Thanks to everyone who’s already signed our current petition. We’ve already collected signatures from around half the people on the Manchester Campus and the vast majority of those at MAN05.
The more signatures we can get, the more powerful the message we send to the company becomes.
If you haven’t yet signed, please do so as soon as possible in one of the following ways :-
· Print off a petition sheet via the Amicus the Union Community (right-click the “Petition: No Delay! Give us our Pay!” link under PAY and Print Target). Add your signature, name and base location and return asap to Phil Tepper at MAN34.
or
· Contact a rep for a sheet to sign
Invite your colleagues to sign too if they haven’t already done so.
If members come forward with their signatures rather than having to be chased it’s of enormous time-saving assistance to your reps.
If you have any signed petition sheets to return please do so as soon as you can.
PS – Don’t forget to vote in the Consultative Ballot we emailed out on the 23rd February.
The Manchester Group will be holding its Annual General Meeting (AGM):
3pm - 4:30pm, Wednesday 15th March 2006
MAN33, first floor, East wing
This meeting is for all Amicus members employed by Fujitsu and based at MAN05/33/34/35 (including those based at HOM99 with an admin base of one of those sites).
If your manager might need to arrange release for you to attend, please contact them NOW. 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.
The meeting will take decisions on some vital issues, please put it in your diary now and make sure you and your colleagues are there to have your say.
For the first time in a number of years, Amicus will be able to hand out pay comparator information (what most employees know as pay scales) at the AGM, to help you make an informed decision when voting on the company’s pay offer. This information cannot be sent out by email, so make sure you’re there in person.
AGM Agenda
The agenda will include:
Who represents you
At the AGM, members will elect their Reps, Health & Safety Reps and Union Learning Reps.
If you wish to volunteer or nominate someone else, please do so by Friday 10th March:
1) The member making the nomination needs to send us an email saying who they are nominating and for which position(s) (i.e. Rep, Health & Safety Rep or Union Learning Rep).
2) The nominee / volunteer needs to send an email including some information:
a) Which position(s) they are standing for (i.e. Rep, Health & Safety Rep or Union Learning Rep)
b) Name
c) Work phone numbers - internal & external
d) Site and area (e.g. MAN35-2-East)
e) Department (e.g. Libra)
f) Optionally, a statement of NO MORE THAN 100 WORDS which would encourage people to vote for you. [Previous examples are available on request]
Only Amicus members employed by Fujitsu and based at MAN05/33/34/35 (including those based at HOM99 with an admin base of one of those sites) are eligible to stand.
Reps, Health & Safety Reps and Union Learning Reps are allowed work time to carry out their duties, and full training is available.
Reps’ 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.
Health & Safety Reps and Union Learning Reps have distinct specialist roles which are separate from being a Rep.
If you want to know more before deciding whether to stand, contact any of our current reps.
The current lists are:
Reps: Ian Allinson, Dave Francis, Isabel Hay, Lynne Hodge, John Lacey, Sulayman Munir, Zahid Ramzan, Phil Tepper, Michael Thomas
H&S Reps: Iswar Mistry, Mike Bamford, Lynne Hodge, Phil Tepper, Kevin M Davies, Ian Allinson, Andy C Smith, Alan Child, Colin Robinson, Dennis Morris, Zahid Ramzan, Martin Rees
Union Learning Reps: Aaron Donnelly, Martin York
The original email notice asked members to vote.
This issue affects employees at MAN05/33/34/35 and HOM99 with an admin
base of one of those sites – whether or not you are below the £38,018 salary threshold for collective bargaining.
If you are not part of the above group but have received this message, please let us know straight away so that we can correct our records.
Summary
The company have indicated that they intend to make a pay offer that excludes many of the people in the Manchester bargaining unit. This would be a breach of our recognition agreement, an attempt to divide the workforce and to worsen terms and conditions for employees.
This is a consultative ballot to give your reps and the company an indication how you would respond to such a situation.
We are asking you whether you would be prepared to vote for industrial action in a formal ballot on these issues. Please read the information below and cast your vote.
Reps are recommending a clear “yes” vote, but stress the importance of honesty in casting your vote – there is no room for bluffing.
Manchester talks on union recognition, redundancy, redeployment
Most of you will already have seen in the “One Per Desk” leaflet which went out on 6th February. The leaflet included the outcomes of the talks in January, when the company broke from the agreed plan for reaching an agreement.
