This week’s branch meeting has a speaker from the Keep Our NHS Public campaign. In the light of the massive job losses announced in the NHS trust covering North Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale and Bury, this is particularly topical.
6pm-7:30pm, Thursday 1st June
Upstairs, Hare & Hounds pub, Shudehill, Manchester city centre, M4 4AA
[Near the Shudehill Metrolink station and the spiral ramp to the Arndale car park]
There will also be time for reports and discussion on workplace issues as well as for dealing with branch business. All branch members are welcome at the meeting.
The next meeting of the company’s UK Consultative Forum (UKCF) is due on 24-25 May.
Many of you will have noticed that no minutes have been published since the set covering the meeting in November 2005.
Whereas Amicus can report freely to members, the company prevents the UKCF publishing documents without their approval. Last year the company even closed down the whole UKCF community when the employee reps on the UKCF published something they didn’t like.
The UKCF reps keep pushing to be allowed to communicate with the people they are supposed to represent, but this is proving increasingly difficult. One of the key issues was raised as long ago as 2004, but has still not been properly reported back to employees.
The company isn’t living up to the commitments given by signing the UKCF Constitution just a year ago.
The situation illustrates one of the key differences between a genuinely independent trade union and a company forum controlled by HR.
The UKCF Reps in the north-west (including Amicus members) are organising a “drop-in” session in Crewe for employees to meet their reps:
Friday 9th June 2006
Conference room 0-1 (behind reception), CRE02
Drop in any time between 11:30 and 14:00
Amicus membership and organisation is growing steadily across Fujitsu, as more and more employees realise that the company only listens to us when we join together to make our voice heard. Have you asked a colleague to join recently?
The talks with ACAS over union recognition, redundancy, redeployment etc have begun. The outcome of these talks is important for Manchester, Warrington and some HOM99 staff.
Amicus has published the documents under discussion on CafeVIK.
We expect an agreed statement to update employees on the talks to be produced shortly.
In the meantime, our campaign to defend and extend union recognition continues, with Manchester and Warrington taking the lead. More and more employees are wearing their passes on Amicus lanyards, helping with the campaign or joining up. If you know a colleague who might be interested in joining, or can help in other ways, please email rep Phil Tepper.
You can also read the “One Per Desk” campaign leaflets that have been distributed in Manchester on CafeVIK or the Internet:
Amicus reps help members with individual cases day in, day out. Usually we can’t publish the details of these cases because they are confidential. In many cases good advice, support and/or representation can make a huge difference to your career, welfare or financial position.
Many issues are dealt with informally, some go as far as formal hearings inside the company, and a small minority go as far as legal action.
It’s always a failure if we have to take matters to court – the outcome is rarely what either side really wants, and the legal professional can be the biggest winners. However, there are times when it is useful or necessary to use legal channels.
It is an indication of the scale of issues that Amicus helps members with that during 2005, union-funded legal representation recovered nearly £70m for members. This figure is comparable with the total subs income for the union.
You can go most of your working life never needing legal help, but it is vital that you have access to it when you need it. Could you afford top legal representation if the union didn’t provide it?
Medical treatment abroad
For those of you who are travelling to Europe this year, the E111 form for free or reduced-cost emergency care in most other European countries is no longer valid. It has been replaced from the start of 2006 with the "European Health Insurance Card" (EHIC), which covers you for free or reduced-cost medical treatment in EEA (European Economic Area) countries and Switzerland.
You can now apply for the card online - for yourself, your partner and for your dependants, if you wish. More information is available online, as is an online application for the new card.
Passports changing
From the end of May, new passports will require an entry on the National Identity Register and will be at a significantly increased cost, so some members may wish to renew their passports before the change takes effect.
Discounts
The discounts available to Amicus members include extending car breakdown cover to Europe free, discounts off holidays, cheap airport parking, discounted travel insurance and car hire.
The news that Amicus members can have access to the pay comparators (what most people call scales) used by managers in your pay review is gradually spreading through the workforce, helped by the media coverage and the leaflet that members are giving to colleagues.
Pay comparators / scales
Amicus secured access for members to most of these figures after taking legal action in Manchester. We continue to press for the company to make them available to all employees...
A number of members have queried why their role was missing from the Amicus briefing which was sent on paper to members’ home addresses. Generally, the internal median figures were only given to us where the company accepted that at least one person in that role fell within the Manchester bargaining unit.
Since February 2005, Amicus has also been helping members obtain their pay comparators by making requests to the company under the Data Protection Act. This has been a slow process, and discussions with the Information Commissioner (who enforces the Act) continue.
The majority of test cases that were submitted were from members who do now have the information, albeit from the Amicus briefing, rather than being disclosed directly by the company.
If you are one of the people whose role was NOT covered by the recent Amicus briefing, and you weren’t one of the original test cases, you can submit a request as set out in the model letter in our leaflet here. You will want to update it to include the 2006 figure, as well as 2003, 2004 and 2005.
Please copy your request (and any responses you receive) to the "Amicus The Union" email box within Fujitsu. If the company responds positively, this will allow Amicus to collate the responses to fill in the gaps in our briefing. If the company responds negatively, Amicus can help you progress your request via the Information Commissioner.
Bonuses
If the rumours about the company’s results are to be believed, we expect the company to pay out good bonuses this year. This will obviously be welcome.
However, it's worth pointing out that a 5% bonus is worth less than a 5% pay rise - much less. Why is this?
