The UK Employee Representatives strongly disagree with the proposed work-force management figure of 968 for the United Kingdom. Employees are extremely concerned with the continual erosion of UK jobs, being transferred under the banner of ‘off-shore and near-shoring’ to emerging European countries, primarily for financial reasons. The UK forum will not support UK jobs being transferred to other countries.Hp invent must look to address cost reduction more pragmatically, rather than reducing employees as a cost saving strategy. As UK representatives we request that HP senior management liaise with UK government and Scottish government ministers, whereby requesting assistance in respect to possible governmental support, and we would also recommend that UK government partner with French President Jacques Chirac in requesting EU commission support (where possible).Looking forward to the consultation process, the employee representatives will work with UK management in doing all they can to mitigate the job loses where feasibly possible;• re-evaluate the proposed outsourcing plans in order to keep UK HP employees in their Jobs•better use of internal redeployment processes•improvements in re-skilling activities of our colleagues•optimization and reduction of internal processes in order to get more focus on thereal job•give support to employees in finding alternatives inside or even outside HP andprovide enough time for redeployment•giving works council enough time and resources to help employeesOnce all aspect of mitigation are exhausted, fair and equitable severance packages for employees will be discussed, possibly utilising early retirement and voluntary enhanced schemes where possibleThe UK forum would also like to support the view of the general European Workers Council in asking the UK management to focus on new markets, products and services in order to ensure the HP UK growth path and continued employment for HP UK employees"
BRUSSELS (MarketWatch) -- European Commission officials have met with worker and management representatives from U.S. computer and printer maker Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ)" to discuss the company's plans to lay off thousands of staff in Europe, a Commission spokeswoman said Thursday.
Katharina von Schnurbein, a spokeswoman for European Employment Commissioner Vladimir Spidla, said experts from the employment directorate had held talks with the two parties to "hear both sides of the story." ...
That's right, in Scotland, in Germany, most of the time, guys are worried about Hurd's strategy, which kill 6 000 "bad jobs" in Europe, and at the same time create a lot of "Offshored good jobs", in "low cost" countries.
One of my customer has only resigned for one year instead of 3.
He is not sure HP will be able to meet commitments.
He doesn't understand how services will be delivered with 25% people less in France and 15% less in UK.
This customer says he pays for HP qualified and motivated people, not for partners based somewhere and for partners changing all the time without understanding of its needs, history, and human relationship.
In case, HP situation change too much next year, this customer will signe directly to our partners, for same results. It will be cheaper.
On Tuesday, HP Chief Executive Officer and President Mark Hurd will address attendees, and former Ohio Senator and astronaut John Glenn will deliver the closing remarks on Thursday.
It would be nice to have a delegation of the European Work council and of the US Union who participated in the protest march in France to be there on tuesday.
Hey, Mark is starting to look forward financial book...Business is a human adventure with politic, hope and motivation across customer and employees. It's never too late!
"Behind the clean façade, working conditions in this sector are horrendous. The industry has continuously shifted to countries that are perceived as cheaper, producing predominantly in export producing zones where labour rights and environmental issues have no priority. The industry predominantly employs young women, on wages below subsistence level. Forced overtime is endemic, and a lack of unions and barriers to organising means that the workers cannot negotiate improvements. Workers are hired on short term contracts for years, blacklisted, subjected to discriminatory application processes which examine aspects such as their family, body tattoos, sexual preferences and pregnancy. The case studies carried out by SOMO in China and the Philippines between October 2004 and January 2005 looked at suppliers of Acer and Fujitsu-Siemens, and confirmed this bleaker picture of this industry that has started to emerged in the last few years."
Two weeks ago, our CEO Mark Hurd visited with approximately 800 employees in Vancouver, Washington.
On the question of strategy, he is a little bit short :
"Mark kicked off the September 28 meeting by reinforcing the need to look at the company with a long-term lens. “I want to completely change your long-term view of HP, and move away from the theatrics of what’s transpired over the course of the past six or seven months,” he said. “Long-term I view the world very differently.