By insisting on a complete review of the draft agreements and not telling us what their issues were, the company ensured that no agreements could be reached in a reasonable time-frame.
As the agreed outcomes of the talks on 5th January make clear, your Reps warned what the consequences of the company’s actions could be, but the company denied time-wasting:
Amicus reps were concerned that such a change would cause delay while
significant issues already affecting employees (e.g. pay, out of hours payments, redeployment and redundancy) would continue to be left unresolved. Many of the issues had been under periodic discussion since 2003. The working documents had been produced from joint negotiation with the company. Drafts had already been reviewed by the company and its solicitors several times. Earlier versions had previously been offered by the company for members to vote on. Amicus reps questioned the seriousness of the company’s commitment to reaching any agreement.
The company has assured Amicus that it is taking these negotiations very seriously and that it does not want a significant delay in concluding a full agreement.
Since then we have repeatedly urged the company to get on with their review, but we have still had no results.
Manchester pay talks
With no new agreements, Amicus submitted its 2006 pay claim for the existing bargaining unit. This is currently Fujitsu Services employees paid up to £38,018 and who are:
. based at MAN05/33/34/35
. based at HOM99 with an admin base of one of those sites
Talks are now ongoing to discuss the pay claim and a 2006 pay deal. For reference, the agreed outcomes of the pay talks on 13th February and 17th February are on CafeVIK if you want to read them.
As we predicted in the One Per Desk leaflet, the company is trying to use the pay review to attack employees’ rights on a wide range of other issues.
Having prevented new agreements over union recognition etc, the company now intends to impose a pay deal on many of the employees in the bargaining unit, rather than agreeing it. Specifically, the company intends to impose the same pay deal as operates in most of the rest of the company to the following groups in the bargaining unit:
. New employees at Central Park
. Anyone at Central Park who wasn’t at MAN05 just before the move
. HOM99 staff with a MAN05/33/34/35 admin base (except four people who managed to respond in one working day in early 2005 and were included in the 2005 pay deal)
This would have much more serious consequences than simply applying a worse (and secret) pay process to a hundred or so people.
Attacking employee rights
The company is trying to:
We have prepared an explanation of union recognition, collective bargaining and examples of the benefits of being in the Manchester bargaining unit.
Company strategy
Reading between the lines, your reps believe the company intends to make a pay offer that only covers part of the bargaining unit, knowing that members would either have to accept it (and by doing so accept the tearing up of our agreements, weaken the union and give the company the upper hand in future negotiations) or reject it (in which case the company follows a plan such as the one below)
Given the pantomime of the last twelve months, we think the company might even offer that people could “opt out” and get their pay rise, probably not telling them about all the other rights and benefits they would find out that they had lost later.
It is likely that any company’s assault will be cloaked in the language of “individual choice”. This would be total hypocrisy. The company is so opposed to individual choice outside the bargaining unit that they don’t even tell employees what the pay system is, never mind give them the chance to vote on it.
The way forward
If the company makes a pay offer which excludes part of the bargaining unit, this will be a clear breach of our recognition agreement. Firstly by the act of excluding them, and secondly by the act of imposing the company’s view on an issue which has been under discussion with the company through our agreed procedures since we wrote to Roger Leek last September.
There would seem little point continuing talks on new agreements if the company is flouting our current ones in the meantime.
The company has attacked employee rights on union recognition, redundancy and redeployment before. And the workforce has fought off these attacks before.
Your reps want to be able to give the company a clear message from members on the consequences before they make their pay offer, which is expected around 10th March.
Your reps believe that if the company made a pay offer for only part of the bargaining unit, the right course of action would be to register a Failure To Agree in the recognition talks. This ends the formal procedure and frees the union to take action if the members decide to. But there is only any point following this course if members have the determination to stand up to the company’s blackmail over the pay review and fight to defend their rights.
Your reps are asking you to vote on the question:
Would you be prepared to vote for industrial action in a ballot on these issues if the union registered a Failure To Agree?
While your reps are recommending a YES vote, it is important that you vote honestly. It would not be helpful to vote YES in this consultative ballot and then vote NO if we have to move to a real ballot, leaving your reps with no leverage in negotiations.
Consequences
A “YES” vote
A “YES” vote (along with the other steps set out below) may be enough to convince the company to back off. This will be clear when the company makes its pay offer, which we will bring to you for discussion and decision at our Annual General Meeting on Wednesday 15th March (3pm – 4:30pm, MAN33-1-E).
