oracle-employee-voice-fr

Oracle Global Reponsability - Let's build a real momentum

2011-04-22T07:28:00.000-07:00

Oracle Earth week Celebration, with many volunteers in action for a better world is also an opportunity to request more from the company best assets - to make a better world.

CFDT, CGC, CGT, Oracle Labor Unions requestsworldwide free licencing of the Oracle software towards the healthcare non-profit organisations.

Why not offering the best software to save life or prevent people from beeing harmed ?

Health care institutions, Genetic diseases foundations deserves more empowerment from Oracle than just encouraging employees to take on their personal time to take telethon phone calls once a year.

We feel that the public sector and the non profit organisation could benefit the scalability, parallelisation capabilities, analytical datamining features of Oracle Software - For the best of mankind, and the honor of the company.

Let's remind that Oracle had a non GAAP Operating Margin of 44%, reaching 3.9 Billion dollars for a single last quarter.

The France Consulting Bonus Story

2011-03-30T07:28:00.000-07:00

Lots of consulting contacts take any opportunity to express their interest regarding the France Consulting bonus "illegal" aspects. As a matter of facts, France has been excluded from Consulting, ACS, Education, Support bonus pools.
There has never been in the past problems with bonus as long as compensation distribution rules are clearly communicated. This has clearly not been the case in many teams, where bonuses were unevenly distributed, and where good performers with high utilisation rates could get nothing !
We also had a clear issue with female salary recognition regarding bonus.

This "unfair" treatment is the main illegal point which could have been easily corrected by entering into a description of rules on how to get a bonus on an individual basis.
Management refused to enter such a regulation, willing to keep the capability to change the rules, and distribute whatever they wanted to whoever without explainations.

This clearly was unacceptable as excellence must be shown and explainable. We would not support non explainable recognition. We contest the fact that bonus is deployed to reward performance, at least through some terminal management channels in France.

Therefore HR entered into an agreement with the labor unions to partially integrate the bonus rights within the base salary. And we still request for shared success recognition through SMART explainable goals to each individuals;

We shall see if attrition rates attracts more attention on finding the way for a better way of managing motivation and keeping the wheel of success running - Even in France.

Merger Hard facts - The job mapping process

2011-03-24T13:55:00.000-07:00

Oracle Merger procedures can be quite rude and especially conservative when considering the target job code of a former employee. Like Siebel or Peoplesoft employees in the past, Sun people can legitimely ask the question on the hard facts dictating their final Oracle Grading.

We should expect IC3, IC4 population dispersion curves to be about the same between former Sun Employees and Oracle ones. However, the French works council analysis, during the merger consultation procedures showed a discrepency around the Sun level 9 grading, initially planned towards IC3 level, but replanned to IC4 in France.

It seems that other countries conducted subsequent mass remapping on a team per team basis, based on the approval cases built by management. It is still time to ask for clarification and, if justified, mass corrective actions can be approved by management.

If you feel undermapped - It is not to late to ask for a fair treatment to your management or through your workers representatives.

Don't hesitate to post comments on the link below.

EWC Annual Meeting March 16th

2011-03-14T04:14:00.000-07:00

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.

Oracle Support - Facing the hard facts

2011-02-20T14:05:00.000-08:00

Revenue and margin cannot just go down with less people and less service provided to customers.

Can it ?

With the egyptian revolution messing up 2 thirds of some support European teams, times are really painful for our "Old Europe" collegues.

One of them submitted the the following Article from SearchOracle.Com.

Good reading

The rise and fall of Sun Microsystems

2010-11-29T14:03:00.000-08:00

Have a look - Courtesy of Infoworld.
"Memorial Slideshow for a former Titan..."

European Works Council Statement

2010-11-19T09:45:00.000-08:00

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

2010-10-01T13:26:00.000-07:00

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)

Oracle Board Opposes Sustainability Proposal

2010-09-16T01:32:00.000-07:00

Behind the scene, marketing stuff, green washing, the hard facts are very clear about Oracle's commitments regarding environmental responsability. Positive action is hardly ever taken, and there is still very few information regarding Oracle CO2 emissions and compensations.

The internal green programs seem to be there just as a tick-box for the responsability annual report, and would definitly benefit a more ambitious developpement under direct Board Control.

Corporate guidance is mandatory to move on, but we face a no-way.

Read Full Article : Environnemental Leader
Read more : BusinessGreen Blog,

Thanks to Larry, Charles, Mark, Charles and the 5 other Managers for my 71 E purchase order

2010-09-11T14:16:00.000-07:00

No comment.

Mark Hurd to join - Charles Philipps Leaving

2010-09-07T01:01:00.000-07:00

The news is official now - Marc Hurd is joining Oracle and Charles Phillips leaving.

This draws new perspectives both on the Hardware battlefield and the internal social field as Hurd is known as a very serious fellow.

Read more : HP most precious trade secrets in Peril., Oracle Response like a war is started with HP, Arguments for discontinuing the partnership.

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Playing with taxes...

2010-09-05T15:40:00.000-07:00

As shown in Oracle 10K FY10, Oracle is still decreasing its overall Tax Income provisions going from 2313 M$ in FY08, 2241 in FY09, to 2108 M$ in FY10.
In the same period, the operating income jumped from 7844 to 9062 M$ !

Despite multiple litigations on this subject, Oracle managed again an incredible performance in tax savings.

The word "Tax" is written more than 300 times in the document. It is showing the impressive amount of energy invested in Tax optimisations. Tense negociations are held worldwide with various Tax autorities, and Oracle systems, Offshore Islands screens are definitly not making the game easier for local gouvernement control.

A few quotes :

[...]our ability to repatriate funds held by our foreign subsidiaries to the United States at favorable tax
rates;

Changes in tax laws or tax rulings may have a significantly adverse impact on our effective tax rate. For
example, proposals for fundamental U.S. international tax reform, such as certain proposals by President Obama’s Administration, if enacted, could have a significant adverse impact on our effective tax rate.

[...] We previously negotiated three successive unilateral Advance Pricing Agreements with the IRS that cover many of our intercompany transfer pricing issues and preclude the IRS from making a transfer pricing adjustment within the scope of the agreements. These agreements are effective for fiscal years through May 31, 2006. We have submitted to the IRS a request for another renewal of this Advance Pricing Agreement for the years ending May 31, 2007 through May 31, 2011. However, these agreements do not cover all elements of our transfer pricing and do not bind tax authorities outside the United States.

This month, Oracle France will have to pay tens of million Euros in settlement of a dispute with the French Tax ministry. Always the question of transfer prices.
Ten Million Euros will also benefit Oracle French Employees, through a mandatory rule called "Employee Participation".
A small victory on the very very long road for more progressive and equitable taxation - who needs to be cared about : simple citizens, small companies, or huge corporations ?

To be continued - Tax Justice Network.

13 Zero Salary review countries

2010-08-18T06:34:00.000-07:00

As the Compensation Workbench application is going online, you may be interested to read through the manager training guidelines that 13 countries are banned from the application and not available within the HR database.

This non confidential document states "Zero Budget Countries: Brazil, Japan, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, and Switzerland. These employees are not populated in the module."

A Clear signal from the Corporation for countries considered with too many employees ?
But will the employees staying be the most talented ones ?