“So let’s look at 2008 and see where we’re going to spend $3.6 billion (US) on R&D,” Mark added. “What is that going to create in terms revenue? What market positions will that drive us to? How many engineers do we want to have that are creating value? Those are all fairly standard things, but, if you don’t think about them three to four years out, you don’t get an unemotional, analytical view of how the company should run.”
In California, KPFA http://www.kpfa.org/archives/index.php?arch=10469) has broadcasted during the Event News a report about the strike in France on last tuesday 4th october. The link above contains the whole report, but if you want only to listen the part on the french strike, it starts at 53'17" and ends at 57'43". Well, US medias are talking again about us !
Before being fired in Europe by Mark Hurd's mafia, we, HP sales, services, support and technical consultant for governement and big account could propose a deal to Dell or Fujitsu Siemens: Why not being hired by you and devolop european market for you (with customers and european governement support and opinion as a citizen and equity brand for europe). We also could do some R&D and many partnership inside European market. I think you could do a great proposition to us!!! We are able to commit!
You have no chance. … but seize it! Although the saying above was coined by the anarchy movement, it is quite fitting for the situation of IT employees. The race by all big companies to chop costs is becoming increasingly chaotic, with no end in sight to the waves of non-stop restructuring, spin-offs, outsourcing and mass layoffs, leaving angry customers and insecure staff in their wake, and forever putting to rest the notion that performance or qualifications have anything to do with job security in the IT sector. Anyone can be hit: the CEO moves in strange ways. Now HP has presented its newest "workforce balancing" model. The cuts in Germany are somewhat deeper than expected, with 1,500 people to be laid off. The less fortunate may even join the ranks of the unemployed where, after 12 months, they can make the acquaintance of Germany's notorious 'ALG II,' the secondary benefit amounting to Euro 345 a month (unless they have savings or other resources). This ill fortune could suddenly put them among the 'work-shy loafers' they have heard so much about on television. So much for the first half of our title, 'You have no chance.' And where is the opportunity we can seize? Even if there's no hope of changing the parent company's basic decision, it is now crucial for us to shape the events ahead using all means at our disposal under German law. The minimum demands of the works council and IG Metall must be as follows: 1. No one can be forced out into unemployment 2. No more sites can be shut down When these demands are cemented in an agreement, it must at least include the following conditions: 1. no layoffs 2. voluntary departures only, based on attractive terms agreed with the works council 3. attractive offers of part-time work or reduced working time 4. placements with other companies under a process managed by HP 5. HP concept to be put in place to secure all sites in the medium term Because such agreements costs money, experience shows that pressure is the only way of getting them. We are therefore calling on the works council to work with the employees, IG Metall and potential allies in the political arena and the media to build this pressure. Our HP colleagues in France has shown how it's done: their massive protests pushed HP to the top of the national agenda, and the French government has contacted the company. The following example shows that workforce involvement is the only hope for success in Germany: When the layoff figures were announced on September 13, the German chancellor's office called IG Metall to offer help. Although the offer smacked of electioneering, I called Uli Holdenried and proposed jointly contacting the chancellor's office with our co-chairman Bertold Huber to see what kind of support they could give us. Mr. Holdenried's reply said it all: His good manners do not permit him to hang up on people, he explained. However, he wasn't interested. After all, he already had an appointment with the mayor of Böblingen. Fine. We'll have to do it without the boss's help. Let's seize the chances we have in the coming weeks and months. We still have some!
