Unite Fujitsu News

Manchester: Notice of ballot

UNITE
NOTICE TO MEMBERS OF FORTHCOMING INDUSTRIAL ACTION BALLOT

The Union intends to conduct a ballot for industrial action of the members who are employed by Fujitsu Services Limited and are in scope of the Manchester Recognition Agreement.

Voting papers will be sent out on Thursday 4th August 2011. If you have not received a voting paper by Tuesday 9th August 2011 you should contact Michael Thomas (Michael.thomas@uk.fujitsu.com) IMMEDIATELY.

The names of the members to be balloted are available from Michael Thomas or Jay Lieberman. If you are entitled to vote in the ballot please check that you are on the list and that your address is accurately recorded.

If you know anyone who is away from work at the moment but who should be included in the ballot, please give his/her name to Michael Thomas or Jay Lieberman so that we can check whether your colleague should be sent a voting paper.

The notice sent to Fujitsu is here

More Support for Rep Alan Jenney

Support from Manchester Trades Council

Manchester Ballot stopped

Ballot papers have today been posted out to members in scope of the Manchester Recognition Agreement by Electoral Reform Services Limited.

However, there has been an administrative problem outside our control and your reps have decided that the best course of action is to stop the ballot and restart it after correcting the problem.

Any votes cast with the ballot papers sent out today will NOT be counted. Please destroy these ballot papers.

Please look out for notices explaining arrangements for a fresh ballot.

More Support For Rep Alan Jenney

Colleagues at Belfast
	A meeting at Manchester's Mechanics Institute
Colleagues from Manchester...	...with Alan	Supporters at the Mechanics Institute meeting

More Support For Rep Alan Jenney

More photos in support of Unite Rep Alan Jenney:

Bob Anderson HOM99	CRE02 Unite Rep Stephen Ryan	Unite Workplace Reps and members at HP Derby are shocked at the way Fujitsu management have treated Alan Jenny. A photograph showing members support for the campaign to reinstate Alan.
Photos from a group demonstrating support on the national public sector strike on 30th June (Manchester demo)...

Report from Fujitsu Manchester members' meeting

Thanks to all the members who took part in today’s members’ meeting. Below are the main decisions.

Members discussed Fujitsu’s union busting and breaches of agreements covering union recognition, redundancy and redeployment, pay and benefits, pensions and out of hours working, as well as the attacks on reps in Manchester and elsewhere. Members passed the following motion:

Ballot papers are being posted to members in scope of the Manchester Recognition Agreement on Friday 15th July, and everyone is encouraged to vote YES+YES and to return their ballot paper immediately.

Members agreed the following motion accepting the company’s latest pay offer:

UNITE reps have now signed the pay agreement and sent a copy to the company, so that implementation can progress.

Key messages were:

• The deal is far better than that elsewhere in Fujitsu, with a significantly larger pot and fairer distribution.
• The company denied UNITE the information required to jointly work on the numbers in the matrices this year, so the company filled these in alone. UNITE has mounted a legal challenge (CAC claim) to get the necessary information.
• The numbers in the matrices are far lower than last year, undermining the company’s claims to be committed to paying for performance or equal pay.
• It will be very important for individuals to check their pay rises this year, as it seems unlikely that the matrices are really worth 1% as the company claims.
• We can continue to pursue the company’s decision to renege on the pensions issue through the campaign against union busting.

Manchester Industrial Action Ballot: 3 days to go

NOTE: Since this notice was issued, the ballot timescale has changed

Ballot papers are being posted out to UNITE members in scope of the Manchester Recognition Agreement on Friday 15th July – just three days to go. UNITE is asking all members to vote as soon as they receive their ballot paper, and to vote YES+YES.

Yesterday Fujitsu dismissed Alan Jenney, deputy chair of our Fujitsu UK Combine Committee, which coordinates UNITE’s work nationally. The company breached his contract by making him redundant without letting him work his notice, which would have helped him secure redeployment. They didn’t even finish hearing his appeals and grievances before dismissing him. The company refused to allow either of the volunteers who came forward to take his place. The company dismissed Alan without even having responded to all his outstanding internal job applications. Fujitsu broke both the Manchester Annex 1 agreement and the Security of Employment Agreement (SEA) in dealing with this redundancy.

If Fujitsu gets away with this, do you think their union-busting will stop there?

