Recruit a colleague into the union
Our ability to act as your effective voice at work depends on the strength of our membership in the workplace. Union recognition in both MBNL and Vodafone contracts and the protections that we have gained are a direct result of you and your colleagues' membership. In an industry that is constantly reorganising we are never complacent about the need to make sure that anyone who can join the union. Please help us in that by sharing this update with a colleague who is not a member and ask them to join by visiting www.prospect.org.uk/join
Apprenticeships
We have approached Ericsson with a view to reaching an agreement over the structure, and development of their apprenticeship scheme, this affects members in the MBNL. It is National Apprenticeship week currently and we have suggested that making progress would be a good indication of Ericsson's commitment to those on the scheme and those that have successfully gone through the scheme. An element of this commitment needs to be shown by incorporating apprentices onto fair terms and conditions and a salary that reflects their development.
Your rep Dave Rennie has been working directly with those apprentices to come up with some proposals that the company has gone away to consider. These are separate to pay negotiations. We await their response.
Knowledge Transfer
Members working on the Vodafone contract in Hayes and Manchester have been affected significantly by the offshoring of work to Romania and India. During 2011 Prospect reached agreement on a number of associated issues, including Redeployment Principles and Voluntary Severance payments. We also agreed 'Knowledge Transfer' payments for providing assistance to this process. We are pressing Ericsson to provide an update on the status of these payments across the teams. For the future it is critical that the company can demonstrate its ability to administer what we have agreed and deal with associated issues in a timely and professional way. We have spoken to a number of members and are raising their concerns through collective channels and through individual, should that be necessary.
If you have any issues please contact one of the Vodafone reps in the first instance.
Reorganisation of Manager Roles
Back in the autumn, we engaged in consultation with Ericsson about changes to the management roles in the Field Services Organisation (FSO). We did so having met the majority of those managers from 02, Vodafone and MBNL face to face and provided individual advice and support.
As part of the consultation process Ericsson agreed to hold a further meeting to review how the reorganisation had gone, and to consider the impact on those affected.
We have a meeting scheduled for later this month where we will want to make sure that any issues are tabled and addressed, for example workloads . If you have thoughts or comments, please get in touch, in confidence, with Phil Thompson who will be attending the meeting along with me.
Pay Negotiations
As you will have seen, Prospect has submitted a pay claim on your behalf for 2012. We are awaiting a response from Ericsson on this and we will keep members updated. Your pay negotiating team, Ken Harwood and Martin Wills, Dave Rennie and John Hough and Phil Thompson supported by me will be looking to members to take an active role in supporting the claim.
Website and Survey
The Prospect website has been updated www.prospect.org.uk
If you haven't visited the site before please take a look, there is information not only about our work in Ericsson but also resources to help with work-related problems and details of membership benefits.
We are also conducting a members' survey, which closes on 10 February https://www.prospect.org.uk/survey/memberssurvey2012.htm
To find out what's going on across the union, as well as occasional updates about Ericsson, you can follow Prospect on Twitter, as at least some of you have @ProspectUnion.