Fujitsu faces strike action over pay freeze

Fujitsu is facing legal action over its plans for a pay freeze and an end to final salary pensions at its British plants.

Members of the Unite union voted by 87 per cent in favour of strike action and 96 per cent were in favour of industrial action short of a strike. Over 4,000 workers face the closure of their final salary pension scheme and in September will be fired, and then rehired under new contracts.

The company also imposed a pay freeze just before the next round of raises were due. All in all the union estimates pay packets will be cut by 15 per cent by the moves. This is in addition to cutting ten per cent of the workforce earlier in the year.

“Our members are insisting that the company should pay fairly and provide decent pensions for all its employees,” said Peter Skyte, Unite national officer for IT and communications .

“Following the announcement of 1200 redundancies, they are now calling for the issue of job cuts to be included in any ballot for formal industrial action. We are calling on the company to meet us to resolve these issues and avoid the risk of damaging industrial action.”

He pointed out that the company was still very profitable, was predicting profits to rise and that two directors had recently received payouts of two directors of £1.59 million for the loss of their jobs.