Closed ranks make us strong … … but are no consolation when people lose their jobs The Cologne office is closed! The building is locked and there is no trace of the people who once worked there. Of the 150 employees left at the end, 50 luckily got jobs at other locations, mostly in Ratingen, thanks to tough negotiations at the local level in Cologne. If they are laid off in the coming years, they will even be entitled to the terms of the agreement negotiated for the Cologne colleagues who did not find positions. However, 95 employees lost their jobs in the midst of a difficult employment market just as the situation for the unemployed in Germany became even worse through regulatory changes. These commitments of the Cologne employees and their acknowledged performance meant nothing when the company decided to take the easy way out, shutting down an entire location to avoid having to apply social criteria when reducing the workforce. About 75 employees landed immediately in a so-called transfer company, and hoped to receive sufficient training during the statutory 12 months and find an appropriate job. This, too was an outcome of the tough negotiations: the healthy financial resources for training in the transfer company. About 20 employees were laid off, and their unfair dismissal suits are still pending. We wish them our very best. Above-average severance packages will be paid out, also as a result of the tough negotiations to compensate for the social hardships. But what will be left after taxes? And what will happen when employees have to live off their severance pay when their unemployment insurance runs out, and they only qualify for the ALG II follow-up benefit when their savings fall to the level of the socalled existential minimum. Since most of the laid-off employees are between 43 and 55, it's quite obvious that there is no way to bridge the gap. HP was unwilling to negotiate pre-retirement part-time work or early retirement for the employees. The priority was to get rid of them and shut down the office to meet the target figures. And let's not forget the outrageous manner in which the company announced the closing of the Cologne office. Uli Holdenried came on St. Nick's day and informed his amazed colleagues of their fate by reading out a letter – to colleagues who were expecting the new head of HP Germany to thank them for their performance in boosting sales. It's hard to imagine the Christmas their families had. The fears of job losses caused enormous stress and, in many cases, illness. But does anyone care? Is the company bothered by what it did to these families? Nevertheless, the united stand of the employees and their support for the negotiating commission to the bitter end produced a much better result than HP's initial offer. It took a lot longer than HP imagined to shut down the office, and this gave the staff more time to look for alternatives – a few of them successfully. The time was also put to good use to save a few jobs in the company (if not in Cologne), a result not to be despised in these difficult times. However, Cologne was left to its fate by the central works council, which had nothing better to do than publicly put pressure on the local works council in Cologne to speed up the negotiations. Here we would have expected – and we needed – more solidarity to help preserve smaller offices. It' too late for that now. But the next companywide downsizing wave is already rolling. Now the HP central works council has nowhere to hide (Alexander Schneider, former Chairperson of the local works council, Cologne)
We should therefore take Dave Packard's dictum to heart: The company must continually ask itself what positive impact its inventions will have on the welfare of humanity.
As a final thought, permit me to quote the German poet Paul Ernst (1866 - 1933): "People today believe that work has to be planned so as to generate as much income as possible. But that is a false belief. We have to plan our work to make people happy"
About comment 1:51 PM and 1:53 PM, of course you say that to Mark Hurd and the board. How could you think about welfare of humanity when you are losing your job?!
This iste is like a gathering of politicians. The speechees are so long, that not too many people is willing to go through them... even if there is some sense in them. Try to make it a bit shorter and get to to point.
Quoting some ancient sayings is very boring. zzzzz.... "In the long run we all will be dead".
Message from Louie Rocha, President CWA local 9423 AFL-CIO, California San Jose - Silicon Valley
Congratulations on a most successful day of action in France on October 4th! It was an honor to take part and on behalf of the Communications Workers of America, I extend our committment to this common struggle for economic and social justice at Hewlett-Packard. Solidarity Forever! Louis H. Rocha Jr.
The UK Employee Representatives strongly disagree with the proposed work-force management figure of 968 for the United Kingdom. Employees are extremely concerned with the continual erosion of UK jobs, being transferred under the banner of ‘off-shore and near-shoring’ to emerging European countries, primarily for financial reasons. The UK forum will not support UK jobs being transferred to other countries.Hp invent must look to address cost reduction more pragmatically, rather than reducing employees as a cost saving strategy. As UK representatives we request that HP senior management liaise with UK government and Scottish government ministers, whereby requesting assistance in respect to possible governmental support, and we would also recommend that UK government partner with French President Jacques Chirac in requesting EU commission support (where possible).Looking forward to the consultation process, the employee representatives will work with UK management in doing all they can to mitigate the job loses where feasibly possible;• re-evaluate the proposed outsourcing plans in order to keep UK HP employees in their Jobs•better use of internal redeployment processes•improvements in re-skilling activities of our colleagues•optimization and reduction of internal processes in order to get more focus on thereal job•give support to employees in finding alternatives inside or even outside HP andprovide enough time for redeployment•giving works council enough time and resources to help employeesOnce all aspect of mitigation are exhausted, fair and equitable severance packages for employees will be discussed, possibly utilising early retirement and voluntary enhanced schemes where possibleThe UK forum would also like to support the view of the general European Workers Council in asking the UK management to focus on new markets, products and services in order to ensure the HP UK growth path and continued employment for HP UK employees"
RépondreSupprimerStrike today in HP Milano
RépondreSupprimerHP Belgium, Germany, Sweden are worried about Hurd's strategy...