Read More : FY10 Eligibility Guidelines, Oracle Compensation Philosophy, HR VP interview 2004 (Old Memories),

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2010-08-07T01:15:00.000-07:00

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Oracle sued for alleged fraud against US gov

2010-06-17T02:50:00.000-07:00

Well, we had lots of concerns regarding the compliance and ethics code.
Seems we have our confirmation about the serious doubts of having real ethics or just just marketing sheets.

The complaint against Oracle was originally filed by an Oracle employee, who alleged that large discounts offered to other customers were hidden from government agencies.

Has there been any whisleblowing process ?
The inquiry will undoubtly give some informations.
Let's remind that a previous case was settled in 2006 over a 98 Millions USD deal, where the external whisleblower got 17 Millions USD through the false claim act...

And would'nt you want more clarity regarding haven islands Oracle operations ?
Wouldn't a false claim act be of interest - Contact Us.

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Read more : The register,

Fusion Storm Rising...

2010-06-07T00:54:00.000-07:00

SEC has been advised that Oracle Corp approved, committed and initiated and amendment to the Sun integration plan, with 675 to 825 M$ .

"Amendment further reduces the size of Oracle’s combined workforce primarily in Europe and Asia, eliminates redundant costs resulting from the acquisition of Sun and reflects improved efficiencies in operations."

This annoucement is a serious issue as there has been no local nor Europeen Work's Council consultation.

Let's sacrifice some revenue...

2010-05-15T14:36:00.000-07:00

.. for more margin.

I strongly recommand this informationweek article, dedicated to IBM, which so much explains our multinational companies behaviours.
Regarding Oracle, we could extrapolate towards :
- Kill/Purchase competitors... for less competition
- Kill consulting for less revenue reckon problems
- Continue Western countries employees layoff until significant hit on margin.

SAP to open a new front...

2010-05-13T14:14:00.000-07:00

The announcement of Sybase beeing bought by SAP is an important move, opening the competition play in both the Apps and the Database market.
The purchase of Sybase is the fifth-largest software takeover ever, according to Bloomberg data

Read more : Business Week

Sun France Sales On Strike

2010-04-02T14:00:00.000-07:00

This is yet quite an unusual event in our companies, but the Change In Control process really triggered anger from sales force. The sudden change in engagement procedures, sales conditions, especially the support sales ones, severly jammed the "happy merge momentum".

Oracle/Sun Management is asked to provide urgent answers to have the sales force back on line, fully engaged to fullfill their objectives without restraints.

World's second most admired company ?

2010-04-01T11:48:00.000-07:00

For your information, an interesting comment sent to Fortune Magazine by one Oracle employee...
TO FORTUNE MAGAZINE

I looked at two of your most recent research findings and was surprised, even shocked by an inconsistency. In your list of the World’s Most Admired Companies, in the sub-list by industry Oracle appears as number 2, behind Adobe (they are both put under “Software”.) And Apple (which appears in a different category, “Hardware”) is number 1. Any casual reader would think that the two companies are almost equally “admirable.” But as anybody with any knowledge of the high-tech industry knows these two companies are as different as day and night. Apple succeeded because it has loyal customers and great products, whereas Oracle, famous for its buggy products and long-suffering customers, is doing great only because it has killed all the competition. Unable to best his competitors, Ellison has been buying them one after the other (PeopleSoft, Siebel, BEA etc.) so that now a company that wants a database system with a business software on top has only one choice: Oracle. That is hardly a mark of excellence, just of a predator winning in the business jungle with anti-trust bodies abdicating their responsibilities
So, please, don't compare Apple and Oracle, you are really mixing apples with ...bad apples.

Your methodology of basing such findings on just results and relying on fellow executives is at best disingenuous, at worst pernicious: if to be admired you only look at how profitable a business is, then you should have the Mafia on top of the list, since it’s by far the most profitable business in the world (and shares many management traits with Oracle, by the way.) My point is actually made by none other than yourselves in your list of the Best Companies to Work for. Here, since the results are based on employee surveys, Oracle is nowhere to be seen and justly so: it is (in)famous throughout the industry for the horrendous way it treats its employees. Maybe you should point out that being the most admired company is NOT synonymous with a Best Company to Work for as evidenced by the Oracle case

Keep up Beeing the bests -- But Use antics

2010-03-03T13:34:00.000-08:00

Oracle trendemous commercial successes hide a more pityfull reality with an heavy disinvestment any many internal infrastructure areas. The FY01 2 Billion dollar internal IT economy plan, killing thousands of servers worldwide, bought a lot of centralisation, global efficiency on global processes but destroyed many precious sandboxes used in Support, Consulting, Pre-Sales.

The Oracle Virtualisation program has been very successful for customer infrastructures but keeps on beeing quite ridiculous for thousands of Oracle experts. Many of us still have to fight to build, transport, manager their VM images, with a complete lack of infrastructure sharing.
Networks, disks are kept busy transporting Virtual machines from one expert to the other, in a typical tribal image exchange.
Funding for machines is kept at the absolute minimum, without significant professional live program to build on-demand sandboxes.
Last but not least, the total shutdown of metalink external bug accesses has killed a lot of Expert Services value, in a time where value selling has never been so critical.

We feel Sun merger will not change the course of action, as we mainly miss the political strength to make things happen efficiently in the bottom-up approach.

Will any manager play its role and dare raising a voice that our way of playing internally with technology is now obsolete and having a very negative impact ?
Will employee reps voices be heard someday ?
Can success keep on going with less and less efficiency in the field ?

We still wait for official answers.

Dear Sun Employees - Resistance is futile

2010-01-31T14:09:00.000-08:00

We do extend a very warm welcome to all Sun Employees. We do hope you will add your technological distinctiveness to our own. Regarding the biological distinctiveness, we do hope some future, but everything will be in the hand of the great architect. And in many cases, that stories are like the one below...

Do ask for World wide employee consultations and be especially careful when talking about "job mapping", a key process before any redundancies, and very important to your future within Oracle.

Sun Oracle Merger - Estern Resistance

2010-01-20T04:08:00.000-08:00

While the EU approval definitly seems to be on the edge of a final clearance, China and Russia, massively invested in Open Source Software, recently extended their merger probes.

Read More : IT World, HelpMySQL,

Oracle & Communities - Still a lot to do

2010-01-18T14:35:00.000-08:00

Well, we should be glad Oracle continues the emergency investments in the communities, and offering a donation match from its employees concerned by the Haiti Disaster Relief. However.
Too bad, the funding is limited to 1 Millions USD, making roughly a maximum of 10 USD per employee.

But why wouldn't Oracle show the community investment by laying done a corporate 1 million USD donation, and then appealing for extra funding though its employees.
This still sounds very limited, taking the full 2008 number of 8,5 millions USD in Oracle Donations.

And by the way, did you try to make a donation ?
You'll be asked to move to the United States, as a US State is a mandatory field in your adress !

Final EU Clearance on Sun Merger

2009-12-17T00:14:00.000-08:00

The NY Post released the information here, not confirmed nor commented yet.

Sharing the code of ethics goals

2009-12-16T05:50:00.000-08:00

The FR Works council is beeing consulted on the code of Ethics and Business Conduct to be implemented in France. This code should be fully enforceable towards employees.
The exposed principles are quite legitimate as they define what a responsible employee in a responsible company should do.

