You can find on CafeVIK:
- Fujitsu Services Consultative Forum (FSCF) minutes from January
- UK Consultative Forum (UKCF) minutes from May
The UKCF was due to meet again this week, and the agenda included key issues such as offshoring, the company’s review of payments for out of hours working, Health & Safety policy and Bonus arrangements.
Amicus reps are talking to a large and increasing number of employees with issues such as:
- RSI
- Back problems
- Stress and other mental health issues
- Long term sickness
- Return to work after sickness
- Attempts to discipline or reduce the hours of staff due to ill health
- Disability and the DDA
- The process around Occupational Health, Independent Medical Assessments etc
Members should continue to seek advice from their rep over such issues. However, Amicus is launching a new discussion group to allow Amicus members in Fujitsu to give each other support around health, welfare, sickness and disability issues.
The ground rules are:
This group is for Amicus members in Fujitsu to give each other support around health, welfare, sickness and disability issues.
1) This is not a substitute for proper advice and representation from a trained rep or officer – it’s “as well as”, not “instead of”. Any remarks on the group are not “advice”.
2) The email traffic has to be manageable. This is not the place for discussing the fine details of individual cases, though it could be the place to find out who knows about a particular issue so that it can be discussed offline.
3) It could be a good place to post any “lessons learned” – the group archive is searchable
4) Users must not post personal information (i.e. something that might be identified with a particular individual) about anyone else
5) Don't forget that employees can use the Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) to get counselling where appropriate
6) Don't forget that many health issues are really at least partially collective issues, not individual ones, so the solutions may be collective too
If you want to join the discussion group, please contact your rep. Don’t forget to give your name and site when you apply to join, so that we can approve your membership quickly – this is for members only.
The “Fujitsu UK” pension scheme is the main “money purchase” or “defined contribution” scheme for Fujitsu Services employees.
There will soon be an election for a member nominated director of the scheme. Pension schemes are a valuable benefit, offering a tax efficient means of providing for your retirement. A company pension is increasingly important as the value of the state pension continues to be eroded by inflation.
The purpose of the member directors is to improve governance of the scheme and some measure of accountability to the members.
Amicus rep Wilf (Robert) Williams is already a trustee of the scheme, and there will shortly be a further election. Amicus member John Knowles is one of the candidates.
If you are in this pension scheme please make good use of your valuable vote.
Most Fujitsu staff have a contractual working week of 37 hours – something we won as a result of the national campaign for a shorter working week by several unions (most of which have since merged to form Amicus).
However, management have been pushing for a longer working week. In particular, helpdesk staff have to work a 40-hour week – a real throwback to the past.
Amicus campaigns for a shorter working week for all employees.
The fact that helpdesk staff who move into other jobs are no longer consistently having their contracts improved to a 37 hour week is causing a major concern. It means areas such as IS now have a mixture of staff on 37 and 40 hour contracts. It means that helpdesk staff no longer have a clear route to decent terms and conditions. And as the worse contracts spread, it threatens all 37 hour contracts.
This issue has come up in talks in Manchester over both pay and the removal of shifts for the Sirius RIM team.
Members on the Sirius RIM decided to launch a petition, which reads as follows:
Fujitsu uses a 40-hour week as standard for helpdesk staff, whereas most staff are on contracts with a 37-hour week.
Most helpdesk staff want to develop their careers through the company.
We believe:
a) Staff moving off the helpdesks should have their contracts changed to the standard 37 hours with no loss of pay.
b) Fujitsu should not spread 40-hour contracts into other areas.
c) Existing staff outside helpdesks whose contracts are for more than 37 hours should have their contracted hours reduced to 37 without loss of pay.
It has already been signed by lots of RIM and helpdesk staff in Manchester. If you work on a helpdesk or RIM team anywhere in Fujitsu, why not get your colleagues to sign the petition and add your voice to the campaign? After all, this isn’t only a Manchester issue.
Amicus previously published a story about “Performance Related Pay at Bodgit & Scarper PLC” to highlight how unscrupulous employers could announce pay rises each year while ensuring the pay for a job actually went down.
