Prudential staff have commenced industrial action in protest against a plan to move 76 annuities-related jobs from Reading to Mumbai, India - known as “Project Jupiter”.
Staff in Prudential’s annuities department stated that they would not “co-operate or undertake any work related to Project Jupiter”, following a 97 per cent vote in favour of industrial action.
The industrial action commenced this morning (31 August).
Ian Methven, regional officer for the union that organised the action, Unite, said the decision demonstrated the “anger” felt over Prudential’s decision to send 76 jobs offshore.
“Unite has repeatedly challenged the business case for this offshoring as there will not be any benefit to customers and the cost savings are also questionable,” he said.
“The union is urging Prudential to halt the offshoring of this skilled work and bring this dispute to an end.”
According to Prudential, under the proposal the roles in question are not customer facing, as all customer contact roles are UK based with calls and enquiries handled in the UK.
It added the office in Mumbai is a fully integrated part of its UK business, and as such the roles are not being outsourced.
Mr Methven said the union had presented a counter proposal asking the company to stop the offshoring and to “engage constructively” with Unite and its members on “how the Reading employees can deliver efficiencies, while retaining the knowledge and experience”.
As part of their refusal to facilitate the transfer, Prudential staff said they would not be checking, shadowing training, or auditing Mumbai auditors.
They will also refuse to answer emails, telephone queries, or instant messaging questions, or facilitate technical referrals from Mumbai, create or amend checklists, amend template letters, audit processors, or coach.
Staff initially voted to take strike action last Tuesday (23 August).
Unite said Prudential had approximately 1.4m annuities customers that would require the services provided by the these 76 people at some point in the life cycle of their products.
The roles cover overseas payments, overpayments, bereavements, enquiries, tax, power of attorney, bankruptcy, joint life annuities and guarantee annuities.
“This work has just started on migrating overseas payments with the last work type guarantee due to be completed by March 2017,” the statement read.
A Prudential spokesperson said: “We expect to operate as normal without disruption to our service during this localised activity and have contingency plans in place to support the many colleagues from this department who are not taking part in this action, for which 36 people were balloted.
“Talks with the union are ongoing and it is our aim is to find alternative roles within the company for as many people as possible.
“Upwards of 30 such alternative roles have been secured to date, from the initial 80 positions at risk, and we expect further opportunities to emerge over the next eight months.”
james.fernyhough@ft.com