If the company chose to press ahead with its attack on employees, the AGM would decide whether to go through the formal ballot procedure for industrial action, and what form that action would take.
Only if members voted for action in the formal ballot and no resolution had been reached with the company in the meantime would the union call industrial action.
A “NO” vote
A NO vote would mean that members were unwilling to take action to defend their rights. This would mean that union recognition was effectively lost for a sizeable minority of the Manchester workforce. The company would know that unless Amicus agreed to a new agreement on its terms, the group with recognition would dwindle and disappear over time.
Blackmail
We believe that the company intends to use a delay in the pay review for those it agrees are covered by collective bargaining to pressure employees into giving up union recognition and all the rights that go with it.
It would be remarkable indeed if employees were so naïve as to give up very valuable terms and conditions such as enhanced rights on redundancy and redeployment just in order to get their (usually microscopic) pay rise a little earlier.
Giving in to blackmail doesn’t make it stop. Employees deserve to be treated with dignity, honesty and respect. United, employees can win.
What else you can do
The company isn’t going to change its stance just because of what reps say on your behalf. When they listen to your reps they look at you and your workmates, judging if you are determined to stand up for your rights.
The company sometimes relies on smears and misinformation to spread division in the workforce, as they did over the 2005 pay offer. You can help prevent this by:
There will also be a full election of all our Reps, Health & Safety Reps and Union Learning Reps at our AGM on 15th March.
Pensions meeting
The attack on pension provision is one of the most serious concerns for working people. The government is still trying to worsen public sector pensions, and sections of the private sector are seeing this as a green light to have another round of cuts. For example, IBM recently announced the closure of its final salary (defined benefit) scheme – even for existing employees.
Over a million public sector workers, including many Amicus members, are being balloted on industrial action in defence of their pension funds. We have already seen how strike votes made the government retreat on its plans before the election last year.
Manchester Trades Council has called a public meeting to discuss the whole pensions issue:
6pm, Thursday 2nd March
Mechanics Institute, Princess Street (entrance on Major Street), Central Manchester
The General Secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, Matt Wrack, has already agreed to speak and there will be prominent speakers from Amicus, TGWU and other major unions. It looks set to be a very large and impressive meeting.
For more information, see the trades council web site:
http://www.manchestertradescouncil.org.uk
H&S reps
We’re pleased to report the election of an a new Health & Safety rep – Martin Rees, who is based at MAN05. The list is now:
MAN05: Martin Rees
MAN33: Mike Bamford, Lynne Hodge, Iswar Mistry
MAN34: Ian Allinson, Alan Child, Kevin M Davies, Andy C Smith, Phil Tepper
MAN35: Dennis Morris, Zahid Ramzan, Colin Robinson (HOM99 based)
There are many ways to get involved and help build an effective union – if you are interested in finding out more, please speak to one of the reps.
Management of Health & Safety
Though there have recently been improvements in some areas, the fundamental lack of proper management of Health & Safety remains a major issue.
We have written to the Chief Executive, as follows:
David,
In our letter last June we identified six underlying problem areas in the company’s management of health and safety:
1. Policies
2. Management responsibilities
3. Hazard Reporting
4. Risk Assessment
5. Consultation
6. Obstruction by managers from Facilities Management companies
We ended our letter with the clear message that:
“In our previous efforts to raise standards we have observed that despite our efforts to work cooperatively, change only seems to occur when we set the company clear targets and deadlines. If the company is serious about meeting the legal requirements, we believe it can do so by 1st September 2005. If this doesn’t happen, or if in the meantime we see little progress towards that deadline, we will have no choice but to contact the enforcing authorities.”
Between sending our letter and the 1st September deadline we identified some serious fire safety issues at Central Park, which we raised with the company. In the absence of an adequate response, we then contacted the fire service to seek their advice, as they seemed more relevant than the normal enforcing authorities.
There has now been progress in eliminating a number of specific serious hazards, and we welcome this. However, our assessment of progress against the underlying problem areas we identified is as follows:
1. Policies
Little or no progress. The company hasn’t even provided a draft new Health & Safety policy, though this has been “under review” for years. The lack of an up-to-date policy appears to be delaying company decisions on other key points, such as establishing site “arrangements” for health and safety.
2. Management responsibilities
Little or no progress. We still have no clear management responsibilities. Johnsons try their best to answer issues raised by employees, but they often fall outside their remit, knowledge or area of expertise. Managers struggle to respond to risk assessment or inspection actions, not knowing who has the authority or responsibility for what.