The scam relies on people progressing up the job structure, joining and leaving, faster than their pay goes up.
During the Manchester pay talks this year, reps discovered that the company was making no distinction in pay planning between pay rises in a job and pay rises from a promotion into a new job. The result is that some managers (wrongly) believed that a rise for an employee joining their department through a promotion had to come out of the pay pot.
The original email included a statement Amicus had obtained to clarify the position and help members being promoted.
Where managers fail to give good rises when someone is promoted into a team, this not only wrongly penalises that individual, but the whole team. The manager will have to raid the team “pay pot” for years to come to help the employee catch up with their colleagues.
If you are promoted it is vital that you push for a good rise at the time – it will be much harder if you’re fighting for crumbs from the general pot.
Equal Pay
Amicus has highlighted for a number of years how the secrecy and subjectivity of the Fujitsu “pay system” is likely to lead to discrimination of every sort.
Since Amicus obtained the company’s “pay comparators” (scales) and distributed them to members, the results of this have become more apparent to employees across the country. As a result, reps have begun to see members coming forward with potential claims under Equal Pay legislation.
The recent Manchester leaflet on Equality gave some of the background to this.
A successful Equal Pay claim can lead to back pay for up to six years – well worth the effort. Though legal claims aren’t the best way to solve problems, an increase in such claims may stop HR refusing to address equality issues because they “don’t get many claims”. If you think you may have a claim, it is vital that you contact your rep for advice.
Equality
Amicus recently launched a charter for Women in IT. One of the points it highlights is the way that the increasing demands for long-hours and high mobility make working in our industry increasingly difficult for anyone with caring responsibilities.
Family friendly working practices and fair employment practices would be good news for all employees.
Our managers now have objectives to see how many of our jobs can be moved offshore through what the company calls “Global Sourcing” or its “Global Delivery Model” (see the Core Services announcement).
Offshoring (and near-shoring) is a wider issue than media coverage would suggest. Any job where you aren’t constantly meeting customers or working on equipment on their premises could potentially be moved to places like Northern Ireland, Portugal, South Africa or India.
Assurances that only low-skill new work would be moved offshore were proved hollow when 7799 went to South Africa. Much development and support work has gone or is going to India.
Attempts through the FSCF to get an agreement on how Fujitsu staff should be treated have so far been unsuccessful, but the company is now ramping up its offshoring fast.
The company has now drawn up a set of draft management guidelines for dealing with employees affected by offshoring – a welcome step. However, it makes clear that “Global Sourcing may lead to redundancies”. The draft also says that “Employee Communication should not commence until there is a formally approved plan to initiate the transfer, and activity is about to commence which is visible to the employees delivering the service”. In other words – keep those affected in the dark until it’s too late. The draft also recommends “trial periods” for those redeployed which are less than the legal minimum, let alone what we have in our Security of Employment Agreement.
Reps have already pointed out some of the major problems with the draft guidelines. It was on the agenda for the UKCF this week.
You can read the draft guidelines here on CafeVIK. We have given the file a password to prevent it being picked up by CafeVIK’s search facility and mistaken for a live policy.
Amicus would like your comments on the draft.
Last week HR sent a notice out to some Manchester staff about the pay talks, predictably trying to blame the union for delaying our own pay rises.
In January HR prevented a deal on the dispute over recognition, redundancy and redeployment – ensuring that it would impact on the pay talks. Then they rejected Amicus proposals to discuss ways of disconnecting the two issues. Then they made a pay offer which only covered some of the staff. They’ve dragged out pay talks – failing even to meet reps for three whole months. They’ve delayed the “works conference” until 16th August – another six wasted weeks.
The motivation behind the company’s delays is becoming clearer and clearer. The ACAS talks over redundancy, redeployment and union recognition have stopped making progress because the company asked Amicus to agree to a major attack on redundancy rights – including attacking our right to “90 days” consultation. HR wants employees to agree a third-rate deal in our desperation to get our pay rise.
You can read the latest Manchester leaflet here.
Warrington members are also affected, because the possible inclusion of Warrington in the deal was under discussion. Building up membership and organisation in Warrington is vital to achieve this.
