Unite members at Fujitsu have voted tostrike over pay and
pensions.
Staff at the computer firm have voted against a proposal to
close the company's final salary pension scheme and the
imposition of a pay freeze. Of Unite members at Fujitsu, 87% voted
in favour of strike action and 96% in favour of industrial action
short of a strike.
According to Unite, 4,000 employees are affected by the
company's pension plan. If the proposal goes ahead, the company
intends to dismiss employees after the end of the consultation
period in September, and offer them employment on new contracts
which are unchanged except in relation to pensions, Unite said.
The union estimates that the proposed pension scheme change
would reduce the total pay package of each employee by at least
15%.
UK staff have been hard hit by the company's restructuring
plans. In June last year Fujitsu
announced jobs were at risk after Connecting for Health
terminated Fujitsu's £1.1bn contract under the
NHS £12.7bn National Programme for IT. Last week
Fujitsu announced proposals for
1,200 redundancies in the UK, amounting to 10% of its UK
workforce.
The company's plans affect
staff who worked at ICL, which was acquired by Fujitsu in
1990.
Peter Skyte, Unite national officer for IT and communications,
said: "Fujitsu Services is not struggling or failing. It is a
highly profitable and successful company but one which is seeking
to take advantage of the recession to attack jobs, pay, pensions
and conditions."