3. Hazard Reporting
Little or no progress. There is still no functional Hazard Reporting mechanism in place. This is a simple matter, where a simple process would cut confusion and wasted time.
4. Risk Assessment
There has been progress in this area, particularly for general office assessments. Many other assessments remain outstanding, however.
5. Consultation
Little or no progress. Employees are not consulted over matters affecting their safety.
6. Obstruction by managers from Facilities Management companies
This has been the area of biggest improvement. We are now able to gain access to risk assessments and other safety-related documentation, allowing a much more informed and constructive dialogue.
Despite the efforts of employees and local managers from Fujitsu and Johnsons Workplace Management, along with Health & Safety reps, little or no progress has been made in putting proper management of health and safety in place. By the end of March it will be nine months since we drew the issues to your attention. Unless there is rapid progress by that time, we intend to contact the enforcing authority. We hope that you will issue whatever instructions are necessary to make this unnecessary.
Ian Allinson
Senior rep, Health and Safety rep
On behalf of the Amicus Fujitsu West Gorton & Central Park Group
The international situation continues to cause major concern, from Iraq to Palestine and Iran to Afghanistan. We have recently seen the sad day when the 100th British soldier lost his life in Iraq.
Manchester Trades Council is organising a meeting on “What’s happening in Iraq”:
8pm, Wednesday 15th February
Mechanics Institute, 103 Princess Street, Manchester M1 6DD (corner with Major Street)
Speaker: Richard Searle (Communications Officer, Greater Manchester Coalition to Stop the War)
The International Peace Conference in December issued a call for international protests on the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Protests will take place in Iraq, the USA, the UK and many other countries.
You can read a report from the Amicus delegation to the International Peace Conference here.
The main protest in the UK will be in London on 18th March (“Troops home from Iraq, Don’t attack Iran”), and Amicus nationally is supporting the event. For more details, see www.stopwar.org.uk.
If you’re interested in going, why not get in touch and a group can go down together.
Our latest “One Per Desk” Manchester newsletter gives important updates on vital issues affecting every Manchester employee, including HOM99-based staff.
For those working off-site we’ve put the artwork on CafeVIK here.
We’re asking all Manchester employees (members or not) to sign the petition calling on the company to carry out our pay review on time.
Has everyone in your area signed it? Copies of the petition are available from your rep, or can be downloaded from CafeVIK.
2006 pay claim
Thanks to everyone who has already provided ideas for this year’s pay claim for the Manchester group. The DRAFT 2006 pay claim is available for comment on CafeVIK. Your reps intend to send the final version to the company on Friday afternoon, so please get your comments in by noon on Friday.
The company is proposing two important changes:
Change to NRD
The increase in Normal Retirement Date is generally welcome. This is the date at which you can be dismissed without compensation, NOT the date at which you can take a full pension. Indeed, this change was part of the Amicus pay claim in 2005.
There will be some individuals (for example some of those near their current Normal Retirement Date) for whom this contract change would not be beneficial. If you want individual advice, please contact our pensions rep, Dave Francis.
Remember that the change is an offer from the company, not something they are imposing. Please make sure you are happy that you understand the issue before making your choice.
Pre-retirement wind-down
The pre-retirement wind-down scheme allows people to phase their retirement, working fewer days without loss of pay in the period before their retirement.
The changes proposed by the company have their plusses and minuses. The national Amicus newsletter on 19th December set out some of the issues.
Unfortunately, the company seems to be trying to make changes to the policy without even informing most employees, let alone consulting them properly.
The Manchester Amicus group has written to the company as follows:
Sent: 08 February 2006 13:14
To: -name of HR manager removed-
Subject: AMICUS: Pre-retirement wind-down for the Manchester bargaining unit
-name removed-,
You’ll recall that part of our 2005 pay deal was:
“Amicus had asked to open negotiations on ‘Clarification of the pre-retirement wind-down scheme in the light of more flexible retirement ages’. Amicus believes that the scheme should be open to any employee from their 59th birthday who has given a year’s notice of their intention to retire.
This topic was already included in the company’s discussions with the UKCF about employment up to age 65. As Amicus has been asked to join the working party it will be considered within these discussions.”
Amicus was represented on this working party by Robert Williams (Wilf), our rep in Warrington. As recently as 19th December we reported to members that:
“The company’s focus appears to have moved off resolving the issue and we don’t know when the company intends to announce specific proposals.”