The ballot is over much more than Alan’s dismissal. It is about the breakdown in industrial relations.

Over the years members have secured a range of agreements to protect employees, and built a team of reps who work on your behalf to implement and improve them.

Our agreements cover many points including:

• Protection in redundancy situations and redeployment
• Rights on pay, pensions and out of hours
• The right to consultation
• The right to negotiation
• The right to have reps with adequate time to work on your behalf and who suffer no detriment for doing so

All this is under threat because Fujitsu is breaking its agreements on all these points. If we let Fujitsu establish a situation where our rights are ignored whene0ver they feel like it, we are all at risk.

In this time of economic uncertainty it would be folly to give up our hard-won rights.

UNITE has worked hard to resolve this dispute without the need for a ballot, including through negotiations facilitated by ACAS. But Fujitsu refused to stop taking the actions which break our agreements even if negotiations continue.

This dispute should be easy to resolve. Industrial relations could be improved by the company:

1. Honouring and implementing agreements
2. Engaging in regular dialogue at an appropriate level outside the context of disputes
3. Consulting before making decisions that affect staff
4. Focusing on resolving issues by agreement where possible, rather than generating unnecessary conflict which undermines the reputation and future success of the company
5. Respecting the role of employee representatives, who sometimes have to put forward views senior management may not like, and seeking to address the substantive issues rather than attempting to victimise reps

These steps are little more than good management practice.

We have successfully defended our rights before. We need to do so again.

It is vital that you keep your UNITE membership record up to date throughout the period until the dispute is resolved. Please contact our membership secretary, Michael Thomas with any updates to your membership record.

Alan Jenney Dispute Update

Yesterday Fujitsu dismissed Alan Jenney, deputy chair of our Fujitsu UK Combine Committee, which coordinates UNITE’s work nationally. The company breached his contract by making him redundant without letting him work his notice, which would have helped him secure redeployment. They didn’t even finish hearing his appeals and grievances before dismissing him. The company refused to allow either of the volunteers who came forward to take his place. The company dismissed Alan without even having responded to all his outstanding internal job applications. Fujitsu broke both the Manchester Annex 1 agreement and the Security of Employment Agreement (SEA) in dealing with this redundancy.

If Fujitsu gets away with this, do you think their union-busting will stop there? Is Fujitsu trying to break the union because it plans to treat staff fairly?

Members at Fujitsu Crewe continue to take industrial action short of strike. Ballot papers are being sent to members in scope of the Manchester Recognition Agreement on Friday (over a much wider set of issues, but including Alan’s victimisation).

Thanks to everyone who has already sent in “Defend Alan Jenney” photos – you can see the first batches here and here. Please and send a photo of yourself or a group with the “Defend Alan Jenney” poster to support@ourunion.org.uk.

The support for the campaign has been magnificent. One of our most recent donations was £120 collected at a meeting of PCS reps in Fujitsu. You can help by using the “appeal for support” leaflet and collection sheet with your friends, family etc. These are updated periodically and available from www.ourunion.org.uk.

Fujitsu Manchester Newsletter

The latest Manchester "One Per Desk" newsletter is available here.

More Support For Rep Alan Jenney

More images in support of Rep Alan Jenney:

Colleagues from BSN01

Unite Rep Isabel Hay from WAR08

Manchester: Update on Pay & Benefits

Thanks to everyone who sent in comments on the Fujitsu’s initial pay offer for the Manchester bargaining unit. These helped your negotiating team to prioritise changes to seek in the “stage 3” negotiations, which were facilitated by ACAS.

UNITE has published the improved offer we have received from the company today. To understand what has changed, we have also produced documents showing the changes from the current agreement and changes from the initial offer. UNITE’s pay claim is here. Once again, UNITE would welcome your views and comments on the offer.

There will be a meeting for all UNITE members in scope of the Manchester Recognition Agreement:

1:30-3:30pm, Wednesday 13th July, MAN35 canteen

At this members’ meeting there will be a discussion and a vote to decide whether the UNITE should accept or reject the offer. If you aren’t yet a UNITE member, please consider joining (www.ourunion.org.uk/join.htm). The meeting will also discuss the serious breakdown in industrial relations which has led to UNITE giving notice to Fujitsu of an industrial action ballot. Our latest “One Per Desk” newsletter explains some of the background to this.

