Oracle : Siebel Software developpers Over Time to be settled with 27.5 Million dollars

A huge class action is beeing successful regarding a wage-and-hour lawsuit against ex Siebel Company.
Each one of the 800 software developpers will get around 27000 Extra dollars for these forgotten hours.

A similar case is also still running in France and due for judgment in Feb.
Read More...

Good job guys ! (Information Courtesy of CGT Oracle France Labor Union)

Yet an other aquisition - SPL Workgroup

Following Portal Software, SunOpsis, Oracle announced an other Acquisition - SPL Workgroup aiming towards an end-to-end packaged revenue and operations management solution.

UK ruled as uncompliant regarding EU rest break rules

The European Court of Justice as ruled a statement indicating the UK government is breaking the law by not forcing employers to give their staff rest breaks between shifts.
The UK transposition was considered as far too flexible, by stating the rules as indications but not enforcing them.

Finish presidency unveiled a plan to reduce this gap between UK and the rest of Europe (EU Observer).

This approach reminds of many Oracle statements regarding the need for better employee relations and representativity, at a time where :
- The Oracle EWC is still negociated by EU HR as a "tea and biscuits conversation body with mgmt"
- Many countries still miss their local Worker's Council
- A very active labor union delegate in France from CFDT is under an unfair layoff procedure attempt, only aiming at reducing employee representation.

More informations : Europe Observatory - BBC News - Herald Tribune -

Yet an other acquisition - MetaSolv

Following the Portal purchase, yet an other telco business is beeing acquiered.
The announcement is available on Metasolv Web site. (FYI The link is ASP !)

Oracle is rolling out its Employee Assistance Program

Seen on the corporate site, and localized within Europe with FGIworld and Eupora consulting, Oracle is planning to roll-out its plan to assist employees or their family under personal and/or professional stress, by allowing free anonymous external meetings with psycho professionals.
The announced goal is to "manage the mental, social and physical health of their employees and families to reduce the huge productivity costs of absence and underperformance on the job".
Those attentions towards employees are a good move, but our labor organization would have prefered a more careful approach beforehand, by considering work organisation and workload factors.
We can help...

Corporate Site Annoucement : To help you address problems that threaten to upset the stability of your life at home or at work, the Oracle Employee Assistance Program offers referral services and confidential, personal assessment. EAP services may help with stress, depression, difficulties with children, divorce, alcohol abuse, drugs, job worries, marital, financial, or legal problems. The EAP is staffed by licensed professionals from the fields of psychology, clinical social work, and counseling. They are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. An experienced intake specialist will arrange a confidential appointment with an EAP counselor. Services are free for up to three visits per family member per concern annually.

Oracle France General Manager Leaving...

Following recent troops movements, followed by lieutenants departures in many sales divisions, the French General Manager announced he was also on his way out...
Couldn't find a place in this new deploying organization, blowing out country levels and managers, and aimed towards a "bright future".
However... His last words were "good luck"...

Siebel : On Target Sold to TAS

On June 30, 2006 Select Selling acquired the majority of the global assets of OnTarget - the sales methodology division of Oracle Corporation - to form The TAS Group. From July 1, the combined business will operate as The TAS Group. The transaction did not include France or Italy, and the OnTarget businesses in those countries will continue to operate as they did before the acquisition.

On June 30th, France Worker's council was forced to ask management to draw back on the automatic French employee transfer as no guarantee was stated regarding their future in the new company.

Company Global Responsability - Pure Marketing ?

The "Oracle Corporate Citizenship Report" has now been publicly released on Oracle main web site.
We support the goals announced in this document but we have some heavy doubts regarding local implementations in the countries, and corporate approach of charities direct transposability within Europe.
As an example, handicapped people hiring is still handled with a hand on the heart, but no positive action (see previous press release).
More important, June 5th is, by law, dedicated in France to solidarity working financement, with French employees working at no extra charge. This solidarity day should be used to go within schools, hospitals, instead of usual customers !

Admirable Personnal Investments of employees should be shared with company investments. We regret to see this is clearly not the case for now.

We request our company to :
- Dedicate ressource on shared time investments for charity programs.
- Elaborate responsability programs with local labor unions.
- Fix precise goals and timeframes to hire handicapped people.
- Stop playing with employee reps by letting the clock run and really negociate a living European Work's Council, including Switzerland

We encourage all employees World Wide to give feedback in the comment link below.

France Facing its destiny ?

You will find a very interesting analysis "from abroad" from the Economist regarding the pains of changing France way of thinking job rules. http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=6744226

As a leading Labor organisation, we want to stress we admit the need for changes, but we want to be part of the process. We are sure we can be a real partner by giving our opinions, sharing points of view, and take our responsabilities for a signature. We want to have workers taking part in the road setting, instead of having them pushed the hard way through an unknown road..

Works Council : Oracle & SAP on the same line ?

Oracle European Workers Council negociations, initiated in March 2004 on France Labor Union request still have a long way to go before the final go live due in March 2007, according to the maximum 3 years timeframe allowed by the EU EWC directive.

The negociations fail to succeed at the moment on the following points :
- What is a transnational event that needs to trigger an EWC meeting ?
- Can employee raise questions regarding Terms & Employement conditions ?
- EWC Termination, amendments or continuity terms.

Seen as cumbersome bureaucracy, instead of valuable feedback and shared benefits for both employees and management, work's councils are seen as the new devils that take away agility and responsiveness.

These questions are especially emphasized at SAP, where the management requests employees to reject a work council creation : http://www.hopp-info.de/index_e.html
Depending on the results, the headquarter German location may be questionned...

However, history in Oracle has shown us that relocations and lay off plans do not wait Works' councils to happen.

Hold-on SAP employees, like Oracle ones, you need to voice your opinions, invent alternatives, instead of just implementing. That's just what agility is about...

Siebel employees : Lucky ... Oracle ones Unlucky...

Oracle announced 2000 jobs will be cut following Siebel Merger.
The most important part of those cuts will impact Oracle employees, and especially the Oracle CRM developpement group.
However, back office and marketing function will also suffer (again) from the merger.

Global Bonus

Management announced last week that the intermediate payment of Global Bonuses has been cancelled.
The corporation intends to elaborate the bonus pools definitions during the fiscal year closure in order to optimize the announced results.

To be followed...

Oracle India Growing from 8,600 to 10,000 Employees

Expension plans détails are available here.

We welcome the indians employees, hopping they will bring top class assistance to our customer and in return take the opportunity to ask for benefits Oracle used to provide its US/EMEA workforce.