At no point have specific proposals been made available to employees for consultation. In the working party, there were disagreements about what the current arrangements were. Wilf provided documentary evidence that wind-down arrangements had been contractual for at least some employees. We are not aware that the company provided any evidence to contradict this. No change to the wind-down arrangements was agreed by Amicus.
We are surprised to hear that the company is now writing out to some of the workforce, including some in the Manchester bargaining unit. Question 15 in the Q&A tells people about wind-down arrangements in the new Pensions and Retirement policy, but doesn’t even mention that this is a change. These changes potentially affect every employee, but most have not even been informed, much less consulted. Only if they notice the link on CafeVIK will most employees be aware of the new policy.
Can we remind you that under our recognition agreement you should consult us over proposed changes and
“resolve any consequent issues through the negotiating procedure outlined in this Agreement”
The company has made no effort to do so, terminating discussions after a little informal “discussion” in the working party, despite there being obvious unresolved issues.
We would like to make clear that we do not believe that the contractual arrangements identified by Wilf apply to everyone in the Manchester bargaining unit. We also think that some of the proposed changes are positive. However, other aspects are negative and would like the opportunity to engage in meaningful negotiations to agree a fair and realistic way forward. We believe this would be far more constructive than leaving some individuals fighting contractual changes that would be a significant detriment to them.
Ian Allinson
Senior rep, Amicus Manchester
We know that the UK Consultative Forum (UKCF) has also written to ask for consultation with employees before such a change is made.
If you believe you have a contractual entitlement to the original pre-retirement wind-down scheme, please contact our pensions rep, Dave Francis, as soon as possible.
The next meeting of Greater Manchester IT Branch is:
6pm, Thursday 2nd March
Upstairs, Hare & Hounds pub, Shudehill, Manchester City Centre, M4 4AA
[Near Shudehill Metrolink station, the new bus station and the spiral ramp to the Arndale car park]
Unfortunately this coincides with a big pensions meeting organised by Manchester Trades Council. We anticipate that most people would find that more interesting and therefore it is unlikely that the branch meeting will be quorate (i.e. have enough people present to take decisions).
The following branch meeting will be on Thursday 6th April and will have a speaker and discussion – also on the subject of pensions.
To see an electronic copy of our paper one-per-desk leaflet on pay review, dispute talks etc., click here. This leaflet was produced for our Manchester Central Park and West Gorton sites.
Our notice on 13th January sought volunteers and nominations for reps, Health & Safety reps and the new positions as Union Learning Reps.
This already resulted in the election of two new Union Learning Reps and a new Rep.
We’re pleased to report an additional nomination as a Health & Safety rep – Martin Rees, who is based at MAN05.
If there are any objections or further nominations, please respond by Tuesday 7th Feb.
Full training is available for all Reps, Health & Safety Reps and Union Learning Reps. You are entitled to work time to carry out your duties.
The existing Health & Safety reps are:
MAN05: None
MAN33: Mike Bamford, Lynne Hodge, Iswar Mistry
MAN34: Ian Allinson, Alan Child, Kevin M Davies, Andy C Smith, Phil Tepper
MAN35: Dennis Morris, Zahid Ramzan, Colin Robinson (HOM99 based)
There are many ways to get involved and help build an effective union – if you are interested in finding out more, please speak to one of the reps.
You may have seen the recent newsletter from the Manchester group highlighting the work reps do advising, supporting and representing individual members. As they said:
“Individual advice, support and representation are big benefits of union membership. It’s hard for employees to see the value of this – until they need it – because details of individual cases are typically confidential to those concerned.”
Individual representation is even more important for members on sites where we haven’t yet secured union recognition. Many thanks to the reps and members around the UK who provided these snippets:
Remember – non-members can’t get individual representation from the union, and employees need 6-months membership for access to the free Amicus legal representation. Please encourage your colleagues to join – before it’s too late. If you recruit a colleague you could both win prizes – our recruitment competition is still open:
www.ourunion.org.uk/competition
Over the last year reps have come across a number of examples where managers have created “Attendance Improvement Plans” (AIPs) for people with high levels of sickness absence and this is causing serious concern.
There is no documentation for the process, leaving managers and employees unclear what is acceptable.
In some cases, employees are asked to sign a plan agreeing an “appropriate” level of sickness (e.g. 24 days per year) that is far lower than their contractual entitlement to sick pay.