RépondreSupprimerBRUSSELS (MarketWatch) -- European Commission officials have met with worker and management representatives from U.S. computer and printer maker Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ)" to discuss the company's plans to lay off thousands of staff in Europe, a Commission spokeswoman said Thursday.
RépondreSupprimerKatharina von Schnurbein, a spokeswoman for European Employment Commissioner Vladimir Spidla, said experts from the employment directorate had held talks with the two parties to "hear both sides of the story." ...
That's right, in Scotland, in Germany, most of the time, guys are worried about Hurd's strategy, which kill 6 000 "bad jobs" in Europe, and at the same time create a lot of "Offshored good jobs", in "low cost" countries.
RépondreSupprimerWith Hurd, we could be pretty sure that next year we will have a similare job cuts round again (and again)...It never ends!
RépondreSupprimerGood to see that all Europe share the same opinion about the lack of real strategy of Mark Hurd.
RépondreSupprimerI am sure plenty of US employees have the same opinion.
Basics of a successfull company imply employees understand and agree on company's strategy.
RépondreSupprimerThis is important for all but crucial for companies based on innovative products, professional services, consulting...
I'm getting bored with Mark's strategy, will our customers be so soon ?
One of my customer has only resigned for one year instead of 3.
RépondreSupprimerHe is not sure HP will be able to meet commitments.
He doesn't understand how services will be delivered with 25% people less in France and 15% less in UK.
This customer says he pays for HP qualified and motivated people, not for partners based somewhere and for partners changing all the time without understanding of its needs, history, and human relationship.
In case, HP situation change too much next year, this customer will signe directly to our partners, for same results. It will be cheaper.
A collegue has seen this morning in a supermarket a vendor showing an HP printer to a customer.
RépondreSupprimerThe customer said : "No i will not buy an HP product because they lay off people while making profits" and he bought a printer from another brand.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/051007/75581.html?.v=1
RépondreSupprimerOn Tuesday, HP Chief Executive Officer and President Mark Hurd will address attendees, and former Ohio Senator and astronaut John Glenn will deliver the closing remarks on Thursday.
It would be nice to have a delegation of the European Work council and of the US Union who participated in the protest march in France to be there on tuesday.
Hey, Mark is starting to look forward financial book...Business is a human adventure with politic, hope and motivation across customer and employees.
RépondreSupprimerIt's never too late!
Only 7% for all of us here (Dublin), but we are closed to HP colleagues all over the world. Mark Hurd Strategy is probably a disaster.
RépondreSupprimerHP's strategy explained
RépondreSupprimerThe other face of outsourcing :
RépondreSupprimer"Behind the clean façade, working conditions in this sector are horrendous. The industry has
continuously shifted to countries that are perceived as cheaper, producing predominantly in
export producing zones where labour rights and environmental issues have no priority. The
industry predominantly employs young women, on wages below subsistence level. Forced
overtime is endemic, and a lack of unions and barriers to organising means that the workers
cannot negotiate improvements. Workers are hired on short term contracts for years,
blacklisted, subjected to discriminatory application processes which examine aspects such
as their family, body tattoos, sexual preferences and pregnancy. The case studies carried out
by SOMO in China and the Philippines between October 2004 and January 2005 looked at
suppliers of Acer and Fujitsu-Siemens, and confirmed this bleaker picture of this industry that
has started to emerged in the last few years."
complete report
Two weeks ago, our CEO Mark Hurd visited with approximately 800 employees in Vancouver, Washington.
RépondreSupprimerOn the question of strategy, he is a little bit short :
"Mark kicked off the September 28 meeting by reinforcing the need to look at the company with a long-term lens. “I want to completely change your long-term view of HP, and move away from the theatrics of what’s transpired over the course of the past six or seven months,” he said. “Long-term I view the world very differently.
