most popular item on the whole of CafeVIK gives a good indication of the interest in pay and benefits our pay campaign has generated.
Members outside the collective bargaining areas (e.g. MAN05) have started to receive their pay review letters, and the initial response from employees is generally anger and disappointment. The company are trying to get away with giving most employees rises far below the rate of inflation – a pay cut in real terms.
We must continue to build up the pressure on Fujitsu to address employees’ concerns about pay and benefits, and to secure the right of all employees to have a say through genuine negotiation.
One of the key points in our pay campaign (and in the UKCF letter) was the need for openness and transparency – employees should have the right to know what the going rate for their job is – and be paid it. Employees also need to know whether a new job is likely to attract better or worse pay and benefits before making career decisions.
Amicus issued advice to members on how to make a “subject access request” under the Data Protection Act to gain access to their pay scales. Many employees took up this advice, and have received a standard letter from the company claiming that they don’t have to disclose the pay scales under an exemption for information processed for “management forecasting and management planning”. The exemption does indeed exist, as you can see in section 5.17 of this guidance document.
However, it seems far from certain that the claimed exemption applies in this case, and your reps sought clarification on your behalf. After Amicus enquiries, we now understand that the Information Commissioner – the official body charged with enforcing the Data Protection Act – intends to contact the company to discuss the issue. This means that in the short term there is no need for individuals who have received the refusal from the company to lodge individual complaints with the Information Commissioner.
If you have not yet submitted your request to the company, you may still wish to do so, to start the clock ticking in the meantime – there is a 40-day deadline from a request to provide information.
Don’t forget – if you have any information about Fujitsu’s pay scales and comparative figures, internal or external, please send the details to your rep.
The next meeting of the Amicus Greater Manchester IT branch is:
6pm-7:30pm, Thursday 7th April
Upstairs, Hare & Hounds pub, Shudehill, Manchester City Centre, M4 4AA
(near Shudehill tram stop and the spiral ramp to the Arndale car park).
With an election coming, the main topic for discussion will be the role of “Unions in Politics”. There will also be time for discussion on workplace issues and the normal branch business.
All branch members are encouraged to attend.
For some months Amicus have been raising concerns about a potential "TUPE transfer" of a group of employees to a customer, in a situation where it seemed this was in nobody’s interest.
We are pleased to report that we have now had confirmation that Fujitsu does not intend to transfer any of the staff, or have any job losses or forced moves as a result.
Members voted overwhelmingly to endorse the reps suggestion of delaying the MAN05 Annual General Meeting (AGM) into April.
We are now planning the meeting for:
3pm-4:30pm, Wednesday 13th April
MAN05 restaurant
This meeting is for all Amicus members based at MAN05 (including HOM99 with a MAN05 admin base).
Members are entitled to attend in work time. If your manager might need to arrange cover for you to attend, please contact them NOW and get confirmation of your release. If you have any problems getting release, contact your rep immediately. If you leave it until the last minute, we may be unable to help.
Electing reps
As well as reporting and discussing the latest situation on key issues such as pay and the dispute, the meeting will elect the reps for the coming year.
Members were sent information on making nominations or volunteering to stand as a rep. Nominations need to be in by Friday 8th April.
Reps are allowed work time to carry out their duties, and full training is available. Responsibilities are varied, including advising members, individual representation, research, communication, campaigning, recruitment, organising and negotiating. Not all reps do everything - we work as a team. If you want to know more before deciding whether to stand, contact any of our current reps.
Items for the agenda
Any member can submit topics or motions for discussion. If you want to do so, please email us by Friday 8th April.
National
The company are still unwilling to negotiate with Amicus at national level over our pay claim, but the national campaign has already begun to set the agenda as never before. The campaign goes on…
The high level of interest in pay nationally this year is clearly reflected in the stats for the UK Consultative Forum community on CafeVIK. The UKCF reps’ statement on pay has been the top item on the whole of CafeVIK two weeks running!
Local
At MAN05, where most employees already have the right to have their pay determined by collective bargaining, reps have now had several negotiating meetings with the company, but are not yet ready to circulate an “offer” for members to vote on.
The company has made clear to managers that they intend to implement a deal in time for the April pay review, but that in the unlikely event that negotiations are not complete in time, any pay increase subsequently agreed would be backdated to 1st April.
Your reps don’t want to make a detailed report at this stage, to avoid entrenching particular positions while negotiations continue.
Members received a report of the key bullet points on the current state of play.