Amicus believes that if you are sick you should be off work, and if you are not you shouldn’t take sick leave. Presumably if you take more sick leave than your “agreed” level you would then be open to disciplinary action, even though you might be genuinely ill and well within your contractual entitlement.
These plans lead to employees feeling pressured to come into work when they are ill and pile stress caused by fear of disciplinary action on top of people who are already unwell.
A real “Attendance Improvement Plan” would address the underlying reasons for sickness absence, not just reduce people’s entitlements.
The company has not raised the issue of excessive or unjustified sick leave with Amicus or the UKCF, so we can only assume that the official company policies are not broken – and don’t need fixing.
In Manchester, reps raised the introduction of AIPs with the company back in July, pointing out that there had been no consultation over their introduction. We also pointed out that the company had been trying to eradicate “local” sickness policies and ensure every employee (including those in the helpdesks) was treated equitably and according to company policies. The introduction of AIPs appeared to be undermining consistency – a point reinforced by the fact that the company representatives were unaware of their introduction.
We advise members not to sign any Attendance Improvement Plan (or indeed any other agreement with the company reducing their rights) without consulting their Amicus rep first.
The company has decided that the Performance Appraisal Category (PAC) ratings will be different for appraisals in 2006.
The new meanings for the codes are as follows:
Outstanding
Consistently performs beyond the agreed tasks and objectives
Exceeds
Frequently exceeds the agreed tasks and objectives
Achiever
Consistently meets the agreed tasks and objectives
Partially Meets Meets some of the agreed tasks and objectives
Unsatisfactory
Consistently under-performs relative to the agreed tasks and objectives
Not Specified
Not yet rated
The main change is that you are compared against “agreed tasks and objectives” rather than “expectations/competencies”. Though the inclusion of “agreed” is welcome, we are concerned that the new wording will make a balanced appraisal more difficult. If objectives are set to be both achievable and stretching for each individual, a narrow focus on performance against objectives (rather than the appraisal also considering performance against the Professional Community role profile) will penalise good performers and those with more experience, making it harder to score E and O ratings. Members are advised to ensure their appraisals take account of their performance compared to the role profile, so that they aren’t penalised for agreeing demanding objectives.
Many of you have already commented that the wording for “Achiever” in effect means you have to be “perfect” just to get an A – the middle rating.
Though many people don’t take the objectives/appraisal processes seriously, we do urge members to ensure their objectives are set in a way that makes it possible to achieve and exceed them, and that their appraisal result is the right one – it’s no good complaining later if you’ve accepted it at the time. The “Performance Appraisal Category” or PAC rating is used for a wide (and growing) range of purposes, including:
· Pay
· Redundancy selection
· Bonus/incentive eligibility
· Redeployment
· Promotion or selection for other jobs
The vote on the company’s offer on pay disclosure closed yesterday with a resounding result:
ACCEPT: 16
REJECT: 384
This equates to a 96% majority to reject the company’s offer.
Thanks to everyone who took the time to read the documents and cast their vote.
Last year’s changes to incentive plans were extremely controversial, especially for people in the Project Management community. Amicus members on the UK Consultative Forum (UKCF) put a lot of effort into collating and raising many of these points. We have had little response so far, but hope an update will be provided before much longer.
Details of many of the schemes can be found here:
The announcement of this year’s “Sharing in Success” (SiS) scheme caused quite a few comments. The announcement highlighted the fact that the 5% SiS (covering most employees) is only paid if the company hits is stretch profit target. By contrast, most other incentive schemes (generally for people on higher basic pay) provide at least 5% (and in many cases far more) for on target performance, with bigger stretch payments if stretch performance is reached.
Last year Amicus helped a number of members who were being denied their proper bonus or incentive payments. One of the key issues was the requirement that the employee “has maintained, throughout the Company Year, standards of performance, conduct and attendance which the Company regards as satisfactory”. For the Manchester bargaining unit, Amicus secured clarification that performance was “satisfactory” unless the individual had had a “U” (Unsatisfactory) and that attendance and other conduct was “satisfactory” unless the individual was subject to a current disciplinary sanction.
We understand that the company would like to put more hurdles in the way of SiS eligibility this year. For example, the new rules bring in criteria to exclude people based on sickness absence and additional maternity leave. Obstacles like these were already in use in some of the other incentive schemes last year. We are advised that the application of these restrictions could amount to sex or disability discrimination against some individuals. If you believe you could be affected by these restrictions, please contact your rep in good time.
Discretionary bonuses are worth far less to employees than basic pay for many reasons, such as: