Pay Packet: Is this right? Is This Even Legal?

Skywriter

Hi all,

I was hoping to get some advise here about this. I've been working in a tech support job for a few months now for CPL in Hewlett Packard and I am having a serious issue with their pay packets. When I started I was put on a very low salary (not far off minimum wage) and €1000 less per year (inc smaller bonuses) than the people hired the month previous to when I started. I then heard that two months after I joined, people were being hired for €500 less than I was on (inc less bonuses still) and now there are people being hired for €1000 less than me with almost no bonuses. It has nothing to do with experience, only start date. Rumours around the office are also saying that in some of the departments containing mostly foreign nationals, the pay packets can go as low as €17000 for doing the same job!

Personally I think this is a disgrace. Mainly because we received our latest pay checks which had our three month bonus inside. In order to get the full bonus, an insane amount of criteria has to be met, which I did meet and got my full bonus. Meanwhile the fairly incompetent guy who sits a few desks down from me (who has been at the company maybe two months longer than I have) did not meet all the criteria to get his bonus, proof that the guy is useless AND he missed 2 days during the month (unpaid). He still got paid more than me! He takes longer breaks than anyone else on the desk, he lives on facebook and never learns anything - he asks the same questions everyday, he is always avoiding work (leaving me and the other three other guys to do everything).

This isn't a rant about this one guy, the company is full of people like this, guys who come in late everyday, take 10 cigarette breaks a day, always abusing the system to get out of actually doing their job, putting more work on the people who don't abuse it but still make more money than me and anyone unfortunate enough to be hired after me. Do they get punished? Not really, they sometimes don't get all of their bonus - not that it means much to me because they still make more money.

Not sure if this is truth or rumour but.....if this is true, it made me especially sick when I found out that Hewlett Packard pay CPL our wage. CPL take their cut off the top & then they pay us, but the money that Hewlett Packard pays CPL has NEVER changed! CPL just seem to be after more money.

Surely this can't be fair? Is it even legal? Can anybody give me some advise here? I would love to leave this job but there is nothing else out there. Is there someone I can report this company too? I have never been late, always stick to break schedules and have only called in sick once in the 8 months I've been here (with a legitimate excuse), how can a company treat their employees like this?!

Is there anything I can do about this?

testicle

Perfectly legal, if you don't like it, leave.

leeroybrown

It seems to be perfectly legal. You're contracted to CPL on a specific agreement who in turn provide your services to HP for a specific cost. So long as they don't breach your legal rights or the contract you're employed under then they've done nothing wrong. While the contracts they have with other employees may be better or worse they've got no real bearing on your situation, apart from your happiness.

ScouseMouse

Absolutely nothing wrong with it. It could be the company is trying to bring their costs down to compete with foreign labour.

One thing that comes to mind though is you have mentioned CPL and HP. If I was a boss in either company, I would not be impressed you talking about this here so you may need to watch your back. Just a personal observation!

stepbar

I wouldn't give two fcuks TBH. He's right to have grievance.

Agent Smith

Hi Skywriter, Welcome to boards.ie

when you started your employment, you agreed to work for x amount of money, for CPL. If the guy in the next cube/desk is earning twice as much as you, its not favortisim, its because he signed a contract stating that he would work for x*2 amount of money.

In order to get the full bonus, an insane amount of criteria has to be met, which I did meet and got my full bonus.

well, Its hardly insane if people are hitting the bonus, yourself included.

eth0_

Perfectly legal.
Most people who have worked in I.T. support in Dublin will know about the CPL jobs and know that it's a real _entry level job_ where you stay for a year and then move on to something decent.

If you don't like it, leave. If your employers read this (and you're probably very easy to identify), you could face the sack. So you might want to edit your post.

Cleopatra12

Ah, but dont forget EU law 'Equal pay for equal work or work of equal value'

Have a look at that legislation..... europa.eu

leeroybrown

Cleopatra12 wrote: »

Ah, but dont forget EU law 'Equal pay for equal work or work of equal value'

This has no bearing. This deals mainly with discrimination on the basis of gender (or other standard discriminatory factors). They'd have absolutely no problem defending themselves against an allegation on this basis (and rightly so).

leeroybrown

Also, they could quite easily claim that in the current economic circumstances their preferred rate of pay is that which the new entrants receive. Other employees only receive more pay on the basis of pre-existing contracts.

ScouseMouse

Cleopatra12 wrote: »

Ah, but dont forget EU law 'Equal pay for equal work or work of equal value'

Have a look at that legislation..... europa.eu

Havent read it and dont care anyway as it has to be wrong.