Responsible company ?
We face very opaque compliance protocols, as employee reps cannot control the ethics alerts nor allow any investigation rights on non compliances issues.
The company refuses to answer any questions regarding offshore operations, non compliance alerts.
Very strict SEC requierements are to be enforced to guarantee governance rules in terms of corruption, local law compliance, fair treatement and reporting.
We feel the lack of a World Wide Employee Works council independant control is a very important flaw, and we feel dangerous operations could still be conducted, "under the radar screen" in confined areas of huge corporations like Oracle.

Let's not forget Delaware, Cayman Islands, Mauritus, Luxembourg operations actually beeing run by Oracle - Who is in charge of controlling what's been done there ?
Are shareholders and employees to be proud of those covert operations ?

CFDT Oracle Labor union requests a worldwide employee governance model that enforces long term operations, fully compliant in any area of the company.

You want discuss, you have doubts about ethics management, you wish to submit a whisleblowing alert thought us, we'll help.

Read more : Secrecy Juridictions, Tax Justice Network, Sarbanes Oxley Structural Model by R. Moberly,

Oracle & My SQL

2009-11-17T09:03:00.000-08:00

From le MagIT

Sun Acquisition - EU in the way

2009-11-10T02:26:00.000-08:00

EU published a statement of objections regarding the Sun purchase.
Press Informations DenverPost,
Sun Microsystems blocked in between, is probably suffering many damages from those delays.
Let's not forget the Sun Employees either!

Sun Acquisition Clearance - More clouds in the way

2009-11-04T07:50:00.000-08:00

A recent information relayed by the Financial Times, tends to indicate EU is hardening its position towards Oracle, regarding the anti trust probe concerning MySQL.
85 % of the database marketshare is controled by Oracle/IBM/Microsoft, and EU is concerned by the level of concentration in this arena, Oracle already leading the way.

This announcement is following exchanges of bullets between EU and Oracle officials regarding who's to blame, in the delays. "commission officials confirmed that, in spite of ”repeated requests”, Oracle had neither provided them with evidence that the deal would not cause competition problems, nor discussed possible remedies."

"Sun is losing $100m a month as Oracle waited for approval of the deal", justifying yet another wave of 3000 job cuts...

On one side we have a company fighting for survival, and on the other, an angel coming at its rescue for the hard price in database arena, but for yet more competition in hardware space...

Oracle Tax Haven Operations

2009-10-06T15:19:00.000-07:00

One of our reader brought this very interesting internal document to our attention.
Please consider the paragraph starting with "Risks Identified".

Isn't it time for a Corporation to pay its tax to local countries like any normal company does ?
Isn't it time for more social leadership and less social marketing ?
Isn't it time for more employee dialogue ?

Read More : TaxJustice Blog, CFDT Labor Union Oracle Tax Video, Congress 1265 Bill, Delaware,

Comments welcome !

Dear Mrs Catz

2009-09-30T14:25:00.001-07:00

A recent fortune article made a very good presentation of Safra Catz we recommand every employee to consider.

"If it's not in the numbers, I don't care how strategic it is, it doesn't play out."

The key was centralizing control. As an example, Catz cited the revamping of Oracle's customer-support service, a mundane yet critical cost center for all businesses. Before, Oracle offered support in soothing local accents and at tiered rates. After Catz was done crunching the numbers, all customers received 24/7 service at a single, lower price and from whichever product specialist picked up the line. "No negotiation," she said.

With two banking-oriented co-presidents, Oracle began methodically picking off one billion-dollar-plus software company after another -- Siebel and BEA were the biggest to follow PeopleSoft -- as well as scores of smaller tuck-in acquisitions that made Oracle a player in business applications.

Full Fortune Article.

Pittsburgh G-20 Process Must Tackle Banking Secrecy, Illicit Financial Flows

2009-09-24T15:10:00.000-07:00

Employee reps are constantly beeing refused access to informations regarding Oracle offshore operations.
We do support the "Global Financial Integrity" call to urge leaders to pursue measures to increase transparency in global finance and curtail illicit financial flows.
Why would there be such a secrecy, with autonomous computer networks not linked to the main Oracle Intranet, and impressive firewalls ?
Why would an honest company still need so many holdings in Haven Islands ?

We know for sure Oracle CAPAC is driving key operations to prevent country tax authorities to challenge zero or near zero withholing rates applied.
An other example, France Tax authorities are conducting a 6+ years revenue recognition review, challenging the operating cost transfer ratios used by the company.

It's time for an higher morale in Corporations !

Any information, idea on your side, other examples regarding those operations please contact us. We will guaranty your anonymity :

Sun/Oracle Merger - EU Antitrust Probe

2009-09-03T00:44:00.000-07:00

On Sept. 3, European Union regulators launched an antitrust probe into Oracle's (ORCL) tentative deal of Sun Microsystems (JAVA), saying they wanted to make sure Oracle was committed to developing Sun's rival open-source database software, MySQL.

"While getting MySQL as part of the Sun deal would eliminate a feisty competitor for Oracle, it's unlikely that the software giant would risk scuttling the deal over this issue. Amid the uncertainty over regulatory approval, Sun lost market share in the computer server business to IBM and Dell (DELL) in the second quarter, according to market researcher Gartner. If push comes to shove, Oracle will likely set MySQL free."

Image Courtesy of LeMagIT - http://www.lemagit.fr
Quotes from Business Week Article
Read More : Business Week, Guardian,

Let's build a common future

2009-09-01T13:54:00.000-07:00

I had a dream...
Where citizens, states, companies would share the same goals.
Where healthy corporations would contribute through their taxes in the global eco-system.
Where global employees would have the opportunity to express their point of view.
Where education would be a richness, not a cost.
Oracle is deploying important Reduction In Force plans, strong cost reductions, and training absolutely limited.
Thousands of employees are beeing layed of for "increased" global efficiency.

Can we build a future for our nations, after reinjecting billions of dollars in finance corporations, without having our company sharing the burden ?
Education investments should be a must for a better future...

Will some politicians share our dreams ?
Read More : Global Financial Integrity, Paul Jorion's blog, Recession and Education, Stop Tax Haven Abuse Congress Bill 1265 ,

Be Oracle - Be Amazed - Be Brave - Be Margin Contributor - Be Fired -

2009-08-25T14:38:00.000-07:00

The Vision 2010 Employee initiative is now a thing of the past. Very few pages still have the reference to the Key employee empowerment references.

In other times, we should be proud of beeing among the most profitable companies in the world.
However, those incredible profits are more and more gained against employees and employment.

Be ever more admired in volunteering for CSL projects :
Be Amazed, Be brave in accepting to be fired to contribute for more company profitability.

Have a look here : Oracle Profitability Ranking.

CFDT Labor Union - Get United - Ask for an employee representation council.

US Department of Justice Clearance for Sun Acquisition

2009-08-24T06:03:00.000-07:00

The information came Thursday, Oracle's $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems has been approved and is now subject to only the European Union Clearance.

Oracle and Sun beeing in the process of deploying their respectives Reduction In Force, we recommand you consider the following fictional video, the trek fans will recognize, about the Borg Orakle species assimilation process.

Corporations - Such a wonderful world

2009-07-07T12:08:00.001-07:00

When a few images mean so much more than thousand words.

Employment Destruction

2009-07-02T14:55:00.000-07:00

What's left for Mankind in our world, at times where micro-economic interests of few ones, takes precedence over the macro-economic best duties, and larger communities interests.

