HP European Work Council strongly disagrees !

"The EWC met with EMEA Management for an exceptional meeting in Bruselles on September 8/9 2005. The cause of this meeting was to be informed and consulted about the planned reorganization in EMEA, as announced already on a worldwide basis by our CEO Mark Hurd in July 19th. The EWC strongly disagrees with the proposed Work Force Management (WFR) related actions and move of many jobs ouside our countries. Management presented a lot of information to the EWC. But for the purpose of consultation the EWC expects still more knowledgeable information on top of this. The actions presented show a wide range of expected cost saving. The EWC addressed the need to let these projected cost savings prove to be right, before they have an effect in Workforce management numbers. The EWC is strongly convinced, that the proposed headcount reduction can be mitigated, if management would consider : better use of internal redeployment processes improvements in re-skilling activites of our colleagues ; optimization and reduction of internal processes in order to get more focus on the real job ; re-evaluate the proposed outsourcing plans in order to keep HP employees in their jobs ; give support to employees in finding alternatives inside or event outside HP and provide enough time for redeployment- giving work council enough time and resource to help employees ; if no alternative possible, intense use of part-time work should be considered ; fair and equitable conditions (severance packages, Social Plan) for all employees affected in Europe. The EWC asks management to focus onto new markets, products and services in order to ensure the European growth path for hp and therefore secure our jobs in Europe"