However, it looks increasingly unlikely that a deal will be reached before the ballot of Manchester members on industrial action goes ahead. Please do your bit to help the campaign by:
- Talking to your colleagues and asking them to join the union
- Wearing your ID card on an Amicus lanyard
Amicus is planning a General Meeting for Manchester members – probably on Thursday 17th August.
Meanwhile our Fujitsu colleagues in the PCS union in Swansea have finally had their first pay offer from the company. They say “Fujitsu’s “final” offer is very poor and the PCS Negotiations Team cannot recommend your acceptance of it”. They plan a members’ meeting on 31st July.
To see an electronic copy of our paper one-per-desk leaflet on "Pay & Redundancies", on Cafevik, click here (a local version is here)
. This leaflet was produced for our Manchester Central Park and West Gorton sites.
This update covers both the pay talks and the ACAS talks about the dispute over union recognition, redundancy, redeployment etc.
Pay talks
Many of you will have seen the company announcement sent out today about the pay talks, which blames Amicus for the delayed pay review.
Their announcement is grossly misleading. You will already have seen the Amicus newsletter on 5th July – the day when your reps registered the Failure To Agree. The newsletter quoted the full text, including:...
The reason we registered the Failure To Agree is that we feel the company has been time-wasting in the talks, and we need to escalate the issue to get a resolution. In more detail, we explained that:
As you can see, the company notice is misleading to imply that the Failure To Agree was to do with any offer (the company hasn’t made any new offer).
The most extreme example of time-wasting was that the company representative failed to turn up for the meeting on 4th July and he even refused to discuss matters over the phone.
A Failure To Agree was the correct way to escalate the issues up the management chain to seek an end to the time-wasting. Did the company expect reps to go along with their time-wasting while employees remain out of pocket?
The only date offered by the company for the works conference is 16th August (not 18th as their announcement says). This means the company has caused another 5 weeks delay on top of the three months between March and June when they wouldn’t meet.
You can help by explaining the truth to colleagues who aren’t in the union and may only have seen the company misinformation. Please contact your rep if you have questions or feedback as a result.
Your reps believe that the company deliberately prevented a prompt pay deal to put employees under pressure to accept a third-rate deal on the dispute.
Dispute
Talks with ACAS to try to resolve the dispute over union recognition, redundancy and redeployment have been going on yesterday and today.
Some progress was made on a couple of issues, but the company wanted Amicus to agree that:
Your reps reminded the company that members had taken a very strong view on such attacks in the past, and made clear that until these issues were resolved, further progress would be impossible.
The 90 day consultation period is important to employees because:
· you’re still in the company (and getting paid) while you deal with the situation
· you have time to find another job inside or outside the company
· it allows time for alternatives to redundancy to be found
Many employees over the years have avoided redundancy between the 30-day and 90-day point. These employees would have lost their jobs under the company proposals.
Reducing consultation periods in some circumstances would surely be the thin end of the wedge. The company has already chipped away at the SEA outside Manchester.
The company says that it only wants 30-days to apply for small groups of redundancies, but many employees will remember “Project Charlton” when the company made around 700 employees redundant in small groups to get round the statutory consultation requirements.
Manchester staff have successfully defended 90-days so far, including by taking strike action in 2003.
The issues around redundancy and redeployment are even more important as the company ramps up its “offshoring” efforts with the “Global Delivery Model” / “Global Sourcing” and the final closure of MAN05 approaches.
It looks increasingly unlikely that the talks alone will resolve the dispute.
Preparations for the industrial action ballot requested by Manchester members are now an even higher priority. Meanwhile, every employee needs to work for the best by preparing for the worst. This means:
. Ask your colleagues what they think about the company’s proposals on redundancy
. Ask your colleagues to join the union
. Wear your ID card on an Amicus lanyard
. Let your reps know if you can help distribute newsletters
. Let your reps know what you and your colleagues think about the issues and how you want to tackle them
There is now a real urgency about recruitment– legally the union can only ballot its members.
Many of you will have seen the company announcement sent out today about the pay talks, which blames Amicus for the delayed pay review.