“So let’s look at 2008 and see where we’re going to spend $3.6 billion (US) on R&D,” Mark added. “What is that going to create in terms revenue? What market positions will that drive us to? How many engineers do we want to have that are creating value? Those are all fairly standard things, but, if you don’t think about them three to four years out, you don’t get an unemotional, analytical view of how the company should run.”
And the answers are... ?
No one can be forced out
RépondreSupprimerNo more site can be shut down
No lay off
http://www.hp-standpunkt.de/aktuelles/i_news/Standpunkt_Okt05.pdf
IG Metall from HP Germany
In California, KPFA http://www.kpfa.org/archives/index.php?arch=10469) has broadcasted during the Event News a report about the strike in France on last tuesday 4th october.
RépondreSupprimerThe link above contains the whole report, but if you want only to listen the part on the french strike, it starts at 53'17" and ends at 57'43".
Well, US medias are talking again about us !
Before being fired in Europe by Mark Hurd's mafia, we, HP sales, services, support and technical consultant for governement and big account could propose a deal to Dell or Fujitsu Siemens: Why not being hired by you and devolop european market for you (with customers and european governement support and opinion as a citizen and equity brand for europe). We also could do some R&D and many partnership inside European market.
RépondreSupprimerI think you could do a great proposition to us!!! We are able to commit!
From ig metall (geramny) :
RépondreSupprimerYou have no chance. … but seize it!
Although the saying above was coined by the anarchy
movement, it is quite fitting for the situation of IT
employees. The race by all big companies to chop costs
is becoming increasingly chaotic, with no end in sight to
the waves of non-stop restructuring, spin-offs, outsourcing
and mass layoffs, leaving angry customers and insecure
staff in their wake, and forever putting to rest the notion
that performance or qualifications have anything to do
with job security in the IT sector. Anyone can be hit: the
CEO moves in strange ways.
Now HP has presented its newest "workforce balancing"
model. The cuts in Germany are somewhat deeper than
expected, with 1,500 people to be laid off. The less
fortunate may even join the ranks of the unemployed
where, after 12 months, they can make the acquaintance
of Germany's notorious 'ALG II,' the secondary benefit
amounting to Euro 345 a month (unless they have
savings or other resources). This ill fortune could suddenly
put them among the 'work-shy loafers' they have heard
so much about on television.
So much for the first half of our title, 'You have no
chance.' And where is the opportunity we can seize?
Even if there's no hope of changing the parent
company's basic decision, it is now crucial for us to
shape the events ahead using all means at our disposal
under German law.
The minimum demands of the works council and IG
Metall must be as follows:
1. No one can be forced out into unemployment
2. No more sites can be shut down
When these demands are cemented in an agreement, it
must at least include the following conditions:
1. no layoffs
2. voluntary departures only, based on attractive terms
agreed with the works council
3. attractive offers of part-time work or reduced working
time
4. placements with other companies under a process
managed by HP
5. HP concept to be put in place to secure all sites in
the medium term
Because such agreements costs money, experience
shows that pressure is the only way of getting them. We
are therefore calling on the works council to work with
the employees, IG Metall and potential allies in the
political arena and the media to build this pressure. Our
HP colleagues in France has shown how it's done: their
massive protests pushed HP to the top of the national agenda, and the French government has contacted the
company.
The following example shows that workforce involvement
is the only hope for success in Germany:
When the layoff figures were announced on September
13, the German chancellor's office called IG Metall to
offer help. Although the offer smacked of electioneering,
I called Uli Holdenried and proposed jointly contacting
the chancellor's office with our co-chairman Bertold
Huber to see what kind of support they could give us.
Mr. Holdenried's reply said it all: His good manners do
not permit him to hang up on people, he explained.
However, he wasn't interested. After all, he already had
an appointment with the mayor of Böblingen.
Fine. We'll have to do it without the boss's help.
Let's seize the chances we have in the coming weeks and
months. We still have some!
Closed ranks make us strong …
RépondreSupprimer… but are no consolation when people lose
their jobs
The Cologne office is closed! The building is locked and
there is no trace of the people who once worked there.
