HP forces swingeing pay cuts on EDS staff HP is asking US based EDS staff to take their third pay cut of the year - this time as much as 30 per cent of their salaries. Staff in the UK and Ireland have already been asked to take cuts of up to five per cent, and have also been encouraged to take unpaid leave over the summer. But The Dallas Morning News reports that EDS …
I have spoken with an ex-peer who is unfortunate enough to still be working at EDS Canada. The EDS Canada employees will see their salary reduced as well. They have to sign a document stating that they agree to the pay cut. If they have not signed the document by the date the pay cut takes effect, it basically amounts to a "voluntary" termination.
And to think we peons were hopeful they'd bring up EDS salaries to match HP's.
It's all about making people leave, so they can be replaced (with a severance package) by someone based in a yurt.
In the long run, it'll all backfire, by then the execs will have their multimillion dollar bonuses and be off in search of "new challenges".
HP is running scared - they're product lines are old, tired and just not interesting any more.
Their main "jewel" of an OS doesn't run on their best shipping product - and who would want it anyway ? HPUX used to be reasonable but now it's just a sad old dog that sits in the corner, stinking and unloved.
So now their built-using-the-lowest-bidder approach to manufacturing is hitting their services people.
It's the downward spiral.
Can't wait to see Matt Bryant and the other Mark Turd fanbois (are there any??) put a positive spin on this one.......
EDS has been making cuts in the UK since the merger. So far the peterlee call centre has been closed (most of them came to work at the T-Mobile call centre in sunderland with me, seeing as its only a few miles up the road) and friends of mine in the North Tyneside call centre are fearing for their jobs now. The company is in ruins, a slight metaphorical breeze will bring the whole lot down.
Just two names.
Hurd and Mott.
Hurd does anything to saveguard his bonus.
Therefore he cuts cost wherever possible, and he doesn't care about the consequences.
Problems with IT: Mott. Probably a decent rockstar, but a nightmare as CIO.
Since he came on board, with a little help from his buddy Hurd, IT is a pure mess.
Functionality, performance, availability: it's all gone.
You'd be astonished, how many websites hp IT can screw up during a week..
But: "We're sooooo cheap now".
Yes, because all the additional work and burden which is placed back into the businesses doesn't show up on the IT budget.
Hurd, Mott and all the execs now about that fact, but they ignore it and order anybody not to talk about it.
Could harm Hurds bonus, you know..
poor old EDS .. the company that would happily charge you a 4 digit sum to press the reset button is finally going to have to live inthe real world?
The company that charged <insert name of almost any government dpeartment> 10s of millions for yet another simple system that didnt actually work?
oh thats terrible.
Let me see, doing the math - HP paid about $3.5b too much for EDS, HP earns $3 b more this year, and Hurd pretends to do his part with (faking) a 20 percent pay cut. That must hurt, all the way to the bank as he deposits his $23.9 mil bonus.
Meanwhile, 25,000 EDS employees lose their jobs, their homes, their health care. (As Hurd earns millions for doing such a great job for the shareholders.)
And nobody tells the shareholders that the most important asset is no longer there (the people). Which is to say, EDS corp. is now worth less than the market value when HP bought them. Sounds like a downward spiral. Can't wait to see what happens in the markets. (At the moment, HP appears to have almost recovered to levels prior to the EDS buy-out.)
Hmmm... I am just trying to get a grip on that word "c-a-p-i-t-a-l-i-s-m."
IBM has tried similar unfair tactics on employees in the past. It has come back to haunt them.
I'm sure most good technical and sales people (those with any self-respect and initiative) working for HP is working as hard as they can to find alternate employment.
I wonder what fraction of those people will have influence over purchasing 10 years from now.
I wonder what fraction of those people, having seen up close how HP treats contractual partners, will be willing to subject their employers to such an unethical contractual partner.
I think HP is doomed.
HP is getting away this in the middle of a recession (barely) but will suffer when things pick up. I am sure many of the EDS'ers will end up working for their old clients or working for prospective clients. Nice way to make lots of enemies and lots of them by the sound of it.
Ah, HP, HP - I remember (just) when it was a great company to work for - in the days of Hewlett and Packard. As Terry Pratchett says, if the person who owns the company has their name over the door, it's possible they aren't a crook.
Then Fiorina took over. She's still unemployed, I notice. So they made all the contractors redundant, including me. Years later, I joined EDS. A rat joined a sinking ship, I know but I was desperate...
Fast forward and HP took over EDS. Uh oh, I thought. I know how this goes. So as soon as they offered voluntary redundancies you didn't see me for dust. I think there's a lesson for all of us there.
All the EDS'ers I know have been offered VR. Nearly all have hung on. I'm sorry but they deserve what they get now.
Thanks for the heads up re: the constructive dismissal angle. It certainly seems to fit.
http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/eng/lp/lo/opd-ipg/ipg/033.shtml
http://www.zvulony.com/constructive_dismissal.html
They're also breaking labor laws in my province by not paying overtime--they claim we're all "Information Systems Professionals" which is a protected designation (like lawyer or doctor):
http://www.cips.ca/isp
Not *one* of of is though....