Their announcement is grossly misleading. You will already have seen the Amicus newsletter on 5th July – the day when your reps registered the Failure To Agree. The newsletter quoted the full text, including:
The reason we registered the Failure To Agree is that we feel the company has been time-wasting in the talks, and we need to escalate the issue to get a resolution. In more detail, we explained that:
· The company hadn’t adopted the agreed “joint problem solving” approach
· The company representatives have often been unable to speak on behalf of the company. They often just expressed personal opinions or spoke about their own units
· The company had put its representatives in a position where they hadn’t delivered on promises and commitments needed to make progress
· The company had put its representatives in a position where their positions changed between each meeting for no apparent reason
· A lot of time was spent going over the same ground over and over again – debating agreed actions rather than doing them
· The company were time-wasting, rather than working towards an agreement
As you can see, the company notice is misleading to imply that the Failure To Agree was to do with any offer (the company hasn’t made any new offer).
The most extreme example of time-wasting was that the company representative failed to turn up for the meeting on 4th July and he even refused to discuss matters over the phone.
A Failure To Agree was the correct way to escalate the issues up the management chain to seek an end to the time-wasting. Did the company expect reps to go along with their time-wasting while employees remain out of pocket?
The only date offered by the company for the works conference is 16th August (not 18th as their announcement says). This means the company has caused another 5 weeks delay on top of the three months between March and June when they wouldn’t meet.
You can help by explaining the truth to colleagues who aren’t in the union and may only have seen the company misinformation. Please contact your rep if you have questions or feedback as a result.
Your reps believe that the company deliberately prevented a prompt pay deal to put employees under pressure to accept a third-rate deal on the dispute.
Talks with ACAS to try to resolve the dispute over union recognition, redundancy and redeployment have been going on yesterday and today.
Some progress was made on a couple of issues, but the company wanted Amicus to agree that:
The Security of Employment Agreement (SEA) isn’t a collective agreement, and that many employees could be made redundant with 30 instead of 90 days consultation.
The proposed Minimum Redundancy Payment would be reduced from six weeks’ pay to four weeks’ pay (which we already have).
Your reps reminded the company that members had taken a very strong view on such attacks in the past, and made clear that until these issues were resolved, further progress would be impossible.
The 90 day consultation period is important to employees because:
· you’re still in the company (and getting paid) while you deal with the situation
· you have time to find another job inside or outside the company
· it allows time for alternatives to redundancy to be found
Many employees over the years have avoided redundancy between the 30-day and 90-day point. These employees would have lost their jobs under the company proposals.
Reducing consultation periods in some circumstances would surely be the thin end of the wedge. The company has already chipped away at the SEA outside Manchester.
The company says that it only wants 30-days to apply for small groups of redundancies, but many employees will remember “Project Charlton” when the company made around 1000 employees redundant in small groups to get round the statutory consultation requirements.
Manchester staff have successfully defended 90-days so far, including by taking strike action in 2003.
The issues around redundancy and redeployment are even more important as the company ramps up its “offshoring” efforts with the “Global Delivery Model” / “Global Sourcing” and the final closure of MAN05 approaches.
It looks increasingly unlikely that the talks alone will resolve the dispute.
Preparations for the industrial action ballot requested by Manchester members are now an even higher priority. Meanwhile, every employee needs to work for the best by preparing for the worst. This means:
- Ask your colleagues what they think about the company’s proposals on redundancy
- Ask your colleagues to join the union
- Wear your ID card on an Amicus lanyard
- Let your reps know if you can help distribute newsletters
- Let your reps know what you and your colleagues think about the issues and how you want to tackle them
There is now a real urgency about recruitment – legally the union can only ballot its members. It is well proven that you are in the best position to recruit your workmates because you share the same issues. If you want advice on recruiting people etc, please talk to your rep.
Yesterday’s notice gave a general update on the Manchester pay talks.
Today’s negotiations merely confirmed the view of the reps that the company was time-wasting.
This afternoon, your reps sent the following letter to management:
Subject: AMICUS: Failure To Agree at stage 2 of pay talks
--name of HR Manager removed--,
We promised to confirm in writing today’s Failure To Agree in the pay talks.