Pay scales
The company have provided Amicus with quite a lot of information to help with the collective bargaining process. However, they have not been prepared to provide pay scale or comparative pay figures without a confidentiality agreement. Amicus members had approved the following motion in February:
Moves towards an open and transparent pay system form a key component of our pay claim for 2005. We note with deep disappointment that the company are demanding that our reps agree to retain confidentiality on pay scales before disclosing the information.
We ask Amicus to refuse to the terms of confidentiality at the present time, and to pursue all avenues to force disclosure of the information without such restrictions.
Your reps will be reviewing the situation tomorrow and deciding whether to ask our Regional Officer to seek a ruling from the Central Arbitration Committee on this question.
We expect Amicus nationally to issue updated guidance soon on the next steps in using the Data Protection Act to gain access to your individual pay scales.
HOM99 staff
Your reps have had considerable problems getting any HOM99 staff included in the deal. A notice went out to HOM99 members about this on Friday. The outcome of this is still unclear.
Next steps
The pay campaign continues at national and local level – it’s clear that much remains to be done to achieve fair pay for Fujitsu employees.
Several more negotiating meetings are planned for MAN05 in the next couple of weeks. The intention is to work with management to draft an improved offer before sending it out to members for the vote.
Amicus lodged a national pay claim with Fujitsu Services for the first time this year. This is the fourth of a series of newsletters highlighting particular aspects of the claim and how it would benefit you.
The company is still unwilling to negotiate nationally over the pay claim, but the campaign is already setting the agenda – please keep the pressure up. The home page for the campaign is http://www.ourunion.org.uk/pay2005.
The company’s UK Consultative Forum (UKCF), which includes many Amicus members, has now made a statement about the 2005 pay review. Note that people covered by union collective bargaining (e.g. MAN05 staff paid £36,911 or less) have other specific arrangements – see here for the MAN05 group’s recent Q&A document.
Later in this newsletter there is also an update on gaining access to your pay scale using the Data Protection Act.
Today we are looking at the elements of the claim relating to fairness, equality and discrimination:
· Publication of internal pay comparators for 2003 and 2005
· Publication of external pay comparators for 2003. Creation of future pay scales.
· Help for the lowest paid in each role
· Everyone to get at least a minimum rise
· Pay progression within and between roles
· Stop unfair changes to Professional Community role codes
· An Equal Pay Audit
Is the pay system fair already?
No. The current “pay system” is arbitrary, inconsistent and discriminatory. Our confidence in giving this clear answer is not just based on the many anecdotes (such as those in the comments from our pay survey), but also on the numerical results of our pay survey, and on the nature of the current “pay system” itself.
Amicus believes a pay system which is fair – and seen to be fair – would benefit all employees.
The Equal Opportunities Commission publishes guidance to employers on operating “performance related pay” systems. The EOC focuses on gender discrimination, but the same principles apply to race, age, disability etc. Do you think Fujitsu lives up to this EOC advice:
· “The EOC recommends all employers carry out equal pay reviews”
· “with individual or team reward there is an element of discretion and subjectivity, and therefore a higher risk of bias”
· “you need to monitor both the payments and the process. The human element is vital –anyone involved in appraisal or in decisions to award performance related pay should receive advice and guidance on how to avoid sex bias.”
· “Ensure the criteria for rewarding performance is clearly defined and achievable and targets are equal across departments in the organisations”
· “Look to ensuring training in equal opportunities and how it affects pay discrimination for all involved in appraisals”
· “Limit the element of discretion in appraisal”
· “Explain the system to the workers so everyone understands the system”
· “It makes good business sense for employees to understand why they are paid as they are”
· “Transparency is a key feature of tackling equal pay problems”
· “A transparent pay system is one where employees understand not only their rate of pay but also the components of their individual pay packets. The rationale for performance related payments is often unclear, yet a transparent pay system avoids uncertainty and perceptions of unfairness”
Gender discrimination is the easiest to detect, as data about the gender of employees is more complete and reliable than race, disability, sexuality, religion etc. If the “pay system” creates/allows sex discrimination, it is likely that it creates/allows discrimination of other kinds too. Gender inequality is a good indicator of a pay system that is not fair and objective, to the detriment of all employees.
The second batch of results from our pay survey included some startling figures on gender inequality in Fujitsu Services:
· Females were paid 11% less than males
· Within particular Professional Community roles (i.e. doing the same type of job at the same level), females were typically paid £2500 to £3000 less than males
When Amicus published these results, we acknowledged that they were based on information provided by a (self-selecting) sample of employees. We invited the company to provide more complete and accurate information. They refused – leaving the assumption that the true figures could be even more damning than our survey results.
Sex discrimination in pay can take a number of forms:
1. Wider society shapes education, career aspirations and choices etc. Women are often expected to bear the majority of the burden of unpaid caring work. These pressures often lead to a low proportion of female applicants for higher-paid, higher-status jobs.
