You often wonder what a union would do if it couldn't pay the bills. Go bust presumably and let the bankruptcy administrator break the bad news of job cuts.
Unions urge under-fire HP workers to 'resist' job cuts
Unite and the Public Services Commercial (PCS) unions will form a tag team to "use every means possible" to safeguard the jobs of 1,600 HP UK employees under risk of redundancy. The tech monster revealed late last night that it is hitting the eject button for 27,000 workers worldwide – including Autonomy founder Mike Lynch – …
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Thursday 24th May 2012 17:39 GMT Bob Vistakin
Clearly, Unites most senior rep should act
After all, that's what he's there for.
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Friday 25th May 2012 11:51 GMT Anonymous Coward
Also
Don't forget about the well known high street bank with the "scottish" blue logo with the white daisywheel, where they also did fuck all. I and many others were seriously considering demanding our union dues back, because they failed so badly.
Unite hate banks and bankers, which would be ok if it wasn't for the fact that they are supposed to represent them.
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Thursday 24th May 2012 18:01 GMT kain preacher
I'm pro union but in this case there is nothing that can be done. Sure HP might be profitable but this company has no vision other than to make share holders and the CEO money. Slashing R&D means a sloth death. Firing every one just speeds up the death process.If your CEO sees the only way to make the company profitable is by cutting jobs your screwed. How about customer service, good products, being able to understand the person at the other end of the line?s None of those are in HPs near future.
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Thursday 24th May 2012 21:39 GMT a_been
Well if the union members gave more of a fuck about customer service, good products and being able to understand the person at the other end of the line. Maybe HP would not be in the position off having to fire the fuckers. HP is not some strange alien god that doles out jobs as it sees fit. It's a group of people (employees and investors) working together for mutual benefit by supplying goods and service's that other people value.
HP and it unions have been taking the piss out of people for years by supplying crappy printers with expensive ink, I won't even go into the shit they call a PC. They deserve to hit the wall as does everyone who works for them. 20 years ago if you saw HP you would pay extra because of the quality, now seeing HP is an easy way of avoiding shit.
They deserve everything they get and if that means going out of business, well fuck them.
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Thursday 24th May 2012 22:58 GMT kain preacher
So it was the unions that offed shored call centers. It was the unions that cut jobs, It was the union that told HP to reduce the quality . It was rthe unions that slashed R&D If you truly believe that your insane mate. A union can not force a company to have good customer service or have on shore call centers. How does a union force a company to make good products? Answer me that one. Are you saying that the union has say in the materials used in production ?
"customer service, good products and being able to understand the person at the other end of the line. " Please explain how a union can control all of those things.
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Sunday 27th May 2012 19:31 GMT Billl
@kain preacher
Though I disagree with the original posters premise that the employees killed the company, I can't help but feel that the Unions may have had a part in its undoing. The Unions force companies to overpay someone to do a job that obviously any third world person can do. Unions are anti-capitalist by nature. Capitalism requires that companies cannot band together and charge unreasonable prices. Unions are allowed to join forces and force companies to pay unreasonable prices for labor. You are not due a high wage simply because you show up to work. You should have to compete for what you get and if you're not worth it, then someone else will get it.
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Friday 25th May 2012 09:58 GMT Lloyd
Ever tried using Unite?
You know, like as a "Union", my missus is a member, she started being pushed into a constructive dismissal case, the union failed to turn up to any preliminary meetings and when it all kicked off properly it took them 6 weeks to phone her back, by which point she'd hired a lawyer and settled out of court with her employers (in the end they split her job into 2 roles, which then ended up being 3, but apparently they maintained she wasn't overworked).
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Thursday 24th May 2012 18:19 GMT Anonymous Coward
Start looking at thise support contracts
Then go tell HP management that they will be in breach of Contract if they cut 'n' from the team.
You'll probalby lose your job anyway but on the way out send a fax to the customers Lawyers (from an HP number naturally) informing them that HP are in breach of contract.