Such an heavy lorry driver like Oracle, hitting the brakes and throwing employees offboard is very sad example for the many other courageous companies, fighting for their survival, but still keeping their staff members onboard. Needless to add, the snowball effect leaving many more on the bench, outside the company, to be cared by governemental wellfare.

Having so many subsidiaries in Haven Islands : Cayman, Luxembourg, Mauritus, how much is left of the company real benefits to feed in Tax departments and fund this wellfare ?

Isn't it time now for a renewal in citizenship, true Politics ?
Politics that would act in accordance to people needs ?
Politics that would enforce the world people voices, and rule the way corporations operates ?
Politics that would bring back trust in our world, in our economy, in our lives, for our children.

It is the reponsability of each one of us to use his voice and remind what Politics shall mean !

IT Hard times

2009-06-29T13:12:00.000-07:00

Sun Microsystems, Hewlett Packard are launching yet another season of their famous layoff plans series.

Oracle on its side has not announced anything... yet.

Hopefully, beating analysts expectations, Generating 23 Billion $ of revenue and $5.5 billion in net income is enough to see things coming ?

Read more : HP Season 5, HP Season 4, Sun Season 8, Sun Season 9, IBM Season X,

Fire Drill Layoff Legend

2009-06-02T14:44:00.000-07:00

You may have received an interesting email, circulating within Oracle about the Fire Drill Layoff report. This email has circulated in many formats, and stays alive as it sounds so much like the real world.

Read More : Snopes.com

PS. In the meantime, RIF rumors claims and patriot calls are still running on the layoff blog.

Oracle & Offshore - No comment

2009-05-05T06:06:00.001-07:00

Local Management refused to give any explaination regarding Cayman operations of Oracle. Theses operations are controlled outside employee representatives legal perimeters.

What else needs to be said ?

Read More : Bloomberg

Welcome to Sun Employees

2009-04-22T14:44:00.000-07:00

We wish to express our warm welcome to our probably future new collegues.
Let's hope you'll join us in the best conditions and that sufficient investments will be made to enable shared growth with no unvoluntary layoffs.

"Minor" Resource Adjustment in support

2009-04-16T04:32:00.000-07:00

The Layoff Radar is going crazy with an bloody Apr 15th within the support organisation reported by many sources on the layoff blog
We have no indication yet of any deployment within Europe, as the EU consultation directive will enforce a strict consultation process, and hopefully better employee considerations.

Let's remind that Support is one of the most profitable activities of Oracle and that many customers, not ready for "extra advanced" customer care services, urge Oracle for a more human-friendly support organisation, taking ownership of problems instead of asking hours investments from the customer in the building support cases.

Please note we do not support the very few hate messages of pushing employees against each others based on their home country. We should all rely on higher standards, and take every opportunity, within the company and outside for building a more responsible world, sharing shared growth opportunities, and reminding as Henry Ford envisioned, that employees are at the end customers.

Few samples of posts from layoff blog :
#787 - Layoff happening at the Oracle Support Center today. Too bad. These are people with many years of experience. I guess they’ll be twicely replaced in India or China, minus the experience of course.

#794 - i got laid off too! Services East Coast! pretty shabby way - 8:01 - got the call, was read some script; 10:05 fedex drops me a pkg from oracle and 12:04 no more access to internal vpn sh*thole.

#803 - Was with Oracle over 10 years and the layoffs (while focused un some senior and upper
management) is hitting all layers — especially in Support.

US supreme court to rule overtime litigation

2009-04-10T03:34:00.000-07:00

A number of lawsuits especially in Support, Education and consulting have been filed and won in front of US judges.
This is why recently many salaried employees, who didn’t have to record their time, where moved to hourly waged employees.
Time sheets have to be entered for all hours to generate the pay check.

California Court Decision is particulary interesting as it considers potential economic and equity distortions between californian residents and non residents.
This reminds EU countries considerations regarding their respective strengths or weakness in competitiveness regarding the labor "costs".

To be continued, in better employee investments recognition considering real labor & travel hours...

Oracle EMEA / Italy - Let's refuse unvoluntary layoffs

2009-04-02T14:24:00.000-07:00

Please let's all bring our full support to our collegues from Oracle Italy and the other EMEA countries impacted.
We cannot accept to have the Reduction In Force Plan deployment without voluntary-only leave measures.
This has been done in France where HR put a lot of energy with employee representatives to prevent unvoluntary layoffs.

FYI - Oracle is starting stock dividend distribution for the first time in its history simultaneously with tens of employee dismissals.

Social Reponsability - Cannot mix dividends and layoffs

2009-03-25T15:55:00.000-07:00

Oracle as announced dividends will be payed to shareholders for the first time in the company history.
We call the company to freeze any layoff projects that might be planned or under deployment, as the announced results do not demonstrate any risk regarding the company viability.
If any workforce reduction would be needed, we requiere a voluntary-leave-only program.
France as successfully initiated such a program with FR HR's Help.
This experience could easily be shared at a larger scale.

Let's build together a better world, a better Society and more socialy responsible company.

... And you know what ? employee morale will bring more success to the company and its customers.

Beeing Fair - Oracle Ethics

2009-03-21T07:03:00.000-07:00

Oracle Ethic duties are enforced in many levels, and we all periodically receive the "training refresh" workflow reminders. These duties have already led to employee dismissals.

However you need to be aware that Oracle Corporation is leading many Oracle Holdings in Cayman islands, Mauritus, Luxembourg.

Why would such dark accounting subs be of any interest for a bright Sarbanes Oxley compliant company ?

Layoff times are a crude reality.
The whole of Europe and the CFDT labor union are very dubious about those subs, in a time where highest morale is due to be held worldwide.
We cannot let money flows run lonely without any accountability nor employee nor governemental control.

We encourage every employee and employee rep to enquire for a clear undestanding of those haven holdings activities.

BEA CrossGain International		Cayman Islands
BEA International		Cayman Islands
Oracle International Holding Company		Cayman Islands
PeopleSoft C.I. Holdings Ltd.		Cayman Islands
SPL WorldGroup International Ltd.		Cayman Islands

Oracle Holding Antilles NV
Oracle Global Mauritus Ltd.

Please report any misconduct or ethics violation to our collective for a transparent employee driven investigation - Contact us :

The Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act
SEC Report (free account needed), Commercial Ethics Guide, FR Alter Eco CAC40 and offshore islands,
World Bank Policy, The Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act

500 + comments on oracle layoff blog

2009-01-30T14:55:00.000-08:00

You will find interesting informations on Oracle Layoffs blog, reaching 300 comments world wide.

A few ones below, to give you the opportunity for further reading.

#30 I was let go today, 9 years with the company and countless awards for utilizations and leadership roles in major high profile projects.

#42 Very cheap on severance package: One month for the first year you serve at Oracle and one week for each additional year you serve. 30 days Oracle covered COBRA. Brutal.

#47 Hey #42. Thats a better severance than in the past it used to be 2 weeks for the first year and 1 week for each subsequent year. Larry musta been feeling generous.

#65 I was a bea acquisition employee and we get the bea acquisition package which is 3 months severance, 3 months cobra. The regular package for non-bea oracle employees is 2 weeks for each year of employment, 30 days cobra. (which really sucks for a large company. I am glad I got the bea package) Each large acquisition (peoplesoft, etc) may have a separate type of package that was part of the acquisition agreement.

#74 Re #70, no email just a call from your manager and a Fedex package by noon in the US.