Main improvements since the initial offer:

1. Re-introducing the “matrices” to guarantee an element related to performance and position in the pay band.
2. Minimum wage increased from £12,000 to £13,500 and review level from £14,000 to £14,500.
3. 
   Improvements to Appendix 4 which is now closer to what would be required for UNITE to monitor the implementation of the agreement
4. 
   Appraisals and PACs to be based only on the individual’s own performance (banning quotas or “forced ranking”)
5. 
   Restoring some sections the company previously proposed to remove from the agreement, such as dealing with outstanding company car anomalies from 2005 and protecting service desk staff with consolidated disturbance allowances.

Other observations about the offer:

1. The budget available for the August pay review is 2.5%, compared to 2% outside the bargaining unit, but the RPI cost of living rose 5.2% in the year to May. Promotions for people in the bargaining unit continue to be funded in addition to the pay pot, as will increases to bring people up to their lower comparator and the cash floor on the cost of living rise (see below).
2. 
   It includes a “cost of living” element of 1% or £225 (whichever is greater), whereas many of those without union recognition will get no pay increase at all. Despite our poll of employees in the bargaining unit showing 91% wanted a bigger cost of living element than this, the company have not increased this since stage 2.
3. “Appendix 4”, sets out timescales and information to be provided for future negotiations. Though better than in the last offer, this is still inadequate. UNITE is relying on a legal claim to the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) to ensure information is disclosed to allow monitoring of the agreement and more constructive negotiations in future. This means that if the offer is accepted it will be important for all employees to check their rises carefully. Last year hundreds of Manchester staff were underpaid and the few who raised this through UNITE received full back pay.
4. The reintroduction of the matrices is welcome, but the numbers in them look very odd indeed. In previous years these were jointly worked out by UNITE and the company, but this year the company didn’t provide the information required for UNITE to carry out meaningful cost modelling (hence the CAC claim mentioned above). Consequently the numbers were put into the matrix by the company alone. The offer says that the company will spend 1% on the matrices (as in 2010), but it is hard to see how this could be true given that they have reduced the figures so dramatically. Service desk staff on D1-D4 scales would get nothing at all from the matrix for an “A” PAC.
5. While the matrix figures in the company offer don’t seem to deliver genuinely performance related pay, the element at “management discretion” remains at 0.5% - double that last year.
6. It does not include any increase to the Service Desk “D1-D4” pay scales, which have only increased by 3.6% in the last ten years. An increase to the scales could be made in Manchester at little or no additional cost. The company says the increase is unaffordable because it wants to apply any increase nationally. This indicates that Service Desk staff in sites without union recognition must be being paid significantly less.
7. The current agreement says “The terms of the Company’s Defined Contribution pension schemes are a contractual entitlement for those existing and new employees who are members of such schemes. Wording based on the contractual variation letter used for former members of the ICL DB Pension Plan will be incorporated into this agreement”. UNITE provided draft wording to implement this to the company on 5th April, but after a number of delays the company has removed this from its offers. This is a serious breach of our existing agreements. The lack of any credible explanation creates the impression that the company is preparing the ground for a further attack on employees’ pensions.
8. Last year the company committed to incorporate into the Manchester Pay And Benefits Agreement relevant points arising from the national ACAS agreement of 26th February 2010. UNITE provided draft wording to implement this to the company on 5th April, but the company has continually delayed implementation. Now the offer removes this completely.
9. Employees will have access to median salaries for roles they are applying for, as well as their own role.
10. It includes a commitment to review contractual hours anomalies – people in areas where 37 hours is the norm whose contracts are for more. This is not tightly worded, but does say there is an expectation their hours will be reduced to 37 without loss of pay.
11. The offer removes the commitment to give people who change roles benefits at least in line with the company’s own guidelines. Though the stage 3 wording is slightly better than at stage 2, this still allows the company to create yet more anomalies.
12. It includes a review with individuals who are “acting up” in higher roles, to determine whether a “responsibility allowance” should be paid.
13. While it doesn’t yet cover temporary and agency workers, the company is offering a joint review before the new legislation comes into force on 1st October 2011.
14. Fujitsu had not kept UNITE informed about the impact on pay and benefits of the introduction of the Apprentice scheme, so this was only identified as an issue very recently. The offer would mean their 2011 pay reviews would be managed centrally by the company, but UNITE has informed the company that it intends to look at pay and benefits of the Apprentices more closely after that point.
15. Everyone (including the group of people who were moved from TSM to SIM roles) will be reviewed against the comparators for their current role unless they quickly provide written evidence of an agreement to the contrary.
16. The company would not include wording to make clear that objectives, targets etc should be set so that they can be achieved and exceeded without working additional hours.
17. The offer ends the consolidation of disturbance allowances into basic pay in future. This would mean staff moving to Manchester would be hit by the recent change in company policy to phase out disturbance allowances.

