Unite announced first ever national strike in a UK IT company over jobs, payand pensions Unite, the largest union in the UK, has today (Thursday 5 November) servednotice of a three day strike on IT services company Fujitsu to take place on12, 13 and 16 November. This follows the vote of Unite members in the companyby a majority of 75% voting for industrial action and 92% voting for actionshort of a strike in a ballot announced earlier this week.
According to the union, this would be the first ever national strike in the ITsector in the UK. Members of the PCS union will also be taking part in strikeaction. The strike is over proposals for 1200 redundancies in the UK with the firstcommencing in December, a pay freeze imposed earlier this year, and plans bythe company's to close the final salary pension scheme to future accrual,reducing the total pay package of each affected employee by typically around 20per cent.
Peter Skyte, Unite National Officer, said: “We wrote to the Fujitsu UK Chief Executive on Monday following theindustrial action ballot announcement with the aim of attempting to resolve theissues on jobs, pay and pensions. So far we have yet to receive any formalresponse from the company. Our members are saying enough is enough, andemployee representatives on the company’s consultative forum have tenderedtheir resignations over the way they are being treated. We recognise the effect any industrial action will have on key private andpublic sector customers and clients of Fujitsu, but the responsibility for thisrests squarely with the company for failing to talk to us or address theissues.”
Fujitsu Services continues to make substantial profits, with a £200m profitbefore taxation last year, while the parent company is cash rich, having raisedover $900m from a share sale. Announcing the latest results on 28 October, theFujitsu President highlighted that for the first half of the year, the companybeat its earnings target despite a very challenging business environment. Fujitsu employs around 12,000 people in the UK.
Fujitsu’s main sites are at Bracknell, Stevenage, Manchester, Crewe, Belfast, Staines, Basingstoke,Wakefield, Sheffield, Solihull, Slough, Lewes, Warrington, Cardiff, Bristol,Newcastle and London.
