Oxford’s books workers hit with pre-emptive pay crunchAt the height of the panic over the global financial meltdown last December, staff at two Oxford publishers were told they would be subject to a pay freeze on account of ‘uncertainty’ over the state of the market in the coming year. At the height of the panic over the global financial meltdown last December, staff at two Oxford publishers were told they would be subject to a pay freeze on account of ‘uncertainty’ over the state of the market in the coming year. Both companies have promised a review of the decision in the coming months.
For staff at Macmillan, located on Between Towns Road, Cowley, this applied across the board, and was accompanied by a freeze on new posts and filling vacancies, a freeze on job promotion, and a squeeze on freelance rates. All business and travel arrangements now have to be personally scrutitinised by the MD.
For staff at Pearson Education in North Oxford, the freeze applies only to those on an income of £30,000 or above. Bonuses will, apparently, not be affected. This is likely to mean that those paid at the £30,000-£40,000 level will be shouldering the burden of paying for everyone else, as they are excluded from the 3.5% rise applied to those on lower pay, but will not either benefit from the sort of executive bonuses that can soften the blow of the pay freeze for more senior management.
Though Pearson has avoided a formal freeze on filling vacancies, many staff are reporting a notable increase in their workload,which may be due to pressure to keep costs down for instance by not bringing in maternity cover and keeping more work in-house.
Broken agreements
The unilateral pre-emptive action has received a mixed reception. Everyone is concerned about what the future holds, and most people believe the priority must be to avoid the need for redundancies.
However, both Macmillan and Pearson have union agreements in place which commit them to reaching decision on salaries through negotiations.
At the time the announcements were made, last December, the joint NUJ/Unite chapel at Macmillan had already submitted its pay claim for 5% + 1% Oxford weighting. Macmillan’s CEO has now finally pencilled in a date for a negotiating meeting, months after agreement should have been reached.
At Pearson, where the chapel is nearing the winning post of its long campaign for recognition, joint MoCs Sally Emerson and Dona Velluti met the director Jacob Pienaar and HR manager Derek Frier to seek clarification on a number of points, including whether the saved money would be put into a contingency fund to be re-injected into the salary fund when the freeze is lifted, and what other savings were made before the decision to go for a salary freeze was taken.
Though they were given assurances that there will be no recruitment freeze, issues surrounding the frozen pay increase remain very unclear. The chapel is liaising closely with the NUJ and Unite chapels at Pearson’s other companies – Pearson Education in Harlow, Penguin DK and the Financial Times – all of which are now seeking a negotiated agreement on how to proceed.
If they are looking for a lead, they could do worse than follow the NUJ chapel at Didcot-based Taylor & Francis, which negotiated a 5% rise last December. It can be done. AW 2009-02-05
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