#90 I am on vacation and was on vacation when US layoffs happened. I haven’t got any email from my manager abt layoff. I am wondering abt the process they follow to lay off an employee who is on vacation.

#231 Listen, if you are on a PIP you are history. Been there, done that, put on a PIP ahead of a merger for no reason at all, adhered to the PIP, and was still terminated.

A PIP these days is akin to a shot across the bow of your battleship. They are trying to give you time to get yourself lost from their sandbox. I would take advantage of it.
Never seen a single person who lived to tell about how ‘I was once on a PIP here’.
Sad dealings and not my preferred way to handle things but…..

#255 Rumor (Oracle, India): “One of the world’s largest software products company Oracle is known to have begun linking the payment of its 20,000-odd employees in India with the productive hours they spend in the company. This has given way to salary cuts, ranging between 10 and 50 per cent.”

#379 Oracle has purchased far too many software companies and is quickly gaining the reputation as a software burial ground. They have redundant product lines and are rapidly losing focus on the message they are trying to deliver to customers. Customers of software products Oracle has bought are growing more and more hostile toward Oracle and will close then out from any future business.

#380 Question is what really works.
IF acquisitions and consolidation works for both Corps and customer then its good.
Else it is not a sustainable model.

#507 As a former employee that was acquired by the big O, I have nothing but dismay for this company. Once we were acquired our existing customer base treated us much more hostile, despised the acquisition and put a roadblocks for doing further business. They all indicated doing business with Oracle was painful, slow, ineffective, and viewed Oracle as opportunists that capitalized on the software maintenance revenue streams, jack up the consulting rates, and blow the synergy/integration/red stack non sense at the base. When you swallow up as many companies as Oracle has you will get a case of bad indigestion evidenced by lack of focus and genuinely pissed off customer base.

Reduction in Force wave is coming

2009-01-13T00:17:00.000-08:00

Rumors, Rumors, we don't see yet major moves actionned in Europe.
August UK Consulting RIF, and EMEA BEA redundancy RIF were the last ones announced.
However, Economy slowdown is hitting certain areas and we just expect announcement to be made, probably in the consulting/Apps area.
Oracle European Work's Council and Country local work's Council will have to be officially consulted before any redundancy plan deployment.

Still "officially" unconfirmed yet, you will see many goodbyes in the US, dated Jan 9th in the Layoff Blog

Are we talking about 8% of the sales force, 20% of its consulting staff, or just a few hundreds world wide ?

Severance package reported through comments seems very cheap for a company like Oracle : One month for the first year you serve and one week for each additional year you serve. 30 days Oracle covered COBRA (Medical Care).
Given all the extra efforts done worldwide and the company margin, we call for better level of global benefits towards the ex-employees.

Vision 2010 or 1929 ?
Read More :
Oracle Major Layoff - Computer World
Facts and Rumors - The Economist
Spectator October, Spectator November, Layoff Blog, Digital Daily,
India (40 layoffs over 25000)

Environnemental Responsability - Oracle Giving up ISO14001 Certification

2008-12-26T07:20:00.000-08:00

Too bad, EMEA HR confirmed today that they will NOT go on the official ISO14001 certification process.
Although the official statement is still quite politically correct "Oracle will continue to act in accordance with environmental standard ISO 14001 but will no longer seek the get ISO 14001 certification due to the excessive cost of external certification".

We regret very deeply the lack of external control on our process, considering the major issues facing our World in the very near future. We all know, especially in this financial turnmoil, how important external control is.

We must reeckon we fail to have the company monitor its CO2 emissions. Lots of traveling in certain areas severly impacts the environnement... The only answer for now is to add hybrid cars to the Oracle Policy and also watch for coffee cups !
Giving up the certification is one more step, in contradiction with the marketing still published internally regarding the ISO14001 certification.

If Cost is an issue, our labor union volunteers to pass auditing training and pre-certification review control.
Let's not give up our future !

Read More :

US Court Ruling Oracle on Extra Hours

2008-11-20T13:49:00.000-08:00

An appeal court of justice ruled against Oracle regarding extra hours compensations. Those extra hours need to be payed considering the working state and not their home states, and compensating with a ratio of 1.5 every hours above the 8 hours daily limit.
This sounds quite interesting as out-of-hours compensations are among the most difficult things to have compensated. Situation in France is quite a painfull as extra hours are hardly payed.

Know more : Press Article
This judgment is following an other one from Siebel times

UK Employee Consultation Forum

2008-09-25T13:47:00.000-07:00

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 ?

Shareholders getting nervous about Larry's compensation

2008-09-07T15:28:00.000-07:00

The 38% increase on the 72 Millions USD salary package is making some shareholders nervous.
They are pressing for a say on compensation at Oracle, the second-largest computer software maker, whose 29 percent profit growth last fiscal year trailed Ellison's pay increase. The proposal, by the religious group Marianist Province of the U.S., is winning support from activist holders such as the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the California Public Employees' Retirement System.
Read More
The ``say on pay'' plan, which goes before investors at an Oct. 10 meeting, may get significant votes to draw attention...

Oracle Class Action News

2008-09-07T15:12:00.000-07:00

When top executives claim everything is under control despite the turmoil in the economy,
When our top email system, despite beeing rdbms based with running logfiles cannot bring old emails back to live, even when those emails are Larry Ellison's.

You reach this interesting judge decision : " BOSTON, Sept 3 (Reuters) - A federal judge has ruled that Oracle Corp (ORCL.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) destroyed or failed to preserve Chief Executive Larry Ellison's e-mail files sought as evidence in a class-action lawsuit filed in 2001 against the software maker"
More analysis here

Oracle 11g is Green

2008-05-14T03:12:00.000-07:00

Have you seen this advertisement regarding Oracle 11G, nearly self labelled as 11 G Green, producing energy savings thanks to the "Green" compression technology, as less storage would be needed ?

This is so much in Oracle best expertise traditions, deploying a huge intelligence effort in marketing instead of doing the real hard work.

Despite significant savings efforts in Redwood Shores, Let's reckon much of the hard work is still to be done outside California, not the least internally, where no-one can say how much CO2 is generated from the internal travels.

Oracle Annoucement "Go Green with Fewer Disk Drives and Less Energy As seen in the Wall Street Journal and other major publications, Oracle is proud of the energy and space savings that Oracle Advanced Compression delivers. It helps Oracle Database 11g use much less the disk space and power, while it runs faster than ever before. With Oracle Advanced Data Compression, Oracle customers are making the planet a little greener"

See the interesting threads developpements "Green is not in Oracle vocabulary" , "Sorry Oracle : Green IT is for you too" from a Charles Philips interview, 11 G - "G" stands for Green or Greenbacks, Green is the new black,

Your comments are welcome.

For the records : Oracle Position - Beeing Green - Oracle High Tech Green Giant

BEA Oracle Acquisition - Change In Control

2008-04-30T03:51:00.000-07:00

Let's wish a big welcome to our new collegues of BEA, joining us as EU just released its approval regarding the merge.

Your comments are welcomed below.

BEA Acquisition closing

2008-04-08T14:24:00.000-07:00

Latest news from Reg Developper :
"Oracle's checks come as the company today cleared the latest hurdle in its proposed acquisition process. BEA shareholders on Friday voted to approve the deal, leaving just European Commission regulators to give the go ahead. The deal is expected close on April 30."

