DNEG staff draft urgent Collective Grievance for colleagues to sign
DNEG London staff draft urgent Collective Grievance for colleagues to sign
In advance of the company’s Tuesday deadline, a large group of DNEG London employees have met online, and agreed on a Collective Grievance statement that they are urging colleagues to sign before noon on Tuesday
The Collective Grievance calls upon the management to stop trying to railroad them into swingeing wage cuts of up to 25% before everyone concerned can have the opportunity to understand the reasons behind them.
In addition, many are still even confused about what it is they are being offered in the first place. For these reasons, they are calling upon their colleagues at DNEG London to support their request for a real, and meaningful staff consultation with them before imposing a wage-cut.
Speaking on behalf of the workers who have drafted the statement, Bectu Official Paul Evans said:
“We are expecting this Collective Grievance to attract widespread support - including from people who are not Bectu members.
The DNEG London employees who helped draft it have made it clear that there is nothing in the Collective Grievance that that can damage the company, or stop it from taking any steps that it needs to take to preserve jobs.
All they are asking for is the right to have a meaningful conversation with the employers. This is a very reasonable request.
A good consultation will allow them to fully understand the company’s position. DNEG Have lost a huge amount of the goodwill that they will need in future by trying to railroad the staff in this way. This Collective Grievance is designed to help rebuild that trust.”
The union believes that a collective grievance such as this will put pressure on the company to delay a final decision on this. This can be done without doing any harm to the company's ability to retain jobs. This move is driven by genuine concerns among staff that the proposed cuts are not being made for the reasons that management claim, and that they are not being applied fairly, either among the staff within the company or between staff and the shareholders who have taken huge rewards out of the company in recent years.
In particular, there are concerns that these cuts will soon be followed by redundancies, and staff are really seeking reassurances that they are not going to be asked to take steps to preserve their jobs, only to lose them soon afterwards with inadequate compensation as a result of doing so.
The decision to write this collective grievance follows a number of large online meetings with Bectu following union guidance on how animation and VFX workers should respond to employers who ask for cuts in terms and conditions during the Covid-19 crisis.