Company Global Responsability - Pure Marketing ?

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 ?

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 ?

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...

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

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

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

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

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$

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

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

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

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

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

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

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$

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

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

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

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

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.