Unite Fujitsu News

Tony Benn in discussion at Fujitsu Manchester event

Last night's event as part of the Fujitsu Manchester dispute was a great success.

Speakers included Tony Benn (picture below), as well as trade unionists from across Fujitsu, elsewhere in the IT industry and from the Manchester TUC.

Tony Benn was instrumental in the creation of ICL when he was a government minister in the 1970s. ICL later became Fujitsu Services.

One member commented:

"I found the event both interesting and reassuring. The speakers (all of them, not just Tony Benn) were informative and interactive - questions from the audience were fielded with skill and humour. The buffet break gave an opportunity to mix with Fujitsu and non-Fujitsu staff, which was good. After a couple more speakers, we settled down to watch the film, "Bread & Roses", which was interesting in its own right, and relevant to our own problems with Fujitsu management (although hopefully we will not have the same level of problems and sacrifices!). The end result of the whole event, was a feeling of being supported, and of being able to progress our dispute towards a fairer conclusion, not only for us, but for other IT workforces with similar struggles. Thanks to the committee for organising the event - I look forward to the next!"

The evening was rounded off with a free screening of the film "Bread & Roses", directed by Cannes Film Festival winner Ken Loach.

One member commented:
"The big question we tried to answer was - When will Fujitsu change its present pay and redundancy policies. When will it happen? How long will it now take? Weeks? Years?"

"Amicus already have achieved some great results but I hope more can be done in the near future."

Amicus Fujitsu Manchester Senior Rep Ian Allinson introduced the evening:

Amicus Fujitsu Warrington Senior Rep Wilf Williams gave his support:

PCS Fujitsu Swansea Rep Andy Fryer described their experiences since being TUPE transferred into the company:

Geoff Brown, the secretary of Manchester Trades Union Council, brought support and encouragement for our campaign:

Colin Walker, chair of the Amicus reps at Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), explained how victory or defeat in our campaign would effect everyone working in the industry:

Many thanks to the University of Manchester Students Union for their assistance with the venue and arrangements, to all the speakers for their support, and to Ken Loach and Sixteen Films for permission for the free screening of "Bread & Roses".

Amicus pensions demo

Amicus continues campaigning to defend pension rights. Today Amicus organised a protest outside the Labour Party conference:

There's a report on the Amicus national web site.

This BBC report explains how the conference then passed a motion critical of the worst aspects of government pensions policy.

Framework for monthly NW meetings signed

Last Thursday Reps held the first of the monthly meetings with management under the new framework voted on by Manchester and Warrington members a few weeks ago.

The agreement has now been signed, and you can find a copy on CafeVIK.

You will see that the meetings are deliberately very formal, with minutes agreed the following month. Amicus wanted this to minimise the scope for the company to “change its mind” after making commitments at the meetings. The downside of this is the delay in communicating the outcomes.

The meeting did make some progress in tackling the problem that “since the Systems Centre (RIM) teams were moved from CS to IS-Compute Services, some people being promoted from TSS/1 helpdesk jobs into this unit have only been moved up to TSS/2 rather than TSS/3”. If this affects you, you may wish to contact Rep Sulayman Munir for more information, pending the publication of the minutes.

Manchester Pay Update

As previously reported, the company are imposing a pay review on the remaining Manchester staff. While this will still be better than the pay review imposed on other Fujitsu staff, it leaves a great deal to be desired.

The Amicus campaign to improve pay and conditions continues – for those who had their pay review in April and those forced to wait until October alike.

Managers should now have submitted their pay plans, and we expect pay review letters to start coming out from 10th October.

Update on MAN05 closure

Amicus has submitted the following collective grievance:

Manchester Campaign Update and Events

While Manchester members await the industrial action ballot, there’s plenty that staff in Manchester and elsewhere can do to help ensure we defend our redundancy and redeployment rights, defend and extend union recognition, and win a decent pay rise.

There are still many members and potential members in Manchester who haven’t signed our current petition – have you? Have you asked all your workmates? As well as putting pressure on the company, the petition is a useful way to start a discussion with your colleagues about what’s going on.

Our appeal for support from Fujitsu staff on other sites and the wider trade union movement includes many ideas and is beginning to bear fruit. How can you build the campaign?

Fujitsu management are making contingency plans to minimise the effectiveness of any industrial action. Please continue to pass details of their plans and preparations to your Reps.

The anti-union laws already require Amicus to give the company warning of what action we intend to take. Amicus will do this centrally and it would be perverse for individuals to go beyond this in assisting the company to plan to undermine the campaign.

Other events

Saturday 23rd September:

“Time To Go” demonstration in Manchester, outside the Labour Party Conference. Our delegation will assemble at:

12 noon, Altrincham Street (see map on the flier for the 26th September event above)

with the Amicus Greater Manchester IT Branch banner. Let us know if you’re going, ideally by sending your name & mobile number.