• 12:30pm rally and photo outside MAN34 (Fujitsu, Central Park, Northampton Road, Manchester, M40 5BP)
• 12:30 members’ meeting and photo, Churchill conference room, BSN01, Basingstoke.
• 12:30 members’ meeting and photo, Room 106, STE04, Stevenage
• 12:30pm rally and photo outside IRE02 (Fujitsu, 110/112 Holywood Road, Belfast, BT4 1NU)

Please come along if you can. Look out for updates about activities at other sites.

Find A Volunteer

The Company has still not taken any steps to find a volunteer for redundancy, to prevent Alan’s compulsory redundancy.

Alan has produced the following appeal which he is asking people to circulate:

Company Rejects Olive Branch

Despite the limited progress made at the talks with ACAS last week, UNITE offered the company yet another opportunity to resolve the Manchester grievance over the breakdown in industrial relations.

UNITE offered to hold off initiating the industrial action ballot that members had voted for if the company would merely confirm it would continue negotiations without imposing outcomes before they concluded – as required by the agreed grievance procedure.

The company did not take up the olive branch offered. UNITE has therefore registered a formal Failure To Agree and is preparing an industrial action ballot for Manchester members. The correspondence between Terry Thompson (UNITE Regional Officer) and David Stevens (HR) is below:

Crewe: Support for the campaign

As reported in the national newsletter, members in Belfast protested outside IRE02. Photos are available at: ourunion.org.uk/news.

Alan Jenney met with Edward Timpson, Conservative MP for Crewe and Nantwich, on Friday 24th June to discuss his case. Edward immediately wrote to the company supporting Unite’s suggestions that could lead to a simple resolution to the dispute. He has written for a second time to the company, having heard about the company not taking up the offer that would have stopped the need for strike action.

Crewe: Lunchtime Members’ Meeting report

On Friday, 1st July, members who were balloted held a meeting at lunchtime to review the campaign so far and to hear about:

• The limited progress in the ACAS talks in Manchester;
• Alan’s individual consultation, redeployment opportunities being withdrawn or applications rejected;
• All the support that has been shown and to look at the next steps in the dispute.

The following motion was passed unanimously.

“We note that the activities undertaken by members so far along with the strike action and picket have been effective at drawing attention to our campaign to protect union reps and organisation in Fujitsu, ‘Defend Alan Jenney’.

“We resolve that the campaign activities and industrial action short of strike should continue and that in the event of members in Manchester or elsewhere balloting for strike action on issues that include the dispute in Crewe, reps in Crewe should ask Unite to call further strike days and that these be coordinated with any action proposed elsewhere.”

Crewe: Strike Action and Picket

Thursday’s strike was a terrific success with many Crewe members joined outside the building by supporters from elsewhere, plus both our Unite Regional Officer and the National Officer for the IT and Comms Sector, Kevin O’Gallagher. Some members from Crewe joined members from Manchester to march in protest alongside public sector workers – some of whom are our customers - in Manchester City Centre, where many leaflets about the case were distributed. The Crewe office was very quiet indeed, possibly many people chose to stay away rather than cross a picket line, but also many members were on strike. This highlights the depth of feeling amongst members at Crewe. Donations were received from workers who were not balloted and support the campaign. Photographs and media coverage are posted at ourunion.org.uk/news.

Action short of strike continues, members agreed that this would be:

• Ban on overtime (paid or unpaid) unless paid at least Unsocial Hours Policy (UHP) rates.
• Work to rule and contract (for example ban on work phone calls outside contracted hours unless paid on standby, ensure backup before and after applying patches, test and document thoroughly, be diligent about Performance Plus and Personal Development Plan activities and what is written in objectives, carefully read all Company notices and Health & Safety information, read all the information from the Pensions and Redundancy consultation websites, take regular backups of PC, comply with the “tidy desk” policy).
• Ban on using own vehicle to travel on company business unless in receipt of an allowance.
• Policy of non co-operation.

