Unite @ OVH - Unite London Digital & Tech branch

How will joining Unite help employees at OVH?

People join trade unions for a variety of reasons.

Members at OVH are dealing with issues such as –

A Lack of Transparency about how pay and promotions operate. This makes planning your career more difficult
A poor sick pay scheme. Significantly inferior to what OVH Employees in other countries get (such as France) and below what many IT/Digital company’s pay their staff in the UK when absent from work.
No collective voice in the workplace. Any representative of workers should be of their choosing, and accountable to them.

By joining together as members of Unite, Employees of OVH can work together to address these things and more.

Who is Unite?

Unite is one of the biggest trade unions in the UK. Its members work in all kinds of jobs, across many different industries and companies. Unite organises its members into industrial sectors.

IT, Communications and Digital workers are part of the GPM&IT Sector and within London they belong to the London Digital & Tech Branch.

What does a trade union do?

A unions job is to protect the rights and improve the conditions of its members at work.

Is your contract of employment equal?
do you have the power to challenge things you don’t like in the workplace?,
can you exert any meaningful influence over management on your own?

To change things for the better, We need to Unionise!

By coming together with other workers as members of a Union, and working together collectively to tackle problems in the workplace, we achieve more than we do alone.

Unions support their members

Individually for grievance or disciplinary matters,

AND

Collectively through dialogue with management via workplace representatives elected by the members.

To engage with management collectively, a union must be recognised.

What is Union Recognition?

Union recognition is a legal status given to a trade union where it can demonstrate support from a majority of workers. This can be all or part of the workforce.

Recognition can either be achieved through a voluntary agreement or where the company resists through a statutory procedure.

When a union is recognised it can negotiate with management about pay rates/bands, holiday entitlement and working hours.

It can also consult with the company about Health & Safety, Redundancy and TUPE matters and raise other issues of collective interest to employees.

Will the company or my manager be angry about me joining?

Companies and managers react in different ways to staff a joining trade union. Any concerns managers might have are normally resolved once a working relationship is established between Unite and an employer.

Remember –

You have a legal right to join a trade union in the UK , you don’t have to tell your employer or boss you have joined.
It is illegal to penalise or dismiss someone for joining, or to offer them incentives for not joining a union and/or not to have a trade union recognised.
Most employers belong to employers associations and act collectively to lobby government or influence outcomes within their own industries, so why shouldn’t you!
Once recognised, having a trade union to deal with collectively can actually make relations with employees easier to manage for an employer.

Ask a question?

If you’ve never been a member of unite (or any trade union), you probably have lots more questions about this.

To ask a question you can either –

email the full time officer allocated to OVH members in London – matthew.whaley@unitetheunion.org

For more information visit the main UnitetheUnion website – http://www.unitetheunion.org