The reason we registered the Failure To Agree is that we feel the company has been time-wasting in the talks, and we need to escalate the issue to get a resolution. In more detail, we explained that:
· The company hadn’t adopted the agreed “joint problem solving” approach
· The company representatives have often been unable to speak on behalf of the company. They often just expressed personal opinions or spoke about their own units
· The company had put its representatives in a position where they hadn’t delivered on promises and commitments needed to make progress
· The company had put its representatives in a position where their positions changed between each meeting for no apparent reason
· A lot of time was spent going over the same ground over and over again – debating agreed actions rather than doing them
· The company were time-wasting, rather than working towards an agreement
Please confirm who the company’s representatives will be and propose dates for stage 3 (works conference) as soon as possible. We hope that escalating the talks to a team of more senior managers can avoid the difficulties you have faced so far.
We will inform our Regional Officer, Pat O’Regan, of the Failure To Agree so that he expects you or the EEF to contact him about dates.
We asked the company to use the time before the works conference to make progress on the various issues and outstanding actions so that rapid progress can be made to conclude a pay agreement.
Ian Allinson, Sulayman Munir, Dave Francis
Amicus Manchester pay negotiating team
This means that the pay issue is being escalated to higher management – to the final stage of our negotiating procedure. We will see whether the company takes this final opportunity seriously.
Your reps believe that the company deliberately prevented a deal on recognition, redeployment and redundancy early in the year, so that they could divide the workforce through the April pay review.
Most Manchester staff are still waiting for their April pay review. Some have had the “bog standard” pay review imposed on them. As well as meaning a worse pay deal, the company is also trying to deny this group the other benefits of recognition, including our agreements on redundancy, redeployment etc.
The company is hoping that people will blame the union for the delayed pay rise, or accept a third-rate deal on recognition, redeployment and redundancy because we are impatient for a pay deal.
Keep up the campaign for a fair deal on all the issues!
To see an electronic copy of our paper one-per-desk leaflet on "Equality", on Cafevik, click here (a local version is here)
. This leaflet was produced for our Manchester Central Park and West Gorton sites.
Amicus Health & Safety Reps have been keeping up the pressure over Fujitsu’s failure to put in place proper management of Health & Safety.
The company has produced draft new company safety policies, and we expect to be circulating these to members for comment shortly.
Of more immediate importance, the company has promised to produce draft “arrangements” for Health & Safety at the Manchester sites in time for it to be discussed at the August safety committee meeting. It is shocking that the site will have been open over a year without the (legally required) arrangements in place.
Only the persistence of your Health & Safety reps (and the threat of calling in the enforcing authorities) has produced this progress.
Repetitive Strain Injury
The health problems associated with using computers are high on the priority list for Fujitsu employees. Our recent success in securing agreement at the Manchester safety committee that Workstation (DSE) Assessments will be carried out by trained employees (rather than the sham of “self-assessment”) should help in the medium term.
Unfortunately, there are already many employees suffering back and upper limb problems. Some of these are often referred to under the umbrella of “Repetitive Strain Injury” or RSI.
The Hazards Centre in Manchester is now running a support group for people (or their families) suffering from RSI or other Work Related Upper Limb Disorders. Details of the support group can be found here:
http://www.gmhazards.org.uk/support.htm
Further talks took place in Manchester on 15-16 June, with ACAS in attendance. Progress is still being made, but it is slow. The company has more issues it wants to discuss than was the case a couple of years ago.
There was one major step backwards when the company said it wanted to reduce the 90-day consultation period for redundancies where they were made in small numbers. This suggestion proved unacceptable to members in the past, as it would cost members money and reduce our chances of finding other work inside or outside the company. In previous years a firm line from members in Manchester has been successful in defending this important right, though the company has got away with undermining it for many people elsewhere.
More talks are planned for 17-18 July.
The key to a successful outcome to the talks is to keep campaigning. It is vital that employees in Manchester, Warrington and HOM99 support the campaign and that we continue to build up our membership and organisation.