2. Women are denied equal access to promotions and other career opportunities, leading them to be concentrated in lower-paid, lower-status jobs.
3. Jobs predominantly done by women attract lower pay and benefits than jobs predominantly done by men, even when the jobs are objectively “of equal value”.
4. Women get paid less for doing the same job than their male counterparts.
Many examples of sex discrimination do not result from an intention to discriminate – they can be the unintended consequence of policy – what one might call “institutional sexism”. A pay system which results in unintended sex discrimination is likely to result in other forms of unfairness and discrimination too, whether you want to talk about age, race, religion, disability, sexuality etc or just about whether your “face fits”.
What is the right solution?
The right approach is for a company to:
1) Commit to establishing a fair pay system and rectifying any unjustified differences found
2) Carrying out an Equal Pay Audit or Review to identify the scope, scale and nature of the problems
3) Implement a pay system which avoids unjustified differences
4) Correct any unjustified differences found
This work needs to be within a defined timetable and to involve employee representatives to ensure employees have confidence in the process.
Amicus believes this approach is far more constructive than large numbers of individuals having to take equal pay or discrimination claims through a legal process. We believe solving the problem is better than spending time in court arguing about compensation for the problem.
We had hoped that the “Reward Framework” process which began early last year represented a move by the company in this direction, but this ground to a halt months ago.
The Amicus pay claim seeks to put in place a few immediate and obvious measures to improve the “pay system”, and to secure a commitment to an Equal Pay Audit to start the company down the road to a long-term solution.
If necessary, unions do support members in taking equal pay claims to court, and they can (eventually) work. One of the biggest recent successes was UNISON’s campaign to secure 5- or 6-figure sums for health-workers in Cumbria. Amicus too has a proud track-record in this field. Legal success often results in employers being compelled to provide back-pay for up to six years before the claim - reflecting what employees should rightly have been paid.
So how would the claim help?
These extracts from the claim are key to limiting discrimination and moving towards a fairer pay system for all.
1a) The Company to publish lower quartile, median and upper quartile pay figures for Fujitsu Services staff in the UK for each Professional Community role and level, along with the equivalent figures for the Professional Community roles and levels in use in March 2003.
1b) The Company to publish its externally benchmarked pay scales used for the March 2003 pay review, and agree a suitable basis for future benchmarking with Amicus to create meaningful pay scales.
1f) Clear criteria and appeal processes to be established before any more role code "mappings"
Points 1a, 1b and 1f are about moves towards openness and transparency – ending the culture of secrecy and the unfairness that culture breeds. Employees should have enough information to know whether a change to their role code / grade is a promotion or a demotion. Employees should be able to make informed career decisions. Employees shouldn’t need to go to court to find out if they’re paid worse than their peers.
1c) Anyone paid below the lower quartile of Fujitsu Services pay for their role code to have their pay raised to that level.
Point 1c is about helping those who are most under-paid for their role.
1d) Agreement on pay progression within and between roles.
Point 1d would help with a number of problems. Many members complain that they perform high-level roles, but their actual role code is much lower. In many cases they are charged out to customers at a higher rate than the company uses for their pay and benefits. They aren’t being paid for the job they do. In helpdesks people are told that the D1-D4 skills matrix is based on an assessment of their “competencies”, but in reality they are not allowed to progress up the matrix unless there is a “vacancy” at the higher skill level, no matter how good they are.
1j) All employees to get a percentage rise at least equivalent to the annual increase in RPI or the equivalent money increase based on a salary of £20,000, whichever is the greater. [For example, if RPI were 3%, 3% of £20,000 is £600 – all employees to get at least 3% or £600, whichever is the greater].
Point 1j ensures that everyone gets a rise. Not only would this prevent erosion of living standards, but it limits discrimination too, by limiting the “discretionary” element.
2 A commitment and timetable from the company to work with the recognised unions to carry out an Equal Pay Audit to monitor the pay structure and outcome by gender, age and ethnic origin and to change the structure if necessary.
Point 2 is the key to the future. An Equal Pay Audit or Review wouldn’t solve problems overnight, but this commitment would set the company on the right road to identify and correct any problems.
Gaining access to your pay scale using the Data Protection Act
Based on advice from the Information Commissioner and the Amicus legal department, we recently issued advice to members on using the Data Protection Act to force the company to tell you your pay and benefit scale.
The company is issuing standard letters in response to employees who submit these requests, claiming that they don’t have to disclose the pay scales under an exemption for information processed for “management forecasting and management planning”. The exemption does indeed exist, as you can see in section 5.17 of this guidance document.