Tuesday 26th September:

Amicus nationally is holding a demonstration “for pensions justice” at the Labour Party Conference:

The march will assemble at 11.30 a.m. at Castlefield, Manchester (off Liverpool Road).
March to a rally opposite the GMEX Conference Centre.
The demonstration is due to finish at 1.30 pm.

Campaigning, Film, Food and Fun in Manchester - UPDATED

As part of the campaign to stop Fujitsu dividing the workforce and attacking the union in order to drive down pay and conditions, Amicus is proud to present an evening of campaigning, film, food and fun for Fujitsu staff, friends, families and supporters.

The event will take place on the evening of 26th September. See the leaflet for details.

Update - confirmed speakers now include:

• TONY BENN
• Graham Goddard, Amicus Deputy General Secretary
• Robert (Wilf) Williams, Amicus Senior Rep, Fujitsu Warrington
• Geoff Brown, Secretary, Manchester Trades Union Council
• Andy Fryer, PCS Rep, Fujitsu Swansea
• Colin Walker, Chair of Amicus Reps, Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC)

Report from Manchester Branch Meeting

On Thursday night the Greater Manchester IT Branch held elections:

Chair: Ian Allinson
Secretary: Derek Wise
Treasurer: Bill Whitehurst
Minutes Secretary: John Wood
Membership Secretary: Michael Thomas
Auditors: Bernard Howell and Neil James
Delegates to Manchester Trades Union Council: Ian Allinson, Lynne Hodge, Derek Wise and Neil James
Delegates to Manchester TUC Pensioners Association: Derek Wise and Neil James

Branch membership has grown by 50% over the last four years, and the increase in the membership paying by Direct Debit is even higher at 60%.

A donation of £50 was agreed in support of Merseyside fire-fighters who are striking to stop 120 job cuts.

Changes to Union Learning Reps

Thanks go to Martin York, who has decided to step down as a Union Learning Rep (ULR) due to other commitments.

Congratulations to Teresa Meyer, who has been elected as a new Union Learning Rep (ULR), joining Pauline Bradburn.

Monthly Meetings Framework

Members approved the proposal for a framework of monthly meetings between Reps and Management, which went out to the vote last week.

The Reps have decided who our participants will be:

Ian Allinson will act as the Joint Secretary from the union side, and Lynne Hodge as the Chair or Vice-Chair.

The company hasn’t yet confirmed who its representatives will be.

If you want to suggest topics for the agenda, please email them to the Reps as soon as possible.

40 Hour Working Week and Sirius RIM Shifts

Amicus presented the petition against the 40-hour week to management on 29th August – thanks to everyone who signed it or collected signatures.

It was presented in a meeting with Howard Fielding and Paul Brown to discuss the removal of shifts from the MAN35 Sirius RIM team.

Since the meeting, the company has not responded to the petition, but has come back with a proposal on the shifts, which Rep Karl Dobson is circulating to the team for consideration.

At the moment, the members of the team who are in Manchester are still getting their 15% shift allowance, because our recognition agreement requires the company to listen to staff grievances about proposals before implementing them. The grievance was submitted in March, but we still haven’t been invited to a stage-1 meeting!

Offshoring

Amicus continues to support the members in the MAN34 VME team whose jobs the company wants to move to South Africa.

This situation is one of several current examples where the company want to pretend that getting rid of jobs here doesn’t mean it’s a redundancy situation and that the law and our Security of Employment Agreement (SEA) don’t apply.

Not content with trying to avoid their responsibilities under the law and the SEA, the company are now also trying to bypass much of the protection offered by our recognition agreement, as the following correspondence shows:

Examples like this show that the company is trying to attack our recognition agreement and Security of Employment Agreement precisely because they offer significant protection for staff.

26th September, Manchester

While we wait for our union officers to organise our industrial action ballot, we must use the time to build up the campaign.

You’ll have seen from last week’s national email newsletter that we’re appealing for support from Fujitsu staff on other sites as well as in the wider trade union movement.

We’re also putting on a fantastic evening of campaigning, film, food and fun for Fujitsu staff, families and supporters:

6.15pm, Tuesday 26th September
Club Underground
University of Manchester Students' Union, Barnes Wallis Building, Altrincham Street, Manchester City Centre (near Piccadilly train station)

After some impressive speakers and something to eat, we’ll present a free screening of the film:

Bread & Roses (certificate 15)
Directed by Cannes Film Festival winner Ken Loach

You can download a flier for the event here, including a map of the venue.

We’re very pleased to have this central venue, which is on the campus Manchester University uses for IT training. Both the Students Union and the lecturers’ University & College Union are publicising the event.