Sun / MySQL Acquisition : "Oracle is the only winner in this deal"

2008-01-21T01:02:00.000-08:00

An interesting opinion from JOHN DVORAK'S @ Marketwatch, with many comments.

"I'm close to being convinced that Oracle wanted to buy MySQL to kill the product, but knew that it couldn't pull off the stunt itself. It would be too obvious, especially to European Union regulators. So it sent in a stooge to do the job."

Oracle Salary raises stuck

2007-10-29T15:44:00.000-07:00

Non licence personal will have yet again to wait before seeing any salary increase for FY08.
Management annouced that these decisions will have to wait the Nov/December timeframe
For the first time in Oracle history, those salary raises will not be back ported to occur in September.
A good example on how to win 3 months in salary expenses credit.

Comprised Oracle UK Computers ?

2007-07-20T05:09:00.000-07:00

DenyHosts reports is pointing Oracle UK computers for running SSH Attacks ?
No word from the company yet.
Full Article on The Register.

Hyperion Acquisitions - No redundancies - (Yet ?)

2007-07-20T04:01:00.000-07:00

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

2007-07-07T13:31:00.000-07:00

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 :

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

FR - No Country Kick-Off for support folks based outside Paris

2007-06-22T16:38:00.000-07:00

BE AMAZED... Corporate Campaign says...

As an Oracle employee I feel deeply ashamed by the first exclusion of support employees, based outside Paris, who are beeing refused their flight approval for the annual meeting.

Despite the Vision 2010 annoucement, sharing strategy, beeing one team seems no longer to be an Oracle value...

Trade and Immigration lobbying

2007-06-21T08:10:00.000-07:00

Keeping inline with gouvernement regulations, and maybe influencing those regulations, Oracle hired a lobbying company services to back up its interests towards congress.

Read more

Support Folks - No travelling please - Ever (??)

2007-06-17T15:58:00.000-07:00

Welcome inside the support Matrix.

Different emails from management are heavily reminding support personnal that should never ever travel. In many cases personnal internal meetings are impratical, even for a yearly appraisal with your manager (???)
"The previous message included reference to face to face discussion which was incorrect, it is not a requirement to meet in person and is in many cases impractical in a global corporation."

Even Country kick off, physical off-site training are beeing covered by the heavy margin improvement-over-travelling goal.

Let's not forget that remote home working during normal work hours (and heavy traffic congestions) is still forbidden in many countries.

This makes the support Line of Business very much unaligned with Vision 2010, Corporate Social Responsability Energy Reduction Plan, training duties, and normal people management rules.

This sounds like going very very far in the savings, raising unhappy comments from employees.
What does the company expects in return for those cuts ?
Perhaps for more Employee headcount transfer towards Egypt ?

Where is my blue pill ?

Ex-Oracle VP to pay 198K$ to SEC for settlement

2007-05-23T13:10:00.001-07:00

Acquisitions may be very lucrative when you get the information first hand...
CNN, SEWNEBR

Oracle EWC - Negociations failed ?

2007-04-30T06:14:00.000-07:00

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.

BIW Acquisition - Hyperion ?

2007-03-01T01:20:00.000-08:00

The news is massively spreading in the internet world.
Hyperion is about to be purchased by Oracle for 3.1 Billion Dollars, quite reaching the 3.4 Billions Dollars FY06 GAAP net income. This would mark a very significant move within the BI Space.
No official statement has yet been released within Oracle nor towards Employee Reps.

More informations : New York Times

Indian workers are rising

2007-02-09T05:52:00.000-08:00

You may be interested in recent moves in Bangalore, where Mahatma Gandhi country workers show they can raise to defend their social rights.
The social awareness process is under way...
More : January Strikes - Oct 2006 tech Strike

Oracle : Siebel Software developpers Over Time to be settled with 27.5 Million dollars

2006-11-17T15:13:00.000-08:00

A huge class action is beeing successful regarding a wage-and-hour lawsuit against ex Siebel Company.
Each one of the 800 software developpers will get around 27000 Extra dollars for these forgotten hours.

A similar case is also still running in France and due for judgment in Feb.
Read More...

Good job guys ! (Information Courtesy of CGT Oracle France Labor Union)

Yet an other aquisition - SPL Workgroup

2006-11-07T02:58:00.000-08:00

Following Portal Software, SunOpsis, Oracle announced an other Acquisition - SPL Workgroup aiming towards an end-to-end packaged revenue and operations management solution.

UK ruled as uncompliant regarding EU rest break rules

2006-11-02T13:58:00.000-08:00

The European Court of Justice as ruled a statement indicating the UK government is breaking the law by not forcing employers to give their staff rest breaks between shifts.
The UK transposition was considered as far too flexible, by stating the rules as indications but not enforcing them.

Finish presidency unveiled a plan to reduce this gap between UK and the rest of Europe (EU Observer).

This approach reminds of many Oracle statements regarding the need for better employee relations and representativity, at a time where :
- The Oracle EWC is still negociated by EU HR as a "tea and biscuits conversation body with mgmt"
- Many countries still miss their local Worker's Council
- A very active labor union delegate in France from CFDT is under an unfair layoff procedure attempt, only aiming at reducing employee representation.

More informations : Europe Observatory - BBC News - Herald Tribune -

Yet an other acquisition - MetaSolv

2006-10-23T14:19:00.000-07:00

Following the Portal purchase, yet an other telco business is beeing acquiered.
The announcement is available on Metasolv Web site. (FYI The link is ASP !)

Oracle is rolling out its Employee Assistance Program

2006-10-22T13:17:00.000-07:00

Seen on the corporate site, and localized within Europe with FGIworld and Eupora consulting, Oracle is planning to roll-out its plan to assist employees or their family under personal and/or professional stress, by allowing free anonymous external meetings with psycho professionals.
The announced goal is to "manage the mental, social and physical health of their employees and families to reduce the huge productivity costs of absence and underperformance on the job".
Those attentions towards employees are a good move, but our labor organization would have prefered a more careful approach beforehand, by considering work organisation and workload factors.
We can help...

Corporate Site Annoucement : To help you address problems that threaten to upset the stability of your life at home or at work, the Oracle Employee Assistance Program offers referral services and confidential, personal assessment. EAP services may help with stress, depression, difficulties with children, divorce, alcohol abuse, drugs, job worries, marital, financial, or legal problems. The EAP is staffed by licensed professionals from the fields of psychology, clinical social work, and counseling. They are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. An experienced intake specialist will arrange a confidential appointment with an EAP counselor. Services are free for up to three visits per family member per concern annually.

Oracle France General Manager Leaving...

2006-09-04T13:05:00.000-07:00

Following recent troops movements, followed by lieutenants departures in many sales divisions, the French General Manager announced he was also on his way out...
Couldn't find a place in this new deploying organization, blowing out country levels and managers, and aimed towards a "bright future".
However... His last words were "good luck"...

Siebel : On Target Sold to TAS

2006-07-03T13:27:00.000-07:00

On June 30, 2006 Select Selling acquired the majority of the global assets of OnTarget - the sales methodology division of Oracle Corporation - to form The TAS Group. From July 1, the combined business will operate as The TAS Group. The transaction did not include France or Italy, and the OnTarget businesses in those countries will continue to operate as they did before the acquisition.

On June 30th, France Worker's council was forced to ask management to draw back on the automatic French employee transfer as no guarantee was stated regarding their future in the new company.

Company Global Responsability - Pure Marketing ?

