Friday, July 17, 2020

Company Cuts Tech Department's Pay, Mass Walkout Ensues


This is what happens when management underestimates who is doing the actual work. In this case, it was the tech department. One does not mess with the tech department. It sounds like the eventual, successfully executed walkout created pure chaos for the company. 

1.

Text - r/ProRevenge + Join u/Large-Meat-Feast • 1d 2 Fire us or cut our pay? Enjoy a mass walk- out. Not sure if revenge or Karma, but it fits revenge (I hope) Back in the early 2000s, I worked for a tech company who offered tech support, on-site support and training to organisations who either didn't want specialised IT staff, or could benefit from outsourcing. The company consisted of the three directors, a Sales department, Finance/HR department, and Tech department. Tech was further split, w

2.

Text - For call-centre support (where I worked) we had 2 team leaders, 2 senior engineers, 2 "normal" engineers and 2 juniors. I was a standard engineer, earning 22k for a job that was worth at least 5k more outside of the low price area we all lived in. 2006, and I'm still stuck in this job, on the same pay. Conditions are worse than before, with no overtime, no flexitime, no financial compensation for industry qualifications, shortened breaks and no pay rise since I started. To make matters wo

3.

Text - One Friday in July(think it was the 21st) one of the senior engineers finds a document, that he shares around the private chat app. It's a restructuring plan that the board voted in last week. Apparently, this had to be made available for the company for 3 months before any changes to terms and conditions could be made, so the board gave it a generic filename and tried to bury it in the large staff shared area of the network. One of the directors was selling his shares and moving on, havi

4.

Text - Most of the document was a typical downsize/ restructure package with a twist. A few team mergers, staff reductions and pay cuts spun as if to say that they needed to maximise their profits to put the lost money back into the company. In October, a new contract would be released for all to sign, and was generic. In November, the restructure would be announced, and by January 1st, the new structure would be in place. The directors noted that the new contract needed to unclude clauses for n

5.

Text - Over the weekend, I got a text message from one of the senior engineers inviting me to a BBQ at his house. When I got there, most of the tech staff was there, and during the afternoon we formulated a battle plan. Our Revenge. Monday 24th July, 8AM. 26 people in the Tech team arrived for work as normal, each with a letter for the senior manager giving their 1 month notice, and all quoting the clause in their contract that states that members of the technical team with access to confidentia

6.

Text - Gardening Leave is a term used to say that we still work for the company, have handed in our notice to quit, but can't remain on site or using company resources so must wait out the remainder of the notice at home. We can't start a new job within that period. The net effect was that at 9:30AM, the director realised that his entire tech staff had quit and marched to the office floor and started harrassing one of the seniors. The senior simply stood, took off his ID badge and swipe card, ha

7.

Text - The day after our notice period expired, the Senior engineer welcomed 25 new staff to his new company, and had already taken ten large contracts from the place we used to work for. We all had better pay (not much, but it was better than losing pay) and much better conditions, with an actual carreer track rather than the whim of the managers. The old company tried to keep afloat for a year, but were losing money on every contract and couldn't afford to employ skilled or experienced people.

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Text - I left the new company in 2010 as the market had changed and more companies were hiring staff than outsourcing so contracts were harder to find and I also had some minor medical issues that meant I needed to be near home. New company is still going strong though, having leant more towards web design and development than anything else these days. 6.3k 180 1 Share

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