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There's overwhelming evidence that companies work best when they inform and consult their employees effectively. Information and Consultation means:
In all but the smallest companies, effective Information & Consultation of Employees requires some permanent organisation. Informal arrangements or ad-hoc forums to deal with specific issues cannot be sufficient. Legislation provides a framework for Information & Consultation of Employees at national level. Fujitsu intends the "Strategic Development Committee" to be its new body for informing and consulting UK employees. The current elections are for a Negotiating Group to work with Management Reps to produce a constitution for the new Strategic Development Committee (SDC). Once a constitution is agreed, there will have to be fresh elections for the SDC itself. Who do the unions recommend we vote for? For these elections, the company has created new constituencies based on Professional Communities. Unite has worked together with the PCS union, which also has members in Fujitsu, to identify a list of candidates who can attract wide support from employees. They are a mix in terms of role, seniority, geography, gender etc, but are all committed to make the SDC as effective as possible. Unite and the PCS are encouraging employees to support the following candidates (click on name for more details):
On the old UK Consultative Forum (UKCF), which the SDC will replace, the reps worked together regardless of whether they happened to be union members. However, if the company ignores employees' concerns, reps who are not union members have few options. They can't turn to a union-funded solicitor for advice. How could they launch and fund legal action, if that was necessary? Staff will get better results if the SDC and union structures work together in close co-operation, rather than allowing the company to divide and conquer. Electing union members to represent you makes sense, whether you are a union member or not. The company asked for nominations, which closed on 15th March. On Thursday 18th March UK employees should receive either an email or a postal ballot paper. Make sure you vote before the ballot closes at 5pm on Thursday 8th April 2010 (new deadline). If you don't receive voting details (and aren't in Sales and Account Management, where there is no election) then you should raise this immediately. For queries about the election, contact onlinevoting@electoralreform.co.uk if it relates to online voting or strategic.development@uk.fujitsu.com for other queries. The election is by Single Transferable Vote (STV) - see http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/votingsystems/systems3.htm#STV if you want to know more. The key thing is that you have to place the candidates in order of preference - 1 or top being your favourite. Please put the union-backed candidate(s) top of your list in any order you like, then vote for as many or few of the other candidates as you want. The company intends to declare the result in time for the first meeting to take place on 7th April. How important are these forums? An Information & Consultation body like the SDC has an important remit. For example, even the old UKCF was supposed to be consulted over a wide range of issues including:
For the vast majority of employees (who aren't yet covered by union recognition) the SDC will be the primary formal channel to raise and address issues of concern other than raising an individual grievance. At the very least, an information & consultation body can bypass some of the barriers to communication within Fujitsu. The Strategic Development Committee won't change the way Fujitsu works overnight. However, the unions, the UKCF and other employee forums have been building up pressure for less secrecy, and for more democracy and accountability at work. Making the SDC more effective than the old UKCF is another step along this road. The action of the outgoing reps in terminating the old UKCF agreement gives us a great opportunity to establish a new body on a firmer legal footing, so that the company will find it harder to ignore. We need a strong Negotiating Group to ensure this opportunity isn't wasted. Why is the Negotiating Group being elected now? For many years, Fujitsu used the UK Consultative Forum (UKCF) to try to inform and consult employees. The Employee Representatives on the UKCF were elected to represent all staff. Elections used geographic constituencies and the number of reps reflected the number of employees in the constituency. On occasion, the UKCF played an important role, but the company wasn't committed to making it work, prevented reps communicating effectively with constituents, and bypassed the UKCF over issues that were of great importance to employees. Last year this came to a head after the company failed to consult the UKCF about the pay freeze, its strategy to exit all the Defined Benefit pension schemes, or the redundancy programme. In a statement from the UKCF Employee Representatives Committee on 3rd September 2009, all the Employee Reps resigned, asking for immediate elections in which a number would "seek re-election on the basis of a mandate from our constituents to take whatever action is necessary to make the UKCF more effective". The company failed to organise the elections, so the UKCF reps then issued a second statement on 22nd October 2009 in which they gave notice to terminate the existing UKCF agreement, calling for a new body to be set up. "This new body would be better able to represent employees effectively because it would have a firmer legal footing by not operating as a "Pre-Existing Agreement" in the terms of the legislation". The reps offered to negotiate this change, but instead the company unilaterally initiated elections to a Negotiating Group which they would negotiate with instead. The response from the UKCF reps on 26th January 2010 is in a third statement. It is important that reps are elected to the Negotiating Group who will ensure that the new agreement is as robust as possible. It would be a tragedy if the company's manoeuvre of electing a new Negotiating Group rather than talking to the outgoing UKCF allowed them to get away with replacing a weak UKCF agreement with a weak SDC one. Function of the Negotiating Group The Negotiating Group isn't there to deal with the real issues (jobs, pay, pensions, company strategy etc). That will be the job of the Strategic Development Committee (SDC) itself. Employee Representatives elected to the Negotiating Committee will work with Management Reps to produce a constitution for the Strategic Development Committee. Genuine consultation requires the company to give information in advance, and to listen and take account of employees' views, fed back by the Employee Reps, BEFORE reaching decisions. Unite wants to make sure that the SDC isn't just a legal fig-leaf for the company, a talking shop, or a rubber stamp. The old UKCF constitution was good in many respects, but it had two very significant weaknesses:
The new constitution will be classed as a "Negotiated Agreement" in legal terms. As long as the Negotiating Group do a good job it will have a stronger legal footing and so be harder for the company to ignore. We want to improve communications between employees and employee reps, as well as between the reps and management. In the past, the union networks have been useful supplement to the UKCF web site in keeping employees informed and it is envisaged that this will continue. The Negotiating Group should be looking at resources such as:
The Negotiating Group will have to grapple with practical questions about how the SDC should operate, including:
Limitations of the Strategic Development Committee Even if the Negotiating Group does a great job, there will still be limits to what the Strategic Development Committee (SDC) itself can do for staff and the company. It will be a body for "Information and Consultation of Employees". The SDC can't:
UNITE is supporting the SDC because such bodies help every employee to have a say over issues affecting their future. But for employees to have a really effective voice, we need more than information and consultation. We need independent organisation, negotiation, and campaigning. Committees like the SDC can be useful, but don't remove the need for effective trade union organisation. Please join UNITE if you're not a member yet. |
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