However, the company’s assertion that this exemption applies in this case conflicts with the original advice we received, so your reps are seeking clarification.
If you have not yet submitted your request, you may still wish to do so, to start the clock ticking in the meantime – there is a 40-day deadline from a request to provide information.
Information for collective bargaining
One of the benefits of union recognition is the legal right to information from the company for the purpose of collective bargaining. The company is currently refusing to provide some of the key pay data to Amicus for the MAN05 pay negotiations unless the union agrees to keep it confidential from the members. The union consulted MAN05 members, who instructed reps to refuse to accept the information on this basis, and to press for its disclosure.
Got any pay scales?
If you manage to obtain any pay scales (either this year’s or others), please send us the details by email or post. Amicus will protect the anonymity of its sources.
Amicus/UNIFI has union recognition for the staff expected to TUPE transfer in from LloydsTSB to Fujitsu Services.
Here you can read the union's newsletter from 08 March.
Amicus lodged a national pay claim with Fujitsu Services for the first time this year. This is the third of a series of newsletters highlighting particular aspects of the claim and how it would benefit you.
The company is still unwilling to negotiate nationally over the pay claim, but the campaign is already setting the agenda – please keep the pressure up. The home page for the campaign is http://www.ourunion.org.uk/pay2005.
Today we are looking at the work/life balance aspects of the claim. The elements of this are:
· Reduction of standard contracted hours to 37 for those on more than this
· Overnight allowance when working away from home
· Review of standby and call out allowances
· Improvement of the sabbatical leave scheme
· Premium payments for bank holidays
· Wider application of flexible working
Shorter working week
You may have seen that the TUC recently organised a national ‘Work your proper hours’ day, see http://www.worksmart.org.uk/workyourproperhoursday for details.
This reflects the current unhealthy obsession among employers to expect unpaid overtime and excessively long working days from their staff, and Fujitsu are no exception.
Long hours are not good for us; they cause stress; they're bad for our health; they wreck relationships; they make caring for children or dependents more difficult; and tired, burnt-out staff are bad for business. Unfortunately despite paying lip service to the tired old mantra that ‘our staff are our greatest asset’, the company demonstrate time and again that in reality they expect more and more from us, in return for less and less.
Of course in our business we all need to be flexible – most of us have been in situations where our project or customer is in crisis, and as professional and dedicated people, we do what is necessary to resolve that issue. The problem is when the exception becomes the rule; when longer hours or extra commitments become the expected norm, and any recognition from the company for this flexibility is either non-existent or continually eroded. We have received many examples of situations where staff are now expected to work at weekends, or to provide out-of-hours cover, or to work away from home.
Usually this is supposed to be on a ‘voluntary’ basis, but those who do not wish to participate find themselves with poor reviews, and curtailed career prospects. There are numerous examples of such bullying tactics being employed towards vulnerable people.
So we are asking for the company to move towards a standard of a 37-hour contractual working week for all employees who currently work more than this. There are a sizeable number of people who are working a 40-hour contract at present, these are often in areas such as helpdesks where pay levels are low and stress levels are high.
If the company want to address the serious issue of employees whose health is badly affected by stress, then a reduction of working hours is one positive step forward. If Fujitsu wish to demonstrate that they are an enlightened employer, then why not begin discussions with the aim of reducing the working week to 35 hours? UK employees already work the longest hours in Europe, and both employers and their staff pay the price for that. Fujitsu could be at the cutting edge of companies pioneering a movement to move away from this unhealthy culture.
Working away from home
Many of us will have been given the ‘opportunity’ to work on an assignment some way from home, or will know people who have. There is tremendous ill feeling among staff regarding the way they have been treated while working away from home. Let’s face it – for most people commuting large distances, or staying in a hotel away from family and social commitments is not something we would choose to do for extended periods of time. Often unwarranted pressure is exerted by managers to ‘persuade’ staff to take such assignments, which for many people entails considerable sacrifice. If you feel you are being forced to take an off-site assignment, or if working away from home is affecting your health or placing you under too much stress, please contact your local Amicus rep for advice.
There are many issues surrounding working away from home: many ways in which the company fail those who have made this commitment. Some particular problems are the lack of recognition for such commitment, continual degradation of the accommodation and expenses policy, and Health and Safety issues. There are many others, but there is not the space to cover all of them in this document.
What we are asking for in this year’s claim is quite simple: the introduction of a standard overnight allowance for everyone working away from home.
