Nearly 200 workers at
Airwave have voted to strike over compulsory redundancies at
the company.
Two days of strike action will start on Friday 13 March after
the company said it would need to resort to compulsory redundancies
to cut its workforce by 11%.
Emergency telecoms network provider Airwave, which recently
announced a contract with the
London 2012 Olympics, wants to cut 95 jobs in response to the
economic downturn. So far it has accepted 59 voluntary
applications.
But the Communications Workers Union says the company has not
been badly affected by the downturn.A spokeswoman said, "We have
always had an understanding with the company that there would be no
compulsory redundancies. It makes a real difference to staff if
there is a voluntary approach.
"Airwave is not really being affected that badly by the credit
crunch. So it is a question of the level of redundancies, but also
the way that they are going about it. It is causing a lot of strife
for workers."
The company says it is prepared for the strike action, and that
it will be "unaffected".
Richard Bobbett, Airwave's CEO, said, "I am deeply disappointed
that the CWU feel such action is necessary and I look forward to
continued talks with the CWU in the not too distant future."
Grace Mitchell, national official at CWU with responsibility for
Airwave, said, "This is a very clear result demonstrating the
strength of feeling among Airwave members.
"We would hope that this result will make Airwave reconsider
their compulsory redundancies and approach this difficult situation
with more consideration for their staff."
A picket line will be in place at the Rugby network management
centre during strike days.