The latest Manchester “One Per Desk” campaign leaflet focuses on Equality. If you can help distribute it in your area, please get in touch with Phil Tepper. For those off-site, the leaflet should be available on the “Amicus The Union” CafeVIK community tomorrow.
You can also help by:
· talking to colleagues about the union and the campaign
· wearing your pass on an Amicus lanyard and encouraging your colleagues to do the same (whether they are already members or not)
· asking someone to join the union
If you want recruitment materials, lanyards or advice on talking to colleagues about the union, please contact one of the reps.
Meanwhile, the slow and laborious process of preparing for an industrial action ballot (requested by members at the AGM in March) continues. The anti-union laws introduced by the Tories (and left in place by New Labour) make this very difficult if we are to avoid legal challenge from the company. However, the process has also made our membership records much more accurate, which helps the union to communicate with and support you.
After a three month delay when the company refused to meet us, pay talks restarted at stage 2 on 12th June.
The long delay meant that a lot of time was wasted refreshing the minds of the company representatives about what the issues were. Reps made extensive use of the table comparing the pay claim with the company’s initial offer. This offer had been rejected by members in March.
These are the agreed outcomes of the meeting, signed by both teams, in which we have highlighted some of the key points:
Agreed outcomes from pay talks 12th June 2006
The previous meeting had been on 9th March – the third full meeting at stage
1. This was the first meeting at stage 2.
1. Amicus queried the company using the same team at stage 2 as at stage 1, but thought this was acceptable in this instance if the company believed these were the most appropriate people.
2. It was agreed to try to take a more “joint problem solving” approach to the talks, to avoid exchanging drafts. This meant sharing issues and interests and working on solutions to maximise mutual benefit, rather than “win-lose” negotiation.
3. Amicus noted that the Company results had been very good, raising expectations.
4. Amicus suggested that the talks should take advantage of the delay, to compensate for the negative impact on employees. The delay might give an opportunity to resolve issues that had been unresolved in the rush in March. Amicus also felt that employees wanted some compensation for the delay.
5. The disagreement on the scope of the pay deal had not yet been resolved.
6. Amicus gave detailed feedback on the company’s offer.
7. The company clarified that a job opportunity could not be advertised internally without a RAR, and that a RAR could not be authorised without a budget. A pay rise for an employee who was promoted into such a vacancy was funded out of that budget, not out of the annual pay pot or the element of it held back for promotions or progressions.
8. SiS will not be withheld as a result of a PAC rating of M, A, E or O.
9. SiS will not be withheld for Conduct or Capability issues where no formal warning has been issued during 2005-6.
10. From 2006-7 onwards, bonus or incentive payments will only be reduced as a result of performance, attendance or conduct issues as part of a sanction specified in a letter setting out the outcome of a disciplinary hearing.
Actions
1. HM to provide a single spreadsheet (based on 1st April 2006) covering all FS employees based at MAN05/33/34/35 (and HOM99 who had claimed their admin base was MAN05/33/34/35). DF & HM will identify the fields required tomorrow.
2. IA to resend the list of the HOM99 people who claimed their admin base was MAN05/33/34/35.
3. HM to look at how pay rises connected with promotion into a vacancy could be differentiated on the system from pay rises from the pay pot.
4. Amicus to draft a statement on promotion into vacancies and within a job to clarify the situation. This could be agreed outside the overall pay deal.
5. MB to draft words for offer on correct definition of who was covered by D1-4 (as per previous discussions)
6. HM to look at allocating “cost of living” and “anomaly” parts of the pay review higher than at team level.
7. MB to propose suitable increases for D1-4 scales
8. Employees on D1-4 scales can find out which level they are at from their manager. Amicus members can check this with a member of the union’s pay negotiating team.
9. HM to check on Fire Marshal allowance.
10. HM to speak to Reward about adding a flag to the database to show employees managed on D1-4 (i.e. not managed to medians). This would allow meaningful medians for TSS/1, TSS/2 and TSM/1 staff who are managed on the medians.
11. HM to look at typical progression rates for each role. This included talking to Sue Cooke about the helpdesk roles.
12. HF to draft words to specify whether someone is employed to do their tasks or to be in a particular Professional Community role.
