Nominations have opened for employee representatives on "Fujitsu Voice", the company's new body for informing and consulting its UK employees, which replaces the UK Consultative Forum (UKCF).
UNITE has prepared an online briefing pack on Fujitsu Voice, which includes details of the candidates with union backing.
There will be a lunchtime meeting for UNITE members in Fujitsu Wakefield:
Friday 6th August, 12:30-1:30pm
Parkhill Room, WAK01
The main business of the meeting is to decide our workplace nomination for the UNITE General Secretary.
The formal notice of the nomination meeting is below:
Date: 28th July 2010 To: All UNITE members in Fujitsu Wakefield An election for General Secretary of Unite is being held in accordance with instructions issued by the Executive Council under Rule 15, clause 3, and must be strictly adhered to. Accordingly, each branch, chapel or workplace is entitled to nominate a candidate for this office. Prospective candidates must fulfil the eligibility requirements of Rule 16, clause 12 i.e. have at least 10 years continuous membership of the union; and have received at least 50 nominations of which a minimum of 10 must be from either category branch or workplace, subject to the total including nominations from more than one Region. Under the ballot rules our branch or workplace is required to hold a meeting during the nomination period (July and August 2010) in order to determine our nomination for the position of General Secretary. This meeting will take place on Friday 6th August between 12:30 and 13:30 in the Parkhill Room in WAK01. Yours sincerely |
Please see a local copy of our MAN23 (Salford datacentre) "one per desk" newsletter Here.
The Pensions Forum (UNITE and IPMC) continues to press the company for a meeting to sort out how the company will implement the commitment secured by UNITE at ACAS that the terms of the Defined Contribution schemes (particularly FJUK) would be made contractual.
Many members have been raising concerns about the government announcement that it intends to link increases in Defined Benefit pensions in deferment or payment to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rather than the Retail Price Index (RPI). As TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber explained to Pensions Age
“Over someone's whole retirement this will add up to a significant loss. CPI is less than RPI in most years because it excludes housing and council tax costs. But even if all other things are equal CPI is on average half a per cent less than RPI because it is calculated in a different way. If pensions in payment today had been linked to CPI instead of RPI for the last twenty years they would now be 14 per cent lower. This is a stealth cut on the pensions of middle income Britain.”
Professional Pensions reports a KPMG survey which estimates that this would reduce private sector pension deficits by around £45-100bn. This isn’t some clever trick, the reduction in deficits is by reducing pensions.
Closure of a Defined Benefit pension scheme means your accrued pension is index linked rather than linked to your final salary when you retire, so closure could mean members being exposed to the consequences of the government’s attack on pensions for many more years than would otherwise be the case – increasing the detriment of closure. For schemes affected by the change, the reduction in deficit could also undermine the case for closure.
The Pensions Forum is seeking clarification from the company of any impact of the government’s announcement on members of the ICL DB plan.
The minutes of the last Pensions Forum meeting on 7th May 2010 have now been published on the IPMC CafeVIK community.
One of the pensioner representatives on the IPMC has written some comments about the latest situation for those with AVCs in Equitable Life, which are on the ICL Group Pensioner’s web site. He suggests that if you were one of the part-time workers who were excluded from the pension scheme and then became a full member of Equitable Life (ELAS), it is particularly important that you keep an eye on the situation, as the ICL Pension Plan cannot act on your behalf in seeking compensation. Equitable Members Action Group (EMAG) is a useful source of information.
The pensions issue highlighted in this news letter is just one example of the massive cuts planned by the government in everything from child benefit to incapacity benefit, health and education.
Alongside the cuts are further moves to privatisation, from Royal Mail to the NHS. The attempts to push the cost of the recession onto working people will affect us all. Both your Fujitsu Combine Committee and the UNITE IT & Communications National Sector Committee have decided to back a demonstration against the cuts called by the Right To Work Campaign. It will take place outside the Tory party conference in Birmingham on Sunday 3rd October. For more information see www.righttowork.org.uk. Transport is being organised from all over the country. If you are interested in attending, please contact us
The Daily Mirror recently ran a story about the story about the large increase for our Chief Executive, while we were having a pay freeze.