Please put it in your diary now and come along with your colleagues, friends and family.

If you’re free earlier in the day, Amicus nationally is holding a demonstration “for pensions justice” at the Labour Party Conference:

The march will assemble at 11.30 a.m. at Castlefield, Manchester (off Liverpool Road).

March to a rally opposite the GMEX Conference Centre.
The demonstration is due to finish at 1.30 pm.

Pay & Benefits

The company issued an announcement to some Manchester staff last week, which we’ve made available on CafeVIK.

The company now intends to carry out a pay review of its choosing for the staff who haven’t had one yet. The latest Amicus “One Per Desk” newsletter which is currently being distributed across the sites explains what this means.

The newsletter also covers the stunning success of our test-cases under the Data Protection Act (DPA), further extending employees’ access to company pay and benefit scales / comparators.

We’ve given the company until 21st September to make the information generally available to employees. If they don’t, Amicus will help more members make applications under the DPA, collate the results, and make them available to members.

In Manchester, we believe the main beneficiaries of the information will be staff who aren’t getting the correct benefits (e.g. company cars, incentive schemes, medical cover). Analysis carried out during the pay talks makes Reps certain that there are large numbers of significant discrepancies. These will mostly be supervisors, lower managers and senior technical staff. Many will be above the salary threshold for our current collective bargaining unit, but benefit from the union’s campaigning.

Outside Manchester, other groups should benefit as well as the group above:

' Helpdesk staff. Unlike in Manchester, pay structures for many desks are not published. The company median pay figures for TSS/1 lead us to believe most are far lower than in Manchester.
. Staff in roles not included in the scales / comparators Amicus mailed to members earlier in the year.

Pay Review - newsletter

To see an electronic copy of our paper one-per-desk leaflet called "Pay Review", on Cafevik, click here (a local version is here). This leaflet was produced for our Manchester Central Park and West Gorton sites.

UKCF Election in Scotland

A couple of months ago, the newsletter reported that there was a vacancy for the UK Consultative Forum (UKCF) seat in Scotland, due to Iain Fisher leaving the company.

We asked who was willing to stand, so that one agreed candidate could have the backing of union members.

Alan Black, our Rep in GLA15, intends to stand, and we hope that all union members will support him in the election, which should take place in October.

Representatives Across the Company

In the footer of our notices, you’ll find a list of current Reps and Contacts at many Fujitsu Services sites.

The union’s strength comes from the size and involvement of its membership.

If you’ve no Reps listed for your site yet, why not nominate someone, or volunteer yourself? Why not discuss with your colleagues who would be good?

Whether you want to help keep colleagues informed about what’s going on, help recruit new members, or get trained to help members in grievance or disciplinary meetings – are you willing to play a part in making Fujitsu a better place to work?

If you’re interested or want to nominate a colleague, please get in touch.

Manchester Dispute

Following the decision of members in Manchester to ballot for industrial action over pay, as well as the outstanding issues around union recognition, redundancy and redeployment, plans are being made for the campaign.

Our Manchester group has published a summary of the issues and appeal for support.

The successes of our members in Manchester often benefit staff across the company and beyond. For example, the extra sick pay and holidays won in 2003 benefited helpdesk staff nationally, not just in Manchester. The national distribution of pay scales to members throughout the UK was possible because of our successful CAC claim in Manchester.

Would HR be treating people across the country even worse if they weren’t worried about staff seeing the contrast with those covered by union recognition?

Members in Manchester are asking for your support – please read the appeal to find out how you can help.

All Fujitsu staff, friends, family and supporters are invited to attend the event planned for the evening of the 26th September in Manchester – which includes some great speakers and a free-screening of the film “Bread & Roses”, directed by Cannes Film Festival winner Ken Loach.

Offshoring, Work Permits, Redundancy Rights

Fujitsu’s efforts to cut costs by moving work offshore continue to be a major source of concern for staff.

You may have seen the extensive news coverage of the recent Amicus report, which showed that the UK work permit system may be damaging skills investment and affecting the UK’s ability to compete in key industry sectors.

There has been a huge increase in the number of work permits granted for IT occupations over recent years – from 1,800 in 1995 to 30,000 in the last year, despite the IT workforce falling since 2001. 75% of work permits are for transfers within companies, whereas only 11% of all work permits issued for non-IT occupations are for this route.

We fear that this is because companies are bringing their staff from low-paid countries to the UK as a precursor to offshoring the work entirely.

Pay data also shows that 66% of IT work permit holders are paid less than the equivalent of £30,000 per year. Given that the average salary of an IT professional is £32,500 in the UK, on the face of it the majority of IT work permit holders would appear to be undercutting the industry average salary.

Everyone working in the UK should be paid the appropriate rate for the job, regardless of their nationality.

