Fujitsu Manchester
In its efforts to consolidate union recognition at Fujitsu Manchester, Unite has not neglected the position of the minority of agency workers in the workplace: Alongside the conversion of agency to permanent posts the union has pursued their inclusion in disciplinary, health and safety, learning and equality policies. The issue of representation is also on the union’s agenda.
Employer
Fujitsu Services is a major supplier of outsourced IT services, particularly to government.
Unions
Unite (previously Amicus) is recognised to represent most staff at the Manchester site, having achieved a settlement on this issue (along with redundancy rights and better pay) in September 2007 following earlier industrial action and with the involvement of the ACAS conciliation service. Issues of fairness have been high on the union agenda, from pay “transparency” to different pay deals for different staff groups, and the fair treatment of agency staff.
Workforce
Fujitsu Services employs over 12,000 people in the UK plus couple of thousand temporary staff and contractors. At the Manchester site, where there are around 1,000 staff, agency temps numbered no more than a couple of dozen at the time that this report was compiled, but the number has fluctuated significantly in recent years.
Agency workers
Agency staff at Fujitsu Manchester work mainly in customer services, fulfilling technical call-centre and related roles. Unite hasn’t opposed the use of agency staff as such, but has sought to ensure that the jobs are converted into permanent ones in a “reasonable time”. When the company foresees a reduction in workload, for example if a contact is lost, temporary to permanent conversions tend to halt; when things pick up again the union finds that it typically has to “prompt” the company to re-start the conversions in order to avoid workers remaining as agency temps for long periods. The agency involved has recently changed from Adecco to Kelly.
Improving the position of agency workers
While promoting conversion to permanent positions, the union can point to ways in which it has worked to improve the position of temps with regard to grievance and disciplinary procedures, health and safety, union learning and equal opportunities.
Disciplinary and grievance procedures
As part of the settlement to the 2006-7 dispute, it was agreed that agency temps should have access to disciplinary and grievance procedures, something that is recommended in the ACAS Code of Practice. The simple wording of the agreement opens the door to this while addressing the Company’s concern not to take on the responsibilities of an employer towards agency staff.
Unite’s aim was to avoid a situation in which a temporary worker could be effectively dismissed on disciplinary grounds without any fair procedure (simply by being told that they are not wanted any more).
Section four of the settlement agreement reached on 11 September 2007 noted that individuals who are not employees of Fujitsu Services, but who are engaged to carry out work for the Company “may occasionally have issues relating the Company”. Taking into account the ACAS view that the statutory dismissal, disciplinary and grievance procedures (as set out in the Employment Act 2002) should apply to all workers, not just employees, the agreement stated:
“The Company and the Union agree that it is in the interests of all parties for such individuals to have a channel to have their issues addressed. The Company needs to create the channel in a way which avoids any implication that such individuals are employees of the Company”. Separate discussions on this were due to be held but, at the time that this report was written, that part of the agreement had not yet been implemented.
Health and safety
The Health and Safety Committee covers all site “residents” regardless of employer. This is identified in the committee’s constitution: Firstly, the role of employee representatives appointed by the union on the committee is to “represent the interests of employees on, or visitors to, the covered sites”; and, secondly, the function of the committee is to “review the arrangements relating to the health, safety and welfare of all residents of, and visitors to, the covered sites, and recommend actions/strategies where improvements are deemed necessary”.
Learning
Unite’s work on Union Learning (a government-backed scheme designed to drive up skills in the workplace) covers all workers on the site including agency temps.
Equal opportunities
The status of temporary and agency workers has been included in the equal opportunities section of Unite’s recognition agreement with Fujitsu. This commits the parties to the agreement to the development of policies to promote equal opportunity in employment in relation to a range of circumstances including “temporary, contract, agency or permanent status”.
Representation
Finally, the union has sought to persuade the company to facilitate its workplace representatives (shop stewards) in assisting agency temps as well as company employees, although that had not yet been achieved when this report was drawn up.
LRD 30/01/09