Photos from Belfast Defend Alan Jenney protest

On Thursday, when UNITE members at Fujitsu Crewe were striking to defend Alan Jenney and their union organisation, a group of members at IRE02 in Belfast staged a solidarity protest.

Defend Alan Jenney – Update

On Tuesday UNITE met with the company and ACAS to discuss the breakdown in industrial relations, including the company’s plan to dismiss UNITE rep Alan Jenney. The union offered to suspend the industrial action which was due to start in Crewe if the company would either remove the threat to Alan’s job, or even just follow the agreed Annex 1 redundancy and redeployment process.

While the company has at last acknowledged that their handling of Alan’s case broke Annex 1, the company argues that this is a technicality and makes no difference. On the contrary, as UNITE has pointed out from the start, the failure has meant:

• The measures in section 6.1.1 to avoid redundancy were never taken or discussed
• The steps in section 6.1.2 to seek volunteers for redundancy were never taken
• The company decided selection criteria (which Alan believes were unfair) without consultation

In short, the company has focussed on steps to dismiss Alan and is failing to take the standard steps to avoid the dismissal, which could happen at the end of next week.

As a result of the company’s refusal of UNITE’s olive branch, industrial action started in Crewe yesterday with a one-day strike and ongoing action short of strike.

Well done to everyone who took part in yesterday’s strike and protests. There are a few photos on our web site. A PCS member kindly brought boxes of cakes to the picket line at CRE02. After protesting in Crewe, members raised the profile of the campaign by distributing thousands of leaflets on the public sector march in Manchester. One of our Crewe reps addressed the crowd at the start of the march and got a warm reception.

Congratulations to members in Belfast who held a protest outside IRE02 in support of Crewe. Photos from this will be posted on OurUnion soon.

The fact that members in Crewe were prepared to take industrial action in support of Alan has been vital to raising the profile of the campaign. The media coverage this has generated is an important part of the pressure on the company. Here are a few examples:

• Crewe Chronicle here
• Computer Weekly here
• The Inquirer here
• The Sentinel here
• V3 here
• ZD Net here
• ComputerWorld UKhere
• Microscopehere
• eWeek Europe here

For updates on the campaign, see www.ourunion.org.uk/news. You can also follow #DefendAlanJ on Twitter (http://twitter.com/DefendAlanJ) or friend “Unite At Fujitsu” on Facebook (http://facebook.com/uniteatfujitsu)

What Next?

The company proposes to make Alan redundant on Sunday 10th July, so his last working day would be Friday 8th July.

If possible we want to resolve the issue before Alan is dismissed, rather than having to campaign for his reinstatement and take his case to the courts (which do not have the power to ensure reinstatement).

Members in Manchester had decided to ask UNITE to ballot them for industrial action if there wasn’t rapid progress in the talks at ACAS. This wasn’t only about Alan’s case, but about a wider breakdown in industrial relations which threatens us all. Little progress was made on Tuesday, and Alan is still facing impending dismissal.

In a last attempt to avoid having to initiate an industrial action ballot in Manchester too, UNITE has written to the company as follows:

UNITE will update members whether we get a positive response from company by Monday (4th July) or if the union is forced to register a Failure To Agree and ballot Manchester members.

UNITE is urging members and supporters everywhere to urgently take a simple step to show your support for Alan and opposition to his dismissal.

Please make a sign saying “Defend Alan Jenney” and send a photo of you or your group holding it to support@ourunion.org.uk, along with a short note we can use as a caption explaining where it’s from (e.g. UNITE members at Splot branch). A collection of these photos can then be published on our web site to show the breadth of support. If possible, please try to avoid sending very large files.

UNITE is also asking members everywhere to hold members’ meetings or protests at lunchtime on Thursday 7th – the day before what could be Alan’s last working day. Members meetings can discuss what’s going on in Fujitsu and what we can do about it. Meetings or protests are also a great opportunity for a group photo (see above). Please speak to you local reps about getting a meeting organised where you are. Please send details of the times and venue for your meeting to unitetheunion so that invitations can be sent out to all the members in your area.

Until the dispute is resolved, it is vital that all members keep their UNITE membership records fully up to date. If you change address or other contact details, change contractual base location, know you will be leaving the company (including retirement, TUPE etc), or expect to be off work for an extended period of time please promptly inform the union by contacting our membership secretary Michael Thomas