In recent talks in Manchester, the company tried to argue that good redundancy provisions could price staff out of work. This is nonsense. Though costs in India are now rising fast, we can’t realistically aim to undercut Indian pay and conditions. In any case, Zensar have started moving work to China to cut costs even further – where would it end?

The reality is that poor employment protection puts jobs at risk. Just look at some of the recent coverage about jobs in the motor industry:

“Unions fighting a decision by Peugeot to close its Coventry car plant and switch production to Slovakia claim Britain's flexible labour laws have made it easier to move jobs abroad, while other European workers are more protected.”

This makes Fujitsu’s efforts to slash redundancy rights even more serious.

Pay and Benefit Scales / Comparators

Amicus has been campaigning for a fair, open and transparent pay system. As part of this, the union supported several legal challenges aiming at disclosure of pay scales.

We’ve now won the test cases under the Data Protection Act.

Following a claim to the CAC based on rights arising from collective bargaining in Manchester, Amicus had already been able to provide most of the pay comparator information to members across the UK.

Amicus had separately supported some test cases by members complaining to the Information Commissioner about Fujitsu’s failure to provide information under the Data Protection Act.

The members concerned have now received the data they requested.

This will not only allow us to fill in the gaps in the data obtained in Manchester, but also gives access to benefit scales covering items such as company cars, medical scheme membership and bonus/incentive.

Amicus Reps in Manchester have written an open letter to Roger Leek, inviting him to make the information available to all staff.

You can read the letter on CafeVIK, and you may wish to draw it to the attention of your workmates and encourage them to join Amicus.

Fujitsu Manchester appeal for support

This leaflet has been superseded by one here, which sets out the basic issues and offers ways you can lend your support to the campaign.

Collection Sheet and Standing Order form

Please support Fujitsu Manchester staff in our campaign, using the Collection Sheet or Standing Order form.

A proposal for your vote - Warrington & Manchester

The ACAS talks did produce one tangible outcome – a proposal to set up a “Framework and Structure for Regular Discussion and Engagement”.

This rather grand title actually means properly organised monthly meetings with management. The scope is “employees in the north west who are represented by Amicus” so this means it includes the group in Warrington who have union recognition, as well as Manchester.

You can read the specific proposal on CafeVIK. As usual, the file has a password to prevent it being picked up by the CafeVIK search engine and mistaken for a live document.

Please vote on whether you approve the proposal.
Please vote by the end of this week.

Manchester Dispute update

Once again, HR has started trying to deny members the right to be accompanied by a Rep in vital meetings. The importance of this right is spelt out in our latest “one per desk” leaflet, which is also on CafeVIK.

Meanwhile, if anyone had any doubts about the seriousness of the attack on our redundancy rights, HR’s draft minutes from the latest MAN05 closure meeting make their position clear:

“The SEA Agreement will apply to any employee where it was stipulated in an employees contract, in the event of a redundancy situation. All terms of the SEA Agreement, including redundancy calculations/payments will apply to those employees. HE stated that she was aware that Amicus were discussing with Howard Morgan their views of when the SEA should be applied as part of wider discussions relating to recognition but currently it will only be used where it is expressly detailed in an employees contract.”

Hardly anyone has the SEA expressly detailed in a document called their “contract” – have you checked yours? In any case, the contract isn’t a single piece of paper, it’s the whole agreement between you and your employer, including collective agreements, custom and practice etc.

Please make sure your colleagues are aware of this attack on the SEA. It would cost many of us tens of thousands of pounds in their redundancy payments. You can see how the difference between SEA and statutory minimum would affect you by trying out our “redundancy calculator”.

The importance of winning our campaign couldn’t be clearer.

Reps are meeting company representatives today (4th September) – the first meeting since our EGM.

We’re now waiting for our union full-time officers to approve the ballot, so that a timetable can be agreed. In the meantime, a lot of work to ensure our campaign is successful is taking place behind the scenes.

At the EGM, members resolved to “Take an active part in our campaign to defend our rights”. Part of this was the setting up of an Action Committee, which was explained as follows:

The Action Committee has no formal responsibility. It consists of both Reps and members. It is a way of expanding the reach of the union, by involving members from all areas of the site. It can help to:

It should reflect all areas, to ensure that the impact of decisions on different jobs and departments are fully considered.

Have you and colleagues in your area put any names forward yet? Email suggestions or if you are willing to volunteer.

Please mark the evening of 26th September in your diary now – plans are being put in place for an impressive event for Fujitsu staff, friends, family and supporters. Details will follow…

Individual Representation - newsletter

To see an electronic copy of our paper one-per-desk leaflet called "Individual Representation", on Cafevik, click here (a local version is here). This leaflet was produced for our Manchester Central Park and West Gorton sites.