We reported yesterday the heartaching rumour that DLA Phillips Fox staff were subject to a revelutionary pay

Foxy lady breaks hearts

I am an employee of DLA Phillips Fox (Sydney) and ‘all’ staff have not had their salaries reduced by 10%. There a number of junior lawyers on my floor who have been asked to ‘work flexibly’ for eg one works a 9 day fortnight and is paid accordingly.

So is the firm asking the junior lawyers, or are the junior lawyers asking the firm? Are the purportedly affected staff entitled to a day off each fortnight, or will they have to come into work on their day off if there is ‘work to do’? Will they receive the 10% if they come in on their day off?

We look forward to further clarifications from both DLA Phillips Fox spies and/or from the firm.

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Embattled major national firm DLA Phillips Fox appears to be at it again. We received the following email from an

a corporate paroxysm

Not only have DLA Phillips Fox had two rounds of redundancies. But all of the staff have also had their salaries reduced by 10%. To compensate staff for the reduction in pay they are entitled to take off one day a fortnight unless they have work to do or are needed. So it is essentially a 10% reduction in pay with little in return.

If you thought a pay freeze was an oppressive development, think again! If this claim is true, it would make DLA Phillips Fox the first major Australian law firm (that we’re aware of, anyhow) to have introduced a scheme of reduced pay for reduced work. We have seen similar chicanery at KPMG and PriceWaterhouseCoopers, but nothing from the major law firms.

In terms of the corporate paroxysms we have variously reported since the outset of the GFC, this development, if true, must surely mark a new meridian. You’ll recall DLA Phillips Fox is rumoured to have implemented:

• a first wave of redundancies;
• a pay-freeze;
• a second wave of redundancies; and
• a tenancy squeeze combined with an alleged third wave of redundancies.

We invite a clarification from DLA Phillips Fox. Stay tuned for more developments as they come to light. Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

I am an employee of Deloitte … I have been actively involved in “counselling” out under-performers…  We’ve had about 6 people leave our team in the last 6 months because of this. Partners will be giving themselves bonuses for FY 2009.  Yes, that’s right!  Despite all the gloom, pay freeze for us shit kickers

don’t be fooled by his good looks, Toadfish is a juvenile delinquent

and all the cost cutting to training and development, Partners will be getting bonuses.  Depending on their performance, Partners will receive between 5% to 20% of their base pay as a bonus… Only people getting a promotion will receive a pay rise in July.  Latest news is that the new base is about 15% less than what was paid to a similar person just 6 months ago. Well, I guess some-one needs to fund those bonuses.

A cat failing to reach its performance targets

It would be outrageous for Gadens to freeze our pay, given that so much of our income is tied up in performance bonuses. I cant speak for others, but my wage is significantly lower than what friends at comparable firms are paid, and only once I achieve my performance target over several months is parity restored. It goes without saying that when the GFC arrived, reaching my target became virtually unachievable… This is almost a kind of pay freeze in itself.

It is unclear whether this source is a junior or senior solicitor, but it is quite apparent that, if true, this method of market-tied remuneration is less immune from the GFC than most.  A kind of micro-partnership slice, if you will.  Should solicitors bear this risk allocation?  We invite further comments from other Gadens staffers.

PwC today announced that 3500 staff agreed to participate in its ‘I Cant Believe It’s Not: A PwC Pay Freeze’ initiative.

we will NOT feed you to the lions if you decline

This is one of the better strategic things we have done for some time.

Johnson also took time to point out the ‘voluntary’ nature of the program:

We emphasised we were not putting pressure on people to take part

However, a PwC spy had a different assessment of the unpaid leave plan in comments we received back in May. Who is telling the truth (we don’t know)? The comments we received in May appear to strike a similar chord to the present murmurings at KPMG.

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Mark Phillippoussis is apparently not the only half-wit who blew all his cash when times were better. The Firm Spy has been informed that much like the Poo, who begrudgingly sold his Hummer to repay debts, the KPMG partnership has also been forced to take extraordinary measures to stop the rot.

This from a KPMG spy earlier today:

A KPMG worker pretends there is a client of the phone

…all workers, partners included, have been asked to vote in two weeks on a scheme designed to save jobs. The options are -

1. agree to take a 20% pay cut in exchange for a 4-day working week;
2. agree to take a sabbatical of up to 3 months on 30% pay
3. or do nothing

It is a ‘vote’ in the sense that if more than 70% don’t vote in favour of it, there will be no mandate to implement it. However, if a mandate is given, there will not be a broad implementation of it, but rather a new discretion in the partners to implement it on an ad hoc basis. If no mandate is given, it is speculated that the first to be sacked (if required) will be those who did not vote in favour of it.

It almost beggars belief that an institution whose entire reason for existence is to advise on matters of fiscal prudence could so gravely have miscalculated the number of workers it would need. Not once, not twice, but thrice. On three separate occasions now the KPMG partnership has been forced to revise its employee numbers. First there was the KPMG KO, in which dozens were sacked without warning. Then there was the second wave of redundancies, taking the figure to a total of 200 sackings.

Will the third cut be the deepest? Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

With questions still being asked about Clayton Utz’s conduct in relation to the pay freeze uncovered by the

A Clutz lawyer on an involuntary leave of absence

We received the following tip from an anonymous source earlier today:

At Clayton Utz Sydney earlier this year there was a team in the corporate group where the partner made/arranged for her team to take unpaid leave for about a month.

The same lawyers who agreed to take leave without pay have nevertheless had their pay frozen along with all other non-partner staff. Going by the Firm Spy’s analysis of the PwC leaves of absence, this means that the affected employees will receive a significant decrease in wages.

Have you been asked to take leave without pay?

Are Clayton Utz partners being fair to lawyers who took leave without pay by freezing their wages?

Send the Firm Spy your news and views first!

As if losing hundreds of your work-friends and being denied a pay increase wasn’t enough, it has emerged in another Firm

A PwC partner leaving the office

In a scheme that could only have been conjured by a penny-pinching accountant, the Firm Spy has been told:

Senior management, as well as our direct partners, have requested that staff take a three week leave of absence … somewhere between the start of the new financial year and December 31. … The request was framed as ‘optional’, but it was made clear to me that there is to be little choice in the matter. ..Over this half-year period, on my junior wage of $52k, this leave of absence will amount to a loss 10% of my income.

Each of Ernst & Young, KPMG and particularly Deloitte have so far shown tremendous restraint in responding to the GFC.

Is the PwC partnership failing its staff? Does a partnership concern for the safety of a six-figure (or seven-figure) salary truly justify the hardship presently endured by the retained PxC staff?

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!