2006-06-02T00:09:00.000-07:00

The "Oracle Corporate Citizenship Report" has now been publicly released on Oracle main web site.
We support the goals announced in this document but we have some heavy doubts regarding local implementations in the countries, and corporate approach of charities direct transposability within Europe.
As an example, handicapped people hiring is still handled with a hand on the heart, but no positive action (see previous press release).
More important, June 5th is, by law, dedicated in France to solidarity working financement, with French employees working at no extra charge. This solidarity day should be used to go within schools, hospitals, instead of usual customers !

Admirable Personnal Investments of employees should be shared with company investments. We regret to see this is clearly not the case for now.

We request our company to :
- Dedicate ressource on shared time investments for charity programs.
- Elaborate responsability programs with local labor unions.
- Fix precise goals and timeframes to hire handicapped people.
- Stop playing with employee reps by letting the clock run and really negociate a living European Work's Council, including Switzerland

We encourage all employees World Wide to give feedback in the comment link below.

France Facing its destiny ?

2006-04-02T13:46:00.000-07:00

You will find a very interesting analysis "from abroad" from the Economist regarding the pains of changing France way of thinking job rules. http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=6744226

As a leading Labor organisation, we want to stress we admit the need for changes, but we want to be part of the process. We are sure we can be a real partner by giving our opinions, sharing points of view, and take our responsabilities for a signature. We want to have workers taking part in the road setting, instead of having them pushed the hard way through an unknown road..

Works Council : Oracle & SAP on the same line ?

2006-03-06T14:23:00.000-08:00

Oracle European Workers Council negociations, initiated in March 2004 on France Labor Union request still have a long way to go before the final go live due in March 2007, according to the maximum 3 years timeframe allowed by the EU EWC directive.

The negociations fail to succeed at the moment on the following points :
- What is a transnational event that needs to trigger an EWC meeting ?
- Can employee raise questions regarding Terms & Employement conditions ?
- EWC Termination, amendments or continuity terms.

Seen as cumbersome bureaucracy, instead of valuable feedback and shared benefits for both employees and management, work's councils are seen as the new devils that take away agility and responsiveness.

These questions are especially emphasized at SAP, where the management requests employees to reject a work council creation : http://www.hopp-info.de/index_e.html
Depending on the results, the headquarter German location may be questionned...

However, history in Oracle has shown us that relocations and lay off plans do not wait Works' councils to happen.

Hold-on SAP employees, like Oracle ones, you need to voice your opinions, invent alternatives, instead of just implementing. That's just what agility is about...

Siebel employees : Lucky ... Oracle ones Unlucky...

2006-02-12T12:40:00.000-08:00

Oracle announced 2000 jobs will be cut following Siebel Merger.
The most important part of those cuts will impact Oracle employees, and especially the Oracle CRM developpement group.
However, back office and marketing function will also suffer (again) from the merger.

Global Bonus

2006-01-16T15:04:00.000-08:00

Management announced last week that the intermediate payment of Global Bonuses has been cancelled.
The corporation intends to elaborate the bonus pools definitions during the fiscal year closure in order to optimize the announced results.

To be followed...

Oracle India Growing from 8,600 to 10,000 Employees

2006-01-13T14:35:00.000-08:00

Expension plans détails are available here.

We welcome the indians employees, hopping they will bring top class assistance to our customer and in return take the opportunity to ask for benefits Oracle used to provide its US/EMEA workforce.

Happy New Year 2006

2005-12-29T15:45:00.000-08:00

Oracle France CFDT Labor Union wishes you all a very happy new year 2006.

We also want to take this opportunity to ask your wishes regarding Oracle Social behaviour.

As an Oracle Employee, what would you like to see happening within Oracle ?

Please use the comment field below at your convenience.
It is completely anonymous.

Oracle/Siebel Merger - Call for Opinions

2005-12-18T13:58:00.000-08:00

The European Union Merger Directory is conducting a consultation process regarding the Oracle/Siebel Merger and its potential impacts within Europe.

We have officially requested to be part of this consultation and will be willing to relay and compile your opinions regarding this merger.

Please send us comments, before Wedneday Dec 21th.

Larry to donate 100 M$

2005-11-25T05:51:00.000-08:00

In order to settle the trial regarding a stock trading abuse in 2001, Larry accepted to donate 100 Million Dollars to a charity fund (more informations).
Also take note of the astronomic amount of attorney bills, adding an extra 22.5 Millions to make the deal.

Any comments welcome...

Negociating Handicapped people hiring goals within Oracle

2005-11-04T14:26:00.000-08:00

Oracle EMEA has annonced its intentions to cover the Social Responsability Area and promote some employee participations in social care activities.
Oracle France CFDT Labor Union is happy to see Oracle moving in this direction and has officially requested to open negociations regarding Handicapped people hiring within Oracle.

We think that though labor union control, an active hiring policy towards handicapped people, the adaptation of workspaces, reconsidering insourcing back some activities like physical and phone reception would show the way of really making a better world with Oracle.

For more informations contact cfdtoracle@free.fr

Wanted : French Consultant for 1800 Euros

2005-10-26T19:23:00.000-07:00

Tough times...
Consultant attrition is hard to compensate, and despite the internal calls for recruiting, with a 1800 cash for getting someone onboard, headcounts evolutions are still on the negative side, with many taking the opportunity for a change and a better consideration.
How many years would it take to build the 10+ years experienced consultants we loose ?

Apart from marketing, will we find a way to be the most admired company for the existing employees ?

France : PS/JDE EICP should be a thing from the past

2005-10-20T05:22:00.000-07:00

Following the PS/JDE Merger, the French local Worker's council is beeing consulted on Terms & Conditions changes proposals to ex- JDE/PS employees.
Oracle intends to propose a move towards, Discretionnary Bonuses (Consulting/Admin/IT/Marketing/Translation...) or Oracle University Variable Salary (Education) (when appropriate) in exchange of a one time compensation.
This one time compensation, paid one shot when accepting the change, has been built to compensate 2 years EICP.
However, the third and the following years, Oracle rules will apply and may lead to lower discretionnary bonus payments, including no payment at all, as seen in the past.

This proposal should promote employee mobility and streamline management processes.
We feel Oracle proposals are also an attempt to move from a contractual salary to a non contractual one, not enforceable anymore.

However the decision is in each employee's hands, who should consider his bests interests.

EWC Negociations / Round 2 - Over

2005-10-17T14:29:00.000-07:00

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

2005-10-12T21:17:00.000-07:00

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.

Oracle European Workers Council negociations

2005-10-10T16:10:00.000-07:00

A second round of negociations, one year after the previous ones is due to start today till Friday 14th.

The objective of these negociations with Top HR EMEA Management is to agree on a European Workers Council rules, before May 2007, where the European Community Default agreement will take place.

We want to have the opportunity to share our views with management and give the opportunity
of early feedback, for a better customer and employee satisfaction, and overall, a better complany performance.

We will keep you posted with the responses from management.

France SNB Representative.

Larry Ellison doubles his FY05 salary up to 7.5 M$

2005-09-02T00:32:00.000-07:00

We recommand the reading of the following article regarding Larry Ellison, Safra Katz and Jeff Henley compensation.
Their salary, Bonus and stock compensation bounce is impressive compared to FY04.

Regarding employees share of this success, we're talking of the same ultra-limited 3% salary increase in France, to be allocated at manager's discretion..

