back to article HP workers eye walkout over engineer jobs dispute

Hewlett-Packard workers have voted in favour of strike action in the UK, following a ballot among members of the Unite union who complained about 150 customer engineers being shunted over to a subsidiary company. Unite said 77 per cent of members at HP voted for a staff walkout, while 85 per cent called on "action short of …

COMMENTS

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  1. Peter Thompson

    What's "action short of strike action"?

    What's "action short of strike action"? Loud and sustained tutting?

  2. The Jase

    short of a strike

    "What's "action short of strike action"? Loud and sustained tutting?"

    Work to rule. No staying late, no little extras, etc.

  3. Bassey

    Bonuses

    I wonder whether the lot over at BT in Liverpool have voted for strike action to maintain their benefits. Hardly seems worth it with £6.5 Million in your back pocket.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    TUPE?

    Wouldn't they be covered by TUPE and therefore keep all their entitlements? Or have I misunderstood TUPE?

  5. steward
    Joke

    Maybe with less employees...

    they'd have less time to overpackage things.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    HP bull

    I like to comment about HP is engaging with the union, thats total and utter rubbish.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    New initiative from HP

    "we will take the necessary measures to deliver the services that our clients require"

    They could have done that in the first place, if they had not been so keen to cut staff to levels that prevent delivery of services. Sooner or later, share owners will wake up to the fact that Hurd doesn't care if the company goes down the tubes, he's just in it for himself.

  8. Man Mountain

    Man Up!

    I'm sorry, but we are pricate sector white collar workers in IT - everyone in the industry has seen pay cuts, redundancies, reduction in benefits, end of final salary pensions, etc - it is unfortunately a fact that in the current climate, things had to change. These people who are talking about striking need to think about what it is really going to do to help the situation and whether they are truly that hard done by in the bigger picture! I'm sure plenty of people would love to be in their position. I don't suppose they would have been that sympathetic to the people who have joined the industry in the last 10 years who never even had the chance of a final salary pension whilst they were accumulating vast sums!

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Man up?

    We know about losses, we havent had pay rises for 10yrs, we have had other benifits cut. The point here is our savings will go to the managers at higher level who have brought about this change, they will get massive bonuses on top of thier bloated salaries for screwing us over.

    What we dont like is the calas way this has been done and the fact that we have ended up with the bare minimum, if the employer as they stated did in fact engage with the union and negotiate then there wouldnt be a problem.

    So I take it Man Mountain you have gone in to work today and asked for a 30% cut in your pay have you? because when you calculate the loss of pension and other benifits thats how much some of us are down, you add this on top of the no pay rises for 10yrs and you looking at somewhere around about 40-50% cut in our total rewards so dont go on like we dont know about cuts.

    I would actually be willing to take a temporary pay cut if my company was in trouble, the truth of the matter is the share price has never been higher and we are making Billions of pounds of profit every quater. They are just sqeezing us because its an easy way to improve profit margins so the big wigs can give themselves justified massive bonuses. You wait I bet Hurd gets many times his salary in a bonus.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Good Luck To These Workers

    When I joined HP as a Customer Engineer 30+ years ago we weren't just the best of the breed, we were recognised as such by the industry in independent customer surveys year on year. We were all devoted to the mission of giving superior customer service. But all that changed when Hewlett and Packard handed over the reins, and succeeding CEO's saw to it that the family silver was put up for sale to squeeze that last 0.1% profit increase out of the quarters results.

    Today, the industry might think that Hurd is the greatest gift to company profit making, but in reality he's nothing more than a barrow boy who knows how to make a quick deal in the marketplace. The shareholders are only interested in their own smutty profits and don't give a damn about long term performance. The things that once made HP a great company have long gone, and to be fair to Hurd that happened in the decade before he came along. But he's cheap garbage regardless.

    Hewlett and Packard were giants in terms of their leadership abilities. Those that have taken over the reins since would need a stepladder to reach the pigmy division of the scale that H&P trod before them.

    Good luck guys, I feel for you. My years of being an HP Customer Engineer took place in the days when HP actually respected us and treated us like decent citizens.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Calling Matt Bryant, calling Matt Bryant

    Please try and put a positive spin on this fantastic company move!

    How will we notice a difference with a work-to-rule with HP engineers? One of the big reasons we got rid of all our PHUX kit was the lack of ability to deal with items not on the PH engineers script.

    Not exactly cutting edge if you see what I mean.

    Having said that - there used to be some good engineers; the quality of engineers fell dramatically just when the Compaq screwup happened. The good engineers left - which was a shame because despite PHUX, the kit was reasonable but did have the tendency to die more freqently than any other kit in the DC. Perhaps there's a correlation. Who knows? Who cares, it all got skipped anyway.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It will come to an end one day

    One day, and it may be a few years off yet, people will start to remember customer service and with any luck historic crap from companies like HP will count against them. I for one am tired of the additional cost of small items that should just be part of a service. The little things that grease the wheels of contract life. All this messing with support staff impacts us customers but we still don't see any reduction in charges or have much of a say in how service is delivered. I think come rebid time the ITT should countain an ethical staff approach clause and have bidders show how they have treated staff and services.

    I feel for you guys, but life isn;t going to change anytime soon. But one day.....

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