Staff at UK life insurer Prudential, who are based in Reading, have voted to take industrial action following the announcement the company will be offshoring skilled jobs to India.
The Unite members based voted 97 per cent in favour of industrial action over plans to offshore 81 jobs dealing with annuities to the city of Mumbai.
Most of these jobs are full time and according to Unite it “strongly deplores” the loss of these jobs.
As such, the trade union has presented the company with an alternative business plan to make cost savings in this area.
The Prudential plan to offshore work, called Project Jupiter, is the moving of individual annuities servicing and bereavement work from Reading to Mumbai.
Prudential has about 1.4m annuities customers that would require these services at some point during the life cycle of such products.
However, Prudential employees have voted “not to co-operate or undertake any work related to Project Jupiter” and according to Unite, this will severely delay the transfer of work to India.
According to Prudential £2m will be saved by Project Jupiter. However Unite’s business plan contrasts this figure against the four highly paid senior appointments recently made by Prudential UK and Europe chief executive in its alternative business plan.
Unite regional officer Ian Methven said: “Unite members have been left with no choice but to take action in order to protect their jobs. The union has challenged the alleged cost savings and the assumptions that are behind the transfer of 81 jobs to India.
“These proposals make no business sense at all. The cost savings are questionable and the risk to customer relations is great. There are alternative ways of saving money in this area and we urge Prudential to think again about the offshoring of this skilled work.
“We urge the company to withdraw its proposals and sit down with Unite on how we can use the existing skills to improve the service currently provided to Prudential customers.”
A Prudential spokesperson said: “We are aware of the outcome of the ballot, voted in by 36 Unite members, and continue to hold discussions with the union order to avert the proposed action.
“We have already secured alternative roles for 20 people out of the initial 80 impacted, and expect further opportunities to emerge over the next eight months. We have contingency plans in place to ensure that there is no impact to the service we provide to our customers.
“It would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage.”
Robert Forbes, a chartered financial planner with London-based Stadden Forbes Wealth Management, said: “I would think that the overall cost savings is trivial compared to the loss of experience and it is inevitable that service standards will plummet before the new staff are up to speed.
“Clearly where the staff are is irrelevant, but the loss of experience and the reputational damage must be less than the purported savings.”
ruth.gillbe@ft.com