Oracle & IBM - The Indian Cup Race

2005-06-30T14:59:00.000-07:00

We recommand reading the article from Steve Lohr Published June 24, 2005 in the The New York Times.

13000 Jobs are beeing shutdown'ed in Europe/US while 14,000 are created in India.

Indian IT Professionals Competencies

2005-06-19T15:09:00.000-07:00

Again from one of our readers, yet an other article from developer Pipeline :

Finally, wrapping up the current thread of offshore outsourcing, there's yet again a mixed-bag of information. On the one hand are stories noting an increasing ambivalence about outsourcing among IT executives, and a growing shortage of skilled workers in offshore center India threatens to raise wages there and possibly put a dent in future growth. On the flip-side, the labor shortage shows just how hot and high-growth the Indian IT job market is, and Indian software exports jumped 34% last year, to $12 Billion, so someone is hiring all of those programmers. One of your colleagues shared his thoughts about the best strategy for first-world programmers to stay competitive, and we printed his letter here. If you'd like to share your thoughts, we'd like to hear them -- this is one area among many where Developer Pipeline will try to bring you the latest news and information.

No place for E-Workers councils

2005-06-10T14:58:00.000-07:00

Management has notified the local labor council today that they were now due to stop any communications towards employees on their internal site, apart from the sport/leisure stuff.
This decision comes at the exact same time with the restart of the Peoplesoft Merger Layoffs consultation, and after latests communications were reported as beeing the top hits from the web server.

The local Worker's council had managed to get a justice decision to cancel the previous Layoff consultation and made his position very clear towards employees.

Management seems to have decided it is time again to move back towards dark ages regarding Employee communication (raw paper distribution is still allowed ...).

Which Place for E-Labor Unions

2005-06-08T14:47:00.000-07:00

A trial will be held June 15th, in the 14th court of Justice of the Versailles Appeal court (5 Rue Carnot - Versailles - France).
What is at stake is the capability for a trade union to receive free subscriptions to an external newsgroup in order to send social communications to Oracle Employees.
400+ employees subscribed to a vos-droits-oracle@yahoogroups newsletter since 2001. In August 2005, a law rewriting conducted Oracle Management to ask this newsgroup to be suspended because no aggreement had been concluded with the local labor union.
The labor union, referred to individual freedom rights and the internal internet usage policy allowing personnal access to internet.
If personnal and professional usage of internet and emails was allowed - Why would labor union E-usage be prohibited ?

The law indicates that labor union emails shall comply with antispam regulations and shall not overwhelm the internal systems. Would a 400 freely subscribed employee monthly letter be able to jam the huge internal Oracle Email System ?

This shall be examined by the Versailles court next week.

Offshore Salaries: Vietnam Is Cheapest, But India Is Still A Bargain

2005-06-05T14:03:00.000-07:00

By courtesy of one of our readers and from InformationWeek, we advise you to read this report regarding IT developpers costs.
Indian salaries are still low and offer a place of choise regarding offshore.

Some Cold, Hard Numbers On Outsourcing

2005-05-24T13:41:00.000-07:00

Again a very interesting post submitted by one of our readers, from Richard HoffmanEditor, Developer Pipeline, showing the state of mind of US IT professionals.

Please note the "Better Job security and increased wages" ... We're on the same line from both sides of the Ocean...

Editor's Note: Some Cold, Hard Numbers On Outsourcing

Greetings, colleagues!
The final numbers are in for our offshore outsourcing poll, and it's pretty much as grim as we reported last week. One out of 20 of you (5%) say "bring it on," another 5% say outsourcing actually benefits you, and a few, 3%, say if you can't beat 'em, join 'em—you said, whether tongue-in-cheek or not, that you're going to relocate yourself offshore. Another 20% say you're worried, but not too much—it hasn't directly affected your working life yet. However, a large majority, 59% of you, say that offshoring is a big, big problem, right now. And in an echo of the previous poll on IT workplace conditions, almost one out of ten of you who responded said that you're bailing out of IT entirely.

So bottom-line, 13% of you are pretty positive about offshore outsourcing in one way or another, 20% are worried but neutral, and 68% have already been burned. Wow. With numbers like that, it's hard to put a positive spin on it. Almost seven out of ten of you don't like what's happening out there at all. So now that we have the results, what do you think about them?

One of our recent articles is a refrain of the song you're clearly singing here, suggesting that the pressures and challenges of outsourcing-centric development, including the move towards 24-hour development cycles, is already causing serious strain and difficulties.

Could these difficulties have contributed to Sears recently bailing out of a huge, $1.6 billion outsourcing deal with Computer Sciences Corporation only months into the project? So far, nobody is saying anything about the cause of the split, but if you have an opinion, or even better, an inside scoop, let us know - we'd love to hear what you have to say.

Speaking of opinions, many of you continued to chime in over the past weeks with strong, clear thoughts on the topic. Here are a few of them:

Terry R. notes a potential cause and effect between outsourcing and a shortage in Computer Science graduates in the Unites States:

Now that outsourcing has caused a significant reduction in Computer Science enrollment some leaders are saying that we need to boost enrollment or lose our lead in IT. Of course no one has suggested the obvious solution, better job security and increased wages.

In a nutshell, it is foolish to think the US can send our high tech jobs overseas to lower costs and still maintain our lead. Engineers and programmers are bright people, if they can't make a good living in IT they will go to a field where they can.

Of course a significant shortage of U.S. programmers will, due to the basic laws of supply and demand, tend to boost wages for at least some of those who are left. Another way of looking at that, though, is that extremely scarce and expensive U.S. programmers makes bean-counters more likely to want to move development to lower-cost offshore centers, as well as bring in more H1-B workers . What about it? Are we just creating a vicious cycle here?

Phil B. notes an even more ominous trend, speculating that other overriding market forces will put a natural limit on outsourcing of IT:

Surely I've been affected by the outsourcing, however in my opinion that trend has no future. Never mind all the quality problems, missed deadlines etc plaguing the outsourcers. The key factor that will undermine the outsourcers is the US dollar which despite short term fluctuations is in the slow motion collapse because of the astronomical US trade deficit. The outsourcers only add to that deficit thereby hastening the dollar's decline.

According to India Daily at 37 rupees to the dollar the indian software sector will be breaking even—at 35 rupees to the dollar they will be closing down; rate has already declined to 43. Any economist will tell you that the dollar has nowhere to go but down given the disastrous US trade situation. Here's the New York University study predicting a collapse no later than 2006.

That situation has now become structural as the US simply does not produce much of the stuff anymore and must import. The outsourcing will die within the next few years at the very most. I think that situation needs to be made widely known

Is this all a moot point, then? If the dollar continues to slide against other currencies, does that make offshore outsourcing impractical? And will that have any impact on other first-world but non-U.S. outsourcing trends? Let us know what you think.

Richard Hoffman
Editor, Developer Pipeline
rhoffman@nwc.com
www.DeveloperPipeline.com

Oracle purchases 2 developpement centers in India

2005-05-23T15:03:00.000-07:00

Please follow the link.

400,000 Euros for an illegal Firing

2005-05-19T14:41:00.000-07:00

A french employee of Oracle gained 400 KE in Justice by convicting Oracle France of illegal firing in a case very similar to Pier Carlo Falotti.
Beeing fired a few days before beeing able to vest his stock options was considered as an abuse by French judges. Oracle France has decided to escale to appeal court.

More informations to come soon...