UNITE has made available a spreadsheet showing advertised pay rates for IT roles, actual pay for IT roles along with information from the official government Labour Force Survey (LFS) and Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE).
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has published research which backs up UNITE’s view that Fujitsu’s current minimum salary of £12,000 is far too low. The report, which received coverage on the BBC, suggests that the minimum a single person needs for an acceptable standard of living is £14,400. Of course, many people, depending on their circumstances, would find they couldn’t get by on that either.
Many people in work wrongly assume they are not entitled to state benefits or tax credits, and huge sums go unclaimed. Significant numbers of Fujitsu staff receive tax credits. If you are struggling financially, it’s well worth checking what you are entitled to. This isn’t charity – it’s what we pay our taxes for. As a UNITE member in Fujitsu, don’t forget that you have use of the Labour Research Department’s online database [The email newsletter included the username and password for members to access this]
The LRD database includes lots of information about employment issues as well as about state benefits and tax credits.
For example, you can find all the (pre-budget) state benefit and tax credit information once you’ve logged on by selecting “LRD Booklets” from the left menu and then “State benefits and tax credits 2010” from the drop down list and clicking “Pick”.
Pay planning is now well under way and staff will soon find out what their managers have decided to give them.
In Manchester, where the company negotiates with UNITE over pay, Manchester Pay and Benefits Agreement. This is a flavour of what UNITE achieved in Manchester:
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The agreement shows the value of union recognition and collective bargaining. If UNITE can achieve this with current levels of membership and without union recognition in most of the company, think what we can achieve if we continue to build the organisation across the UK.
Can you get more involved?
Who could you ask to join?
Elections are expected soon for the company’s new body for Informing and Consulting UK employees.
The “Strategic Development Committee Negotiating Group” has been busy negotiating the Charter for the new body, which will be called “Fujitsu Voice” and replace the company’s old UK Consultative Forum (UKCF). This process is expected to reach a conclusion in the near future, after which fresh elections will be held for employee representatives. The constituencies are currently expected to be:
| Professional Community Constituency | Example Roles | No of representatives |
| Operations | TSS, CSE, TSM, TST, OPS, SCO, CSS | 10 + deputy |
| Customer Solution Architects | CSA | 2 + deputy |
| Software and Solution Development | DEV, ADM, SDA, SDM | 2 + deputy |
| Service Delivery Management and General Management | MAN, GEN | 2 + deputy |
| Project Management | PJM, PGM, PCO, PJS | 2 + deputy |
| Finance & Human Resources | FM, SMA, HRSAD, HRGM, HRGAD | 1 + deputy |
| Commercial, Legal, Procurement and Quality & Business Effectiveness | COM, LEG, PUR, QBE | 1 + deputy |
| Business Services | BUS, BSM, SAS | 1 + deputy |
| Business Consultancy | BSC | 1 + deputy |
| Sales, Account Management and Marketing | SLP, BID, AMD, ABM, SMM, HOM | 1 + deputy |
| TOTAL | - | 23 + 10 deputies |
You will see that the constituencies and seats have changed considerably from the current Negotiating Group. The most noticeable difference is that OPC should no longer be grossly under-represented.
UNITE is keen to ensure there are good candidates for every seat. If you might be interested in standing, please let your union know now, so that UNITE can assist you with your election address and ensure no seats are left vacant.
The notice which has been sent to all UNITE members in the Fujitsu Manchester Bargaining Unit, calling the meeting at which the nomination for General Secretary will be decided is available internally here and externally here.
Under the ballot rules our branch or workplace is required to hold a meeting during the nomination period (July and August 2010) in order to determine our nomination for the position of General Secretary.
This meeting will take place on:
Wednesday 21st July between 12:30 and 13:30 in MAN34GCR1&2 in MAN34.