Of the 150 employees left at the end, 50 luckily got jobs
at other locations, mostly in Ratingen, thanks to tough
negotiations at the local level in Cologne. If they are laid
off in the coming years, they will even be entitled to the
terms of the agreement negotiated for the Cologne
colleagues who did not find positions.
However, 95 employees lost their jobs in the midst of a
difficult employment market just as the situation for the
unemployed in Germany became even worse through
regulatory changes.
These commitments of the Cologne employees and their
acknowledged performance meant nothing when the
company decided to take the easy way out, shutting
down an entire location to avoid having to apply social
criteria when reducing the workforce. About 75
employees landed immediately in a so-called transfer
company, and hoped to receive sufficient training during
the statutory 12 months and find an appropriate job.
This, too was an outcome of the tough negotiations: the
healthy financial resources for training in the transfer
company. About 20 employees were laid off, and their
unfair dismissal suits are still pending. We wish them our
very best.
Above-average severance packages will be paid out,
also as a result of the tough negotiations to compensate
for the social hardships. But what will be left after taxes?
And what will happen when employees have to live off
their severance pay when their unemployment insurance
runs out, and they only qualify for the ALG II follow-up
benefit when their savings fall to the level of the socalled
existential minimum. Since most of the laid-off
employees are between 43 and 55, it's quite obvious
that there is no way to bridge the gap. HP was unwilling
to negotiate pre-retirement part-time work or early
retirement for the employees. The priority was to get rid
of them and shut down the office to meet the target
figures.
And let's not forget the outrageous manner in which the
company announced the closing of the Cologne office.
Uli Holdenried came on St. Nick's day and informed his
amazed colleagues of their fate by reading out a letter –
to colleagues who were expecting the new head of HP
Germany to thank them for their performance in
boosting sales. It's hard to imagine the Christmas their
families had. The fears of job losses caused enormous
stress and, in many cases, illness. But does anyone care?
Is the company bothered by what it did to these families?
Nevertheless, the united stand of the employees and
their support for the negotiating commission to the bitter
end produced a much better result than HP's initial offer.
It took a lot longer than HP imagined to shut down the
office, and this gave the staff more time to look for
alternatives – a few of them successfully. The time was
also put to good use to save a few jobs in the company
(if not in Cologne), a result not to be despised in these
difficult times.
However, Cologne was left to its fate by the central works
council, which had nothing better to do than publicly put
pressure on the local works council in Cologne to speed
up the negotiations. Here we would have expected – and
we needed – more solidarity to help preserve smaller
offices. It' too late for that now. But the next companywide
downsizing wave is already rolling. Now the HP
central works council has nowhere to hide
(Alexander Schneider, former Chairperson of the local
works council, Cologne)
As the kernell of Europe, French and German HP unions are going to fight togeither. IG Metal is the good partnership to defense HP's workers!
RépondreSupprimerWe should therefore take Dave Packard's
RépondreSupprimerdictum to heart: The company must continually ask
itself what positive impact its inventions will have on
the welfare of humanity.
As a final thought, permit me to quote the German poet
RépondreSupprimerPaul Ernst (1866 - 1933): "People today believe that
work has to be planned so as to generate as much
income as possible. But that is a false belief. We have
to plan our work to make people happy"
About comment 1:51 PM and 1:53 PM, of course you say that to Mark Hurd and the board. How could you think about welfare of humanity when you are losing your job?!
RépondreSupprimerThis iste is like a gathering of politicians. The speechees are so long, that not too many people is willing to go through them... even if there is some sense in them. Try to make it a bit shorter and get to to point.
RépondreSupprimerQuoting some ancient sayings is very boring. zzzzz.... "In the long run we all will be dead".
Message from Louie Rocha,
RépondreSupprimerPresident CWA local 9423 AFL-CIO, California San Jose - Silicon Valley
Congratulations on a most successful day of action in France on October 4th! It was an honor to take part and on behalf of the Communications Workers of America, I extend our committment to this common struggle for economic and social justice at Hewlett-Packard. Solidarity Forever!
Louis H. Rocha Jr.
Will we have Chinese courses
RépondreSupprimerin our virtual classes ?