Folks should really take a look at the adjusted SEC filings.
Mark Hurd's total compensation for 2008 was 42.3M USD. His base pay only made up 1.6M USD of that total.
What my group found out is was that we were on average between 20 and 40% below the minimum salary range as designated by the new HP job codes. And while people who were above the curve saw almost instant cuts in salaries, payroll actions to bring people up to snuff in compensation were being delayed until Mar 2010.
And amidst all the arse kissing by Joe Eazor and his wannabe Mark Hurd pals, the workers suffer by having to pick up the slack where staffing has been reduced. Can you say service impacting?
I still believe the root of the problem is that HP was primarily a manufacturing company, and that was the paradigm for the management of the company. There's a reason why they always trailed in the IT Services market, they didn't know how to manage that business. Now they have the reins of EDS, a company who was built on services and provided customers with a hardware neutral solution.
And yes, they're still trying to manipulate the earnings inside the company by pushing as hard as they can to replace all the dell equipment with HP kit, so they can bolster the failing sales of their mediocre networking and server divisions.
Wrongful dismissal? - What's that?
http://www.lawyers-bc.com/wrongdis/articles/damages.htm
You're supposed to get a notice?
(I got about 15 minutes to clean out my desk....)
No notice there.
And, the GM customer had signed my contract to have me there for five more years.
( You think GM's happy with my replacement? )
I want to move to Canada.
They've been skirting around paying overtime in most of the provinces by claiming we're "information systems professionals". However, that's a protected title, similar to doctor, lawyer, engineer. I can see not paying overtime to people making $130K a year, not so much for someone making a third of that. Check it out. Here's one somebody through together for Alberta. Still looking up the info for my home province.
It should be noted that you can complain to your provinces labor standards anonymously and they'll investigate it, without throwing you under a bus.
tinyurl.com/mv3hqq
Employees who are exempt from overtime and overtime pay:
- employees on a farm or a ranch
- domestic employees
- various types of salespersons
- professionals such as real estate brokers, and licensed insurance and securities salespersons
- professions such as architects, engineers, lawyers, psychologists and "information systems professionals"
- managers, supervisors and those employed in a confidential capacity
- licensed land agents
- instructors or counselors at a non-profit educational or recreational camp
- extras in a film or video production
- employees covered by other Acts (academic staff)
- municipal police officers
----
tinyurl.com/nkywa7
"Information Systems Professional" is a protected title under Alberta's
Professional and Occupational Associations Registration Act. This
means that to call yourself an Information Systems Professional, you
must be a registered member of the Canadian Information Processing
Society of Alberta (CIPS Alberta). You do not have to be registered if
you do not call yourself an Information Systems Professional.
According to the 2007 Alberta Wage and Salary Survey, Albertans in the Information Systems Business Analysts and Consultants occupational group working part-time or full-time earned from $49,800 to $134,600 a year. The average salary was $111,700 a year.
Information Systems Professional Regulation, Alta. Reg. 39/1997
----
tinyurl.com/mbntmz
22. "A certified member may use the title "Information Systems
Professional", "Informaticien professionnel agréé" and the
abbreviations "I.S.P.", "ISP", "I.P.A." and "IPA".
----
Conclusion
Overtime exemption appears to only apply to "information systems professionals", a
protected title under Alberta's Professional and Occupational Association
Excuse me, somebody remind me of the reason for these job losses and pay cuts?
Let me see, oh yes - the last round was an attempt to "align" EDS and HP salaries.
The July 17th article said the pay slashes were an attempt to cut costs.
In March, pensions and retirement cuts were to reduce "future benefit accural."
Meanwhile, in May, Mark Hurd and Catherine Lesjak reported that the main problem was that sales were down 5 percent, forecasting another 5 percent in the future. Let me see, that's out of $118 billion in sales.
Golly, and the NY Times reports it impacted quarterly earnings, which were down to $1.7 billion last quarter:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/technology/companies/20hewlett.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Cathie%20Lesjak&st=cse
So, HP is not even losing money. Hurd and Lesjak are still making their millions.
Hmmm..... sounds more like politics than economics to me.
You once had civil servants delivering the UK Governments IT systems at a tiny fraction of the cost that it does now. Over the last 12 years or so these jobs have been lost to US IT Giants charging £Billions to the UK tax payer. So where once IT systems cost £millions now its £billions in all. How in bollocking hell is that saving money? which was the whole point of outsourcing the systems in the first place?. We are now filling the deep and greedy pockets of Wall Street with UK tax payers money.
In the US a small percentage are getting richer and the vast majority of people are getting poorer. This has now spread to the middle classes, e.g IT professionals, who are suffering wage cuts, loss of jobs, poorer working conditions etc, and the news is we in the UK are heading the same way unfortunately, who would allow such a thing? you might ask. Who well - Tony Blair and his super sub Gordon Brown thats who!. Why do they idolise the way of the US, I just can't see it!
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