At present some employees do receive such an allowance, at varying rates, but many don’t. Given the immense disruption to their personal lives that most people face if they are staying in a hotel while working on a project, a standard overnight allowance seems little to ask, and is one small way that the company can demonstrate that they do appreciate such flexibility. Perhaps this might just be a small incentive for the company to actively seek to reduce the need for people to work away from home at all.
Allowances for standby and call-out
The current payments for standby and call-out are quite simply a mess. Depending where you work you might receive £1.65 per hour, or £4.25 per hour, but then, maybe you receive an annual allowance for standby instead. In some cases this can lead to mixed teams being paid different rates for exactly the same cover! Whatever your rate, you can be sure it has not increased much (if at all!) for many years.
Just as your salary has been eroded by years of below-inflation pay pots, so the standby and callout rates have greatly diminished in real terms, so that they are now a shadow of their former selves. We are calling for the company to recognise the value and flexibility of those who are prepared to provide standby and callout. It is now time to redress the neglect that has allowed these payments to wither.
Sabbaticals
The next item in this section is a request to enhance the sabbatical leave scheme. Currently employees can be awarded sabbatical leave through performance, and commitment, those employees who are judged to have made a ‘significant’ contribution to the company’s business goals. We are asking for these strict criteria to be widened to include all employees, and for the company to offer a commitment to continued employment, maintaining accumulated benefits, existing contractual terms, and length of service, when the individual returns. Obviously we would not expect there to be an automatic right to sabbatical leave. We recognise that the company needs to maintain its commitments to customers, but we feel that there is value to both the company and to employees to have wider access to this facility.
Bank Holidays
Then we have the issue of working on Bank Holidays. Once again the compensation varies across the company, but there are a considerable number of people who simply receive a day off at some other time when they work a bank holiday. In order to attract staff to volunteer to work a bank holiday, and to give up time that is often spent with families, working a bank holiday should attract a premium payment as well as a day off. After all, usually the company will be making additional money from the customer if you work a bank holiday!
Flexible working
We want the company to allow older employees to work part time. The company already has a flexible working policy, not restricted to those with young families. The policy needs to be publicised and promoted in this wider context. Being able to take your pension and supplement it with part time employment, for example, provides the ability to phase into retirement gradually, without the sudden massive drop in income that can occur. For those who want to do this, retirement can be considerably enhanced and of course Fujitsu will retain access to skills that it would otherwise have lost. This is a win-win situation for the employee and for the company.
The flexible working policy goes beyond the legal requirements for parents of young children, and is open to all employees, although there is some concern that the company is becoming less supportive, particularly towards women who wish to work part-time after maternity leave. The problem is that not many people know about the scheme, and often managers do not have the will or the knowledge to utilise the scheme effectively.
Remember that the company also allows up to one day off per month for public duties such as school governor, local councillor, or charity work.
The flexible working policy, along with most other HR Policies, can be seen here on CafeVIK.
The issue of who gets what if they are made redundant is one of the issues involved in the long-running Manchester dispute. Amicus and the company do not agree about who is covered by which aspects of the vital Security of Employment Agreement (SEA).
A company announcement shortly before our second strike in 2003 changed the picture somewhat – to the advantage of many MAN05 employees and those from other sites who will move to Central Park. It introduced the notion of a “Minimum Redundancy Payment”. You can read the announcement and the Amicus explanation of it on CafeVIK here.
The ever-popular Amicus redundancy calculator does not reflect this local variation yet, but an update is on the way.
Amicus reps are still working with the company to try to agree a clear definition of who gets what as part of the settlement of the dispute.
Note that since this newsletter went out, the company have denied that their announcement means what it says.
The next meeting of the Amicus Greater Manchester IT branch is:
6pm-7:30pm, Thursday 3rd March
Upstairs, Hare & Hounds pub, Shudehill, Manchester City Centre, M4 4AA
(near Shudehill Metrolink and the spiral ramp to the Arndale car park).
All branch members are encouraged to attend.
Working members should have received ballot papers to their hope address for elections for the two vacancies on the Amicus National Executive Council (NEC). We urge members to read the election addresses and use their votes.
You can read the information about the election here:
http://www.amicustheunion.org/main.asp?page=1310
which includes details of which candidates (if any) were nominated by your Amicus branch.
If you haven't received your ballot paper, please contact the Head Office on 0845 850 4242 (or 1890 946241 from the Republic of Ireland).
[The results are now available here]
Recent company announcements have highlighted how soon the move from MAN05 to the new Central Park site is. The move raises many issues for employees, and Phil Tepper is the Amicus rep leading on relocation issues.
At the moment the furniture intended for use at the new site is on display in the MAN05 restaurant. We encourage members to go and try it out – we are all different shapes and sizes. If you have questions or concerns about it, please raise them via Phil.