13. Agreed to change the point on appraisals to match the Amicus claim.
14. HM to look at the Amicus concerns on “stretch” utilisation for incentive schemes.
15. HF will state which groups in the bargaining unit the company believes should be defined as working a 40 hour week by the end of June, then discuss with Amicus.
16. HM & HF to produce a plan to monitor working hours jointly with Amicus, with a view to reducing excessive hours.
17. HM to provide an update on the overnight allowance.
18. HM to provide an update on the review of fixed TSB payments promised in the 2005 pay deal.
19. HM to look into sabbatical policies.
20. SM reported that since the System Centre teams were moved from CS to IS-Compute Services, people being promoted from TSS/1 helpdesk jobs into this unit are now only being moved up to TSS/2 rather than TSS/3. SM gave some examples. HF agreed to look into this.
21. HF will find out what his employees get for working bank holidays (e.g. TOIL, premiums) and discuss with Amicus.
22. HM to propose plan to engage with Amicus over improvements in maternity and paternity rights.
23. Company to look at the (up to 11) people on 1/75th accrual.
24. HM to arrange process to resolve the pre-retirement wind-down issue with Amicus.
25. HM to find out company position on 50% Member Nominated Trustees.
26. HM and Amicus to propose who should be involved in promoting the pension schemes.
27. Amicus to consider what effective steps could be taken short of the company agreeing to an Equal Pay Audit. This might include points from the Women in Work Commission and the new Amicus charter for women in the industry.
28. HM to seek list of age-discrimination issues from Sandra Kemp to share with Amicus so that work can be planned.
29. Attempt to make final offer shorter and clearer. Draft it together.
The actions above do not include all of the comments or changes on the offer discussed.
Dates:
4th July – HM gets together with one of the reps to review progress on actions, data etc. All to book 5th July, 14th July, 31st July.
Signed 12th June 2006
Ian Allinson (Amicus)
Sulayman Munir (Amicus)
Dave Francis (Amicus)
--HR Manager name removed-- (Fujitsu Services)
--IS Manager name removed-- (Fujitsu Services)
--CS Manager name removed-- (Fujitsu Services)
--CS Manager name removed-- (Fujitsu Services)
[Since the 12th June meeting, the company has sought to backtrack on point 9 (about Sharing In Success), though exactly what this means is unclear.]
It was already clear that the company was keen to tie the pay issue in with the talks on recognition, redeployment and redundancy, in the hope that employees would be so impatient to get a pay review that we’d accept a second-rate deal on the other issues. That’s why they refused the offer from Amicus to explore ways of disconnecting the two issues.
Reps are becoming more and more concerned at company time-wasting. Today’s planned meeting didn’t take place because Howard Morgan claimed he didn’t know about the meeting (despite having signed the outcomes document). Your negotiating team hasn’t seen evidence of any of the company’s agreed actions being completed.
It seems unlikely that incompetence could explain the consistent failure to carry out agreed actions. Is the company negotiating team being over-ruled behind the scenes? Are senior management or HR playing games with our pay rises?
Most Manchester staff are still waiting for their April pay review. Some have had the “bog standard” pay review imposed on them. As well as meaning a worse pay deal, this also means the company wants to deny them the other benefits of recognition, including our agreements on redundancy, redeployment etc.
Your reps will be attending the talks tomorrow, and asking the company representatives if there is any point continuing discussions with them if they are unable or unwilling to deliver on their actions. Unless the situation changes significantly, your reps intend to register a Failure To Agree, which will escalate the pay talks to a more senior level.
Bonus
Many employees have been asking about bonus pay-outs.
If you don’t understand why you’ve been given what you have, please query the figure with your management. Mistakes do happen, and they can be corrected.
Some employees don’t believe they’ve been treated fairly in terms of their bonus, but have been told by their manager that as the bonus is discretionary, they have no rights in relation to bonus. Even for those bonuses which are discretionary (not all are), you have a contractual right to be treated fairly and you can raise a grievance if you believe you are not being fairly treated.
The next meeting of the Amicus Greater Manchester IT Branch is:
6pm-7:30pm, Thursday 6th July
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.
All branch members are welcome to attend.