EWC Calling for "Employee Pain Points Presentations"

The European Works Council Representatives wishes to take  next annual meeting as an opportunity to collect organisational pain points and present them to EMEA Top Management.

Workflow processes, Self Service, Internal Competition - Any inappropriate process is welcome to try to figure out how we may improve Oracle Employee life.

Please contact your local employee representative, or one of the EWC steering commitee member (Peter R, Rashmi, Peter H, Mariarosa or myself).

EWC Annual Meeting in Geneva

The 2012 Oracle European Works Council will be held in Geneva with 23 representants from the different subsidiaries.

This meeting ought to outline the state of the company and its employment trends within EMEA.

Concerns are raised in certain areas, where no presentations were provided beforehand. Employee representatives will make their best effort to report back the main points to their respective employees.

Isn't it time to hear employee voices ?

The EWC annual meeting will take place next week in Geneva.
It will be an important opportunity for the employee reps to hear the General Management strategy and assess employment trends.
Moreover, this meeting is a unique opportunity to ask for true employee opinion and field experience.
What's the risk of it ?

Let's remind a few subjects that were proposed last year :
- Consulting & Global Support Access to virtual machines and Hardware pooling
- Employment risks (both in terms of attrition or job dismissals).
- HW Support Takeover and Risks
- Sun Employees remapping

Which Future for the Oracle EWC ?

The meeting planned in Barcelona with the EMEA HR Management and the Oracle European Works Council Steering Committee, should give some lights about the way employee representation may take place at the EMEA level.

The stakes are high on both ends, as no aggrement has been reached during the 3 years Special Body Negociation Timeframe (initiated on our formal request).
The EWC is therefore operating on the Legal Subsidiary Requirements from the UK Legislation.

However, EWC consultations rights have been enforced recently and moreover, we definitly believe we can bring value to the company by expressing unmuted "ground" analysis. We know many corporations operate efficiently with a strong hand and top down approach. But when conditions get tougher, employee active participation is absolutely needed, and common understanding, adaptative employee empowerment is critical to take the right decisions at the right time. Top Down Bureaucracy is not affordable anymore is we still want to lead the changes. Let's not be afraid of hearing the EMEA employee voices - Could some good advise also come from the field ?

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EWC Training Event - Building a shared future

The whole group of EWC members will have the opportunity to join together for a 2 days training, a huge opportunity to figure out a sensible mission for the 27 EU country reps !

We strongly feel we can bring value to management by early sharing of impacting projects and employee concerns. In return we expect our proposals to be honestly considered by management in due time to make sense.

We think economic performance can be better achieved in the long term through a fair sharing of decision stakes, employee social cohesion and involvement.

This training will be a very first opportunity to exchange our respective views and hopefully build a respectful common ground.

Franck P. - FR WC Representative.

EWC Annual Meeting March 16th

The company will hold its European Works Council this week in Reading. We all expect to have a good understanding on employment perspectives and salary strategy, as more and more people especially in sales and consulting take the opportunity to leave following the economy recovery.

We can already figure out the employment numbers through those internal sheets.

(Upd March 24) The official Communiqué is under EMEA Management Review.

European Works Council Statement

You may be interested in the following statement from the last European Works Council (Oracle Internal Network) regarding Oracle staff reduction plan for FY11.

Oracle Encourage open, honest dialog

But how can we conduct such an open dialog when employees can be so easily dismissed ?
We do ask for a world wide employee forum to bring this honest dialog to the management.

Impossible ? Have a look to Orange Telecom Global Works Council (GWC)

UK Employee Consultation Forum

For internal viewers, prepared by UK Management & Marketing, please consider viewing this very interesting 7 minutes video presenting all the key interest points about having a country Employee Consultation Forum, enabling the company "to be more effective and a better place to work".

Why don't we have such an interesting representative body worlwide to have a better place to work worlwide and a world wide employee consultation forum ?

Hyperion Acquisitions - No redundancies - (Yet ?)

Following EMEA HR communication, The EWC consultation raises some doubts regarding the following statement

The EWC particularly appreciates that no redundancies in connection with the acquisition will be made ahead of the local subsidiary combinations.

Once again communication is the main concern as you will not be able to locate any EWC Rep internal website. Are we lacking internal communication facilities ?

EWC Special Meeting - France position

The EWC special meeting due to take place next week will consider the Hyperion acquisition, the On Demand Reorganisation, and the EWC Kick off.
Regarding the On Demand reorganisation, the FR Rep mandate to be confirmed next week during the Local Work's Council meeting, should be as follows :

1. What are the employement perspectives in support within Europe and Egypt (existing positions, forcasts, country per country distribution, critical capabilities...)
2. From an expert perspectives, what are the sensible alternate projects ?
3. What are the projects economics - Revenue&Margin per country, Cost breakdown
4. What is the expected Return on Investments and associated business plan.
5. What are the quality sustaining processes. What are the existing figures ?
6. What are the minimal conditions offered to employees loosing their jobs EMEA wide ?
7. Will the associated costs be cross charged to Oracle Corp ?
   What are the forseenable impacts on remaing employees "Compensation and Benefits" ?
8. What are the different scenarios regarding the possible social impacts ?
9. Country per Country Equity conditions regarding access to EMEA positions ?
10. Roumania On Demand hiring history details

We do expect the EWC to provide a detailled position regarding its position to the proposed collective redundancy. In fact, people are beeing made redundant by hiring new collegues in Roumania...

Oracle EWC - Negociations failed ?

All Special Negociation Body representatives have tried hard to make Oracle European Work's Council a true vehicule to carry their interests in front of the management, in the spirit of the EU Directive.

However, the US Company management seems not to be in capability to cope with this level of initiatives from employees.

The following main hard issues could not be resolved :
- Consultation process and the possibility to consider employees points of view
- Transnational Events Triggering (how many people to dismiss before consulting ?)
- Agenda exclusion list - Too many items could not be brought towards management, especially when talking about employees' interests.

You may want to see the SNB expert letter sent as a compliance with expertise ethics .

Management has until May 11th to come back on these negociations before Oracle become the very first company in EU to run an EWC by law.

EWC Negociations / Round 2 - Over

After 3 days of intense discussions, and despite a lot of good will from both parties, European Works Council within Oracle is not yet a reality.

If an aggreement definitly seems reachable, few hard points still needs to be discussed in depth, like, for example :
- Transnational Definitions - Triggering of EWC special Events. We feel Management actual proposals would enable too important dismissals or relocations without the ability to request an EWC meeting.
- Exclusion List : Terms & Conditions, Incentives and associated programs are still a never to be discussed subjects.

France SNB Representant.
Nota - This statement is not to be considered in any way as a common statement from the SNB Body.

EWC Negociations Day 1

Both parties have initiated the negociations in good faith and in a good spirit o fsharing each other's point of view. Some important negociation steps have already been achieved.
However, tomorrow will be critical with the very key points beeing put on the table.

We will be very careful regarding thoses points in comparison with the European standard EWC directive, that would take place for Oracle in May 2007 if no agreement is achieved before.

We have reasonable hope to manage to reconciliate management and representatives positions.
We'll keep you posted.

France Special Negociation Group Representant.
These comments are purely individual and are not to be considered as representatives of the whole SNB Body.