You may well lose your job but at least get a little satisfaction in return.
anon, well I'm on the last ain't I. No sense in giving them PHB's any more ammo now is there?
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Thursday 24th May 2012 19:28 GMT MurrayH
Let's cut the real problem
Hey, HP -- If you want to really save money, lay-off all those executives who have been making the bad decisions that led to the losses, instead of the employees who were following the instructions/strategy of the aforementioned. You may indeed have a few cullable folks in the lower ranks, but by and large, losses are created by management and executive level employees.
Hey, HP Board -- Stop hiring executive with Golden Parachute clauses, and tie their earnings to the results. They get paid to take risks, but mitigate their mistakes by firing the people they have led as if it is the fault of those employees.
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Thursday 24th May 2012 20:52 GMT Polyphonic
Been there, done that, got the T-shirt
Nothing new here, pass on. EDS culled EDS employees to make the company look good to the vampire squid, then HP started culling yet more employees to boost the share price, so this is nothing new. The unions were rubbish then and no different now. HP won't take any notice.
The fact is HP no longer innovate so the only way they can make money is by sacking employees and looking through their rather bare IP cupboard for some "patent wars".
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Friday 25th May 2012 09:01 GMT Anonymous Coward
@All: Apply Here
[Reposting this, as I think it is quite important for you folks who will be laid off]
I am working for a German engineering services company called vacos. We are working mainly for Daimler AG, which is a hugely successful car and truck maker.
So my boss is urgently looking for competent C++, Java and .Net developers. Just send your CV along with all the relevant school and job certificates to info@vacos.de.
Also, many other companies are doing excellently (due to China, Russia and India buying German wares en masse). Just query for jobs in the official employment agency website:
http://jobboerse.arbeitsagentur.de/vamJB/startseite.html?kgr=as&aa=1&m=1&vorschlagsfunktionaktiv=true
Also, the "Euro crisis" is something that does not exist here in Germany. It's a problem of Greece, Spain, Portugal. High-quality, high-performance products still sell very well all over the world.
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Friday 25th May 2012 11:56 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: @All: Apply Here
"...Also, the "Euro crisis" is something that does not exist here in Germany. It's a problem of Greece, Spain, Portugal. High-quality, high-performance products still sell very well all over the world..."
Really? Where do you think the money is coming from to bankroll Greece? What do you think will happen if Greece stop their austerity commitments? Germany, the rest of the Eurozone and the rest of Europe will be screwed.
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Friday 25th May 2012 14:24 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: @All: Apply Here
Ms Merkel is not exactly a fscking idiot. Yeah, they all want our money but the realistic course is that all the financially irresponsible parties will get their own currencies back.
It will be a smaller, healthier Euro currency (€) domain.
Anyways - German business is doing very, very well and it has not much to do with "€", but the underlying fact that hard work, discipline, reforms and austerity are finally paying off. I would opt going back to "DM", tomorrow, if I were asked.
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Monday 28th May 2012 09:34 GMT Miss Lincolnshire
Clueless
HP failure is nothing to do with the unions hamstringing management. HP have spent and lost about $50bn on EDS, Autonomy, Palm, Vertica etc in the last 5 years. They have invested nothing to build the services, instead they have ripped out cost without thought about what that cost represents (revenue earning staff) and imposed process to stifle.
$10b spent on Autonomy and they let the entire management team that represents the value of that investment walk away! Outrageous. Palm is quite literally written off in the Touchpad debacle. EDS has had zero investment, they bought it to take the profits but have zero idea of how to use it or build it effectively. Vertica is another one that was bought and the boss left. All were bought as CEO vanity pieces as CEOs, particularly Mark Turd fought to be bigger than IBM. Pointless.
HP is a hardware company but it's products are nothing special. Where is the R&D, where is the innovation? There is none. The two biggest markets right now are Tablets & Smartphones. HP offer neither. Laptops etc are commodity kit, people buy the cheapest not the badge.
Bin the hardware division like IBM did, it's a low margin distraction. Maybe keep servers, but build the Autonomy/EDS Services piece. Set some direction. FFS