Unite Reaction to Reading Annuities Announcement

Friday, May 27th, 2016

Following the announcement in Reading on 26th May which saw 82 Prudential employees in the Reading Annuities area put at risk of redundancy Unite Finance Sector have issued a press release.

The proposals which are subject to consultation will see some work moving to Craigforth, some remaining in Reading but the vast majority moving to Mumbai.

The press release says:-

Prudential, the life insurance and financial services giant, has announced plans to offshore up to 80 UK jobs from Reading to Mumbai, India, said Unite, the trade union for UK finance workers.

81 workers in the Individual Annuities division, which handles servicing and bereavements, have been told that their jobs are to be moved out of Reading. While a minority of these roles will transfer to Prudential’s site in Craigforth, Scotland the vast majority will be offshored to India.

Following this news Unite will begin a 45 day consultation period with the employer. Throughout this process the union will reiterate its total opposition to offshoring, which is used by multinational finance firms to drive down the wages, terms and conditions of the workforce.

Pending the results of the consultation, the company anticipate that offshoring could begin as early as October 2016.

The job cuts in Reading are the latest wave of insurance sector job losses to impact areas surrounding London. In Surrey both Legal & General and Diligenta have announced plans to either close operations or cut jobs, as companies chase short-term savings by transferring work away from the London commuter belt.

Dominic Hook, Unite National Officer for Finance, said:

“Prudential knows full well that offshoring is a toxic issue. That’s why transferring a handful of public-facing jobs to Scotland will be used as a smoke screen to hide the fact that the majority of this highly technical and skilled work will go offshore.

Behind the buzzwords used to justify the decision is the fact that Prudential want to pay someone in Mumbai far less to do the same work. Offshoring is cynical, exploitative and ultimately it will be the firm’s customers who will pay the price.

“Unite will stand with our members in Reading and as we prepare to enter consultation we warn Prudential that nothing is off then table when it comes to defending our members.”

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BSL Training

Friday, May 20th, 2016

As part of our Learning Agenda members told us they would be interested in a British Sign Language course.

We have therefore organised a taster course, which runs  over a 3 week period for 1 hour a week in 121 Kings Road.

We have 15 places available for Prudential Section members and we have had a good response when we asked Reading members to register.

The course is free of charge and will take place in June and if successful we will organise further sessions including one in London.

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PGDS Redundancy Terms Agreed

Wednesday, May 11th, 2016

This week we are holding PGDS members meetings across all sites, the first of which was held in WHS on Monday. The meeting was well attended and many issues were raised, with very strong feeling expressed on rumoured changes to redundancy terms concluded from the last Q&As. We felt the mood on this was so strong that we fed this back to HR immediately on Monday afternoon.

Following discussions we are delighted to advise that the company has now confirmed that they will use the same redundancy terms that PGDS have used in previous years which do not have a cap.

Please continue to feed issues back to us individually and in particular within these meetings, where they can be discussed with you all. We are committed to getting your voice heard and acted upon, representing your views to the company and challenging the company where necessary.

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Senior Rep Blog – April

Monday, May 9th, 2016

The April blog from the Senior Rep is now available by clicking the link below.

If you have any comment on the contents please do let us know

April Blog

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