Over several years, HR have been working to increase the proportion of your earnings that is "variable", and reduce the proportion that is basic pay. Bonuses are worth far less than pay rises, as this example illustrates:
Let's compare the benefit of a 5% bonus with a 1% pay rise in 2006, for someone on £20,000 who works another 3 years in the company, then leaves to get another job. They are in the Defined Benefit (final salary) pension scheme. They have 10 years service, and accrued pension at 1/60th per year. After retirement, they draw a pension for 20 years. They get no pay rises or bonuses in the rest of their time in the company (no wonder they left!).
PAY RISE OF 1%: Their pay rises to £20,200, so they earn £60,600 in the 3 years before they leave. Their company pension will be 10/60 x £20,200 = £3,367 per year, for 20 years, making £67,340. Their life-time earnings from the company are £127,940.
BONUS OF 5%: Their pay remains at £20,000, so they earn £60,000 in the 3 years before leaving. Their 5% one-off bonus is £1000. Their company pension will be 10/60 x £20,000 = £3,333 per year, for 20 years, making £66,660. Their life-time earnings from the company are £127,660.
Of course, this is a simplification in several respects. Earning money now is worth more than earning money later because of inflation. The pension is increased annually while in deferment or being drawn. The employee with the pay rise would have to pay slightly higher pension contributions. The value of a pay rise in one year is magnified if there are rises in the following years. However, the example is good enough to give you an idea. The value of a pay rise is even greater if you ever do shifts or overtime, or if you are made redundant.
Little wonder the company prefers bonuses to pay rises!
Manchester update
The company has still not even offered dates for further pay talks – so most Manchester employees are left waiting for their pay rise, while others have had the bog-standard pay review imposed upon them.
Amicus has pointed out that failing to convene the stage 2 talks is another breach of our recognition agreement, which states:
It is incumbent on both parties to ensure that grievances are resolved at the earliest possible stage of the Procedure and within the shortest possible timescales, every effort should be made to ensure that successive stages of the Procedure are invoked as soon as is practically possible.
Many employees have also commented that --name of head of HR removed--’s announcement on 27th March said:
“The company will now continue discussions with AMICUS relating to the pay review and recognition arrangements”
The company has hardly kept to this.
The most effective way to build the pressure on the company to stop breaking agreements and get a good pay settlement is to build the union – please do what you can to help.
To see an electronic copy of our paper one-per-desk leaflet on "What Unions Have Done for You", on Cafevik, click here (a local version is here). This leaflet was produced for our Manchester Central Park and West Gorton sites.
To see an electronic copy of our paper one-per-desk leaflet on "Collective Bargaining", on Cafevik, click here (a local version is here). This leaflet was produced for our Manchester Central Park and West Gorton sites.
In response to the announcement of 1200 job cuts in the NHS trust covering North Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale and Bury, the Keep Our NHS Public campaign is holding a public meeting:
7:30pm, Wednesday 17th May
Friends Meeting House, Mount Street, M2 5NS
[behind the Central Reference Library, off Albert Square, Manchester City Centre]
Main speaker: Pete Hinchliffe, Branch Sec, Pennine Acute UNISON
The next meeting of the Amicus Greater Manchester IT Branch will have a guest speaker from Keep Our NHS Public, and this will be the main topic of discussion. All branch members are welcome at the meeting:
6pm-7:30pm, Thursday 1st June
Upstairs, Hare & Hounds pub, Shudehill, Manchester city centre, M4 4AA
[Near the Shudehill Metrolink station and the spiral ramp to the Arndale car park]
As well as dealing with branch business, there will be time for reports and discussion on workplace issues.
The campaign to defend and extend union recognition in Manchester is steaming ahead. Many more people have been joining Amicus in the last couple of months, as well as more people getting involved. The growth isn’t just in Manchester either.
Over the last couple of weeks the third leaflet of our “Fujitsu Staff Deserve Recognition” campaign went out across the Manchester sites. For those off-site at the moment, you can read the leaflets here:
1. Union recognition
2. Health & Safety
3.Redundancy & Redeployment
The next leaflet will be focussing on Collective Bargaining, and will be distributed along with the national leaflet about Pay Scales / Comparators.
Don’t forget we have a useful document explaining Union Recognition and Collective Bargaining available on CafeVIK too.
On Monday 15th May, Amicus and Fujitsu at last begin talks with ACAS covering union recognition, redundancy, redeployment etc.
The outcome of these talks is important for Manchester, Warrington and some HOM99 staff.
The previous talks ended on Thursday 5th January 2006 when the company decided to carry out a “document review” of the wording and style of the draft documents produced through several years of negotiations. They claimed that they did not intend to change the meaning.
This week, HR finally sent new drafts of two of the three agreements.
Your Reps have compared the drafts to identify the changes the company is proposing. Our general impression is that the changes are not mainly to the wording or style, but to significantly worsen the content from an employee point of view.
The comparison (and the documents themselves) are available on CafeVIK here:
Bear in mind that the joint drafts were already the result of many compromises. What do you think?
Amicus is being represented at the talks by Pat O’Regan (our full-time Regional Officer), Ian Allinson, Lynne Hodge and Sulayman Munir.
Robert Williams (Wilf) from Warrington is joining the Amicus team on Monday too.
To see an electronic copy of our paper one-per-desk leaflet on "A Job for Life?", on Cafevik, click here (a local version is here). This leaflet was produced for our Manchester Central Park and West Gorton sites.