I have two employees doing the same job. One more experienced than the other. Do you expect me to pay them 'Equal pay for equal work or work of equal value', NO. One has more experience than the other. All things and people are not equal so even without looking at it, you must be wrong. This must be out of the context.

And even if your not, then they are !!!

Cleopatra12

superscouse wrote: »

Havent read it and dont care anyway as it has to be wrong.

I have two employees doing the same job. One more experienced than the other. Do you expect me to pay them 'Equal pay for equal work or work of equal value', NO. One has more experience than the other. All things and people are not equal so even without looking at it, you must be wrong. This must be out of the context.

And even if your not, then they are !!!

Ah but their work is not of equal value as one has more experience, therefore you can deem that work as being more valueable.

Thoie

As others have said, there's nothing illegal about it, you negotiated/accepted a certain rate of pay independent of anyone else's pay. The moral "right" of the situation doesn't come into it.

What you can do is go back to your employer, the contracting company, and ask if they'd be willing to renegotiate your pay based on your additional experience/good performance. Do NOT mention anyone else's salary, or tell them that you know Mickey Joe is earning 1,000 more than you. Just ask would it be possible to negotiate a payrise of, for example, 1,000.

To repeat previous posts - I'd also advise editing your original post to remove specific company names.

doolox

I have worked in places where people have complained about the comparative outputs of different colleagues in their organisation and have made public their feelings that they are carrying the lions share of the workload and everyone else is "doing nothing".
The reality is often different.
It is up to the bosses to decide on who does what where and when and how much. Bosses value team players, people who do not complain publically about the state of other peoples work and get on with the work at hand and do their share.
The fact that you got full bonus is a recorded and public acknowledgment of your worth to the company, be happy with it. It will stand to you in the future.
What other people do in the organisation should have very little to do with you apart from standard employee obligations to report any obvious vandalism, breach of rules or theft or misuse of company property ( or other people....).
If you know about someone misusing the company resources to surf the net you should report it to avoid being called to task over it if looking after the 'net and other IT resources is part of your job. The fact that someone is on facebook all the time is probably traceable and you might be called to task for allowing it on your shift, depending on company policy.
One to one negotiation about pay rates might be in order but highly unlikely to succeed in the present economic climate. Unemployment affects everybody in society, not only the unemployed, as it depresses wages and weakens bargaining power of all workers in a sector. It has nothing to do with effort, level of difficulty or expertise required to do a job. Wages are determined in the main by scarcity of qualified people, legal protection, custom and the level of effective trade union advocacy allowed in a particular sector. Unfortunately IT in the private sector has little or no trade union protection, has a plentiful supply of qualified people looking for work, and has little or no legal obligation on the employer to hire or select qualified people, unlike medicine or Engineering and other sectors where affiliation to a regulatory body is essential to employment.
For example, electricians and gas fitters have to be members of a regulatory body to be employed. This gives these sectors good bargaining power to leverage high wages from their companies. It is however, difficult, costly and demanding to get registered with CORGI or RECI, requiring expensive insurance premia each year to stay valid which many in the sector cannot afford. Courses in the sector require long periods of one-to-one training and coaching with already qualified, and expensive, workers which puts other people off.
IT courses in the main are comparitively cheap to do and get qualified in regardless of the level of difficulty involved. Unfortunately too many people are doing them and becoming available for the limited number of jobs in that sector.
In addition software is becoming more user friendly and the general public are becoming more tech savvy. As time goes by the need for specialised IT support will become less in the general computing area.
An example is the increasing use of USB keys for people to hold their personal data, obviating the need for high reliabilty in PC's and OS's. The consequences of a crash are not as catatrophic for personal users as they once were.
I would suggest that you look long and hard at your future in IT and try and break into another sector with stronger bargaining power even if it has limited access and requires greater effort to get into.
For now do your share of the work and cover for no one else. Report any obvious and glaring misuse of company time, resources etc by others which may be held against you if it is part of your job to notice these things.
Record all time spent on work activities so you can cover yourself when the inquiries start to be made, if people are dossing and taking long breaks as you say it is inevitable that inquiries and audits will be conducted to find the culprits. Do your own job well, cover your ass and let the others take the consequences................

Mrs OBumble

Skywriter wrote: »

Hi all,

... but the money that Hewlett Packard pays CPL has NEVER changed! CPL just seem to be after more money.

I very much doubt this. Multi-nationals are always pushing their contractors to cut costs, they won't have ignored the current labour market opportunities that CPL are making us of.