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Fujitsu Services hacks bonuses to pay for minimum wage hike

Break fix division given nod of changes on the eve of April Fools' Day

Exclusive Folk at Fujitsu Services Engineering Services Ltd (FSESL) have claimed that changes to their bonuses made to accommodate a rise in the minimum wage will actually leave some of them worse off.

From 1 April – the Fools’ Day – the UK organisation complied with new government legislation to raise the National Living Wage for those over 25 to a base salary of £7.20 an hour.

Staff working at the break-fix division of Fujitsu were first informed of the “pay changes” on 31 March, when the company noted that the majority of FSESL employees earn “greater than this level”.

“We have taken on board feedback from previous employee forums and made the decision to rebalance base and incentive levels to ensure that this new hourly rate is reflected in employees' base salary, irrespective of age,” the memo from Fujitsu stated.

The base salary however was “achieved” by the “withdrawal of the discretionary quarterly £150 loyalty bonus”, and a “reduction of the quality element of the monthly incentive scheme from the current target of £2,156 to a revised target level of £1,681”.

FSESL told workers the “overall level[s] of earning are unlikely to be affected by these changes”. But this is not the case, according to some insiders.

“We are actually worse off than before they increased our base salary, one told us. “All the colleagues I know are disillusioned and looking elsewhere.”

Fujitsu agreed to raise the minimum wage to £14,000 almost four years ago following pressure from union Unite, some two years after the corporation had upped the base level to £12,000.

A spokesman at Fujitsu refused to comment on